Earlier this week, Australia’s education minister Jason Clare made it clear that Ministerial Direction 107 (MD107) is here to stay if the ESOS Amendment Bill does not pass.

The Bill, which sets out to cap international enrolments, is to be voted on in Senate any day now, but a surprise announcement from the Coalition stating it will not support the legislation has dashed the Albanese Labor government’s hopes of its passage, which many had previously seen as nearly guaranteed before the year’s end.

Despite the sector-wide anguish caused by the ESOS Amendment Bill – from its problematic methodology of allocating indicative international enrolment caps, to what it may mean for the role of an agent – many had begun to accept the Bill’s sweeping changes, and were relieved at the prospect of MD107 being lifted.

MD107, introduced in December 2023, prioritises processing student and student guardian visa caseloads based on the assumed risk level of education providers and the student’s country of citizenship. All visas continue to be processed but “low risk” applications are fast-tracked, which has led to an outcry among many in the sector about first-class, second-class and even third-class assumptions.

“Not everyone is happy with [the ESOS Amendment Bill] but it is a heck of a lot better than MD107,” Clare told delegates at the 2024 AIEC conference in Melbourne.

Clare had promised the lifting of the visa processing directive with the implementation of the Bill, and Home Affairs officials had been working behind the scenes on new processes, with a January 1 implementation date in sight.

Charles Sturt University vice-chancellor, Renée Leon, said the government’s decision to keep MD107 is “disastrous” for regional universities and communities.

“As a policy, MD107 has failed, with international student commencements at large metropolitan universities growing significantly while those at members of the Regional Universities Network have fallen almost 40%.”

This is having a “catastrophic” effect on Charles Sturt University, said Leon, citing an estimated AUD$40 million negative impact on revenue so far for the university.

“More than half of the visa applications for our metro-based international students were delayed beyond the start of semester or refused,” she said.

The Innovative Research Universities (IRU) and the Regional Universities Network (RUN) have joined together to call for strong political leadership to rectify the damage done by the visa processing directive. Together, they are calling on the government to immediately revoke MD107 and to put in place new processing for student visas, if the Bill does not pass.

“MD107 undermines equity, undermines diversification and undermines the ability of our universities to invest in new models of international education”, said IRU executive director Paul Harris.

RUN chief executive officer Alec Webb said that while both networks recognise the role of government in managing international education as part of the overall migration program, there must be a better approach than the current system.

“Regional and outer metropolitan universities do the heavy lifting when it comes to opening up access to higher education and educating students from equity cohorts, and yet it is our students and universities that have been the worst hit by MD107,” said Webb.

While commencements across the higher education as a whole are up for 2024, the organisations noted, this has not been shared equally among universities, with new commencements at the IRU and RUN down by a quarter and a third respectively from 2023 to 2024.

IRU and RUN are collectively calling on the minister and the government to work constructively with the sector to immediately implement a more balanced and improved approach to visa processing, which they say should be based on the principles of transparency, repeatability, and institutional equality.

“In formulating and implementing a better solution, we believe that the government should recognise the damaging impacts of recent government policy and ensure that institutions most impacted by MD107 are granted visa processing priority,” they said.

Universities Australia chief executive officer Luke Sheehy commented: “Australia’s universities are again being used as a political football in the migration debate.”

“It beggars belief that one of our country’s biggest export industries is being treated this badly. MD107 has already stripped an estimated AUD$4bn from the economy and our universities and is putting thousands of jobs at risk right across the economy,” he added.