Earlier this week, the chief lobbyist for the international education industry, Phil Honeywood, called on the federal government to run charter flights and separate quarantine facilities to bring international students into the country:
“There’s no reason why we can’t have charter flights bringing the students in, walking them across the tarmac into separate quarantine facilities that will not be competing with the hotel quarantine for Australian returnees”.
Thankfully, this plea was today rejected outright by Prime Minister Scott Morrison:
“It would be good if we could get to that point, but at this stage we’re not at that point”…
“The opening of the international borders, we don’t think is wise at this time.”
As always, the edu-migration industry is displaying moral hazard behaviour. They want to privatise the financial benefits from having international students’ return, while the costs and risks are borne by taxpayers and the broader community. It’s classic heads I win, tails you lose behaviour.
No international students should arrive in Australia until all citizens and permanent residents stranded abroad have returned home.
Once that is achieved, foreign nations like international students should be allowed to return in a managed way via hotel quarantine at their own expense (not taxpayers).
If Australians can be charged between $2500 to $3000 for their hotel quarantine, then so should international students.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
- Collapsing immigration slashes youth unemployment - April 16, 2021
- Politicians abandon Aussies, roll out welcome mat to foreigners - April 16, 2021
- CoreLogic weekly house price update: still booming - April 16, 2021
YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN
Universities' latest international students plan threatens Australia
The Victorian Government's revised hotel
International student numbers to halve, and that's a good thing
The Mitchell Institute for Education and Health
It's official: International students won't return this year
Education Minister Alan Tudge has told The
Universities post healthy surpluses amid international student "collapse"
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic,
Thank you Mr Morrison. Always nice to have a good news story occasionally.
Good.
With an election looming, he clearly doesn’t want to risk it.
Post election, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him relent.
100% this. The ‘small issue’ of the rape epidemic is delaying the much sought after ‘early election’, which also delays the return of policies that are popular with the LNP and their backers but not so much with the vast bulk of the population.
Long may the election be delayed
“moral hazard”
Is that a euphemism for “wicked greed”?
Meanwhile my daughter continues to pay full fees for crappy online classes, a measure which has ceased to have anything to do with COVID safety
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/uni-leaders-have-abandoned-our-domestic-students/news-story/4765796af90143888850105c27c7cfc0
It’s more “If I screw up, there are little consequences for me and others bear the burden of my mistakes – therefore it makes sense for me to take stupid risks for personal gain”.
In more technical terms:
Moral hazard is a situation in which one party engages in risky behavior or fails to act in good faith because it knows the other party bears the economic consequences of their behavior. … Any time an individual does not have to suffer the full economic consequences of a risk, moral hazard can occur.
However your “wicked greed” point is still a driver here.
Yeah, that’s crazy! They really have abandoned native students.
Nice bit of news for a Friday arvo. My beer will be a bit more pleasant than usual.
Good stuff. Scummo has so far refused to take responsibility for quarantine. If he allowed this he knows how easy it is for the bat flu to escape and he don’t want his name against it. Rest assured this decision is in his own interests only. But I’ll take it.
If he promises to keep the borders shut for his next term, I’d vote for him!
Add his mouth to that and he’s a shoo-in.