Media Release from Shadow Minister for Education Jo Hersey:
The CLP has firmly rejected a Labor proposal to implement "soft caps" or “cuts” on international student numbers at universities and colleges, as it could severely impact the Territory.
The Labor students cuts due to a national housing crisis of their own making, could lead to job losses, reputational damage, and a decrease in international student enrolment throughout the Northern Territory.
International students represent an important part of our economy that we cannot afford to be damaged by Labor’s disgraceful actions.
Unlike Labor, the CLP has a plan, to repurpose CBD buildings for student accommodation, and guidelines for the repurposing of vacant commercial to residential property.
Yet Darwin’s CBD has high commercial vacancy rates sitting at 14.4% or 49,129 sqm ready to be refreshed.
With the Federal and Territory Budgets being announced this week, what we see is blind underhanded tactics by Lawler and Albanese trying to sneak through a damaging proposal that will have terrible consequences for the Northern Territory, and at a time when the new CDU city campus is now coming online.
If Labor had done the work to make sure we had the accommodation ready we could take more students now, that is why we have a plan to repurpose CBD buildings.
This is another Labor failure, to make sure we had student accommodation ready because if we did, we could ensure there would be no need to cut Territory international student numbers.
