{"id":842028,"date":"2026-08-03T14:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842028\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T14:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:55:09","slug":"leaders-call-for-coordinated-action-as-australias-social-licence-shows-cracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842028\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders call for coordinated action as Australia\u2019s social licence shows cracks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Policy commentator Abul Rizvi had some strong words for Australia\u2019s international education sector at The PIE Live Asia Pacific<\/a>. Reflecting on the current political debate, he argued that the\u00a0industry has already lost much of its social licence\u00a0and is failing to respond with the seriousness the moment demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would appear the social license has been lost when the major polling political party is prepared to come out and say it will kill the industry<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u201cThe industry has lost a great deal of social license\u2026 What amazes me is that the industry seems completely incapable of putting its mind to doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Rizvi \u2013 who is a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration \u2013\u00a0simply railing against government decisions is not a strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the industry has to do is come up with its own proposal, its own package of measures that demonstrably deliver on the government\u2019s objective to get net migration down to 225,000, and demonstrate the value of the industry to our long-term future. That is eminently doable.\u201d <\/p>\n

Similarly, International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) CEO Phil Honeywood told the Gold Coast audience: \u201cIt\u2019s high time the sector came together for a real social licence campaign,\u201d arguing that international education has been too quiet about its economic, skills and soft\u2011power benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve let ourselves down as a sector because we haven\u2019t been prepared to stand up and shout all the benefits we bring to our country,\u201d he warned<\/a>, adding that failing to do so leaves the field open to those who only ever talk about risks, not benefits.<\/p>\n

What followed, in a later panel on social licence, was a wide\u2011ranging discussion that unpacked just how\u00a0fragile\u00a0that licence has become \u2013 and what it might take to rebuild trust: moving beyond dollar\u2011heavy narratives, foregrounding student stories, and re\u2011anchoring international education in communities, legitimacy and trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at social licence through two lenses. One is the lens of the student \u2013\u00a0am I wanted?\u00a0And the second one is the community lens \u2013\u00a0do we want international students in Australia?,\u201d explained Andrew Parker,\u00a0partner, strategic accounts & partnerships at Voyage.<\/p>\n

Voyage, a social listening platform focused solely on international education, is piloting what Parker describes as the first Australian model to\u00a0measure social licence and establish a baseline, in partnership with Study New South Wales.<\/p>\n

Using API feeds from major global social platforms, plus media and podcasts, the team is tracking unprompted conversations across 190+ countries.<\/p>\n

Specifically on social licence, Australia is, as Parker put it, \u201cleast worst \u2013 the best house in a bad street\u201d when you compare sentiment with the UK and Canada. \u201cIt is an asset for us to protect,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n

Quarter one showed a small improvement over Q4 2025, with Q2 expected to tick up slightly again. But, Parker warned, any sense of progress is fragile.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial license, by its very definition, is highly event driven\u2026 a racist incident, somebody making a comment on a train to a foreign student, or a government policy announcement is a trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1 July visa fee hike<\/a> provided a live case study.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw a\u00a0100% increase in social media mentions\u00a0and a\u00a0190% increase in news coverage\u00a0in the first two weeks of July compared to March. The sentiment was overwhelmingly negative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crucially, the anger wasn\u2019t just directed at Canberra, but also directed at students and the universities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing here is policy spilling out into community narratives, and it carries really significant reputational risk for Australia,\u201d said Parker.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoices that started to appear in what were typically\u00a0student-only subreddits were domestic voices, and those voices were overwhelmingly negative\u2026 When those hostile voices start to infiltrate student spaces, that is a leading indicator of increasing reputation risk for Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharing the stage with Parker, Eve Ollerenshaw, principal consultant at Ollerenshaw Consulting, explained: \u201cFor me, social license is about three things:\u00a0legitimacy, credibility, and trust. You can\u2019t have one without the other\u2026 but the outcome of getting it right is something really powerful for both the consumer as well as the institution as well as communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of really loud voices out there that are really very, very conservative and that is\u00a0manipulating markets\u00a0that have never been manipulated before for purposes that are quite ulterior to education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loudest voice isn\u2019t always the one we need to hear\u2026 There\u2019s an extreme right wing component in social media these days that does incredibly well out of selling fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loudest voice isn\u2019t always the one we need to hear\u2026 There\u2019s an extreme right wing component in social media these days that does incredibly well out of selling fear.
Eve Ollerenshaw<\/p>\n

\u201cDo our community have the effective skills to filter what we need to hear, what we should hear versus what we are hearing? It is a very, very weird time,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Emily O\u2019Callaghan, CEO of\u00a0miXabroad, argued that providers are still leaning too heavily on economic messaging \u2013 language that simply doesn\u2019t resonate with the communities whose support they need.<\/p>\n

Referring to post-Covid research she helped steer, O\u2019Callaghan noted: \u201cFraming international students as\u00a0economically valuable\u00a0or as\u00a0talent\u00a0didn\u2019t resonate\u2026 as much as the students actually\u00a0telling their stories themselves, connecting with peers and having that shared experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

For\u00a0Linda Rust, manager, global Learning at\u00a0the University of Melbourne, social licence is lived locally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen students come into Australia, they\u2019re really wanting to make that connection locally\u2026 with other students, but also with the local community, and really kind of build a place for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Universities, she argued, have a specific responsibility: \u201cIt\u2019s difficult for students coming here with no networks\u2026 universities have such a\u00a0big role to play in facilitating this\u00a0because they\u2019re the ones with the connections into community that can assist.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rust highlighted one student-led initiative,\u00a0Being a Melbournian, where international students and older local residents built relationships through a structured semester-long program.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth groups experience loneliness\u2026 and their experiences coming together and sharing their cultures really made an impact on everyone in that program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Annette Kalczynska, President of\u00a0ISANA: International Education Association, stressed that practitioners are already working at the frontline \u2013 but often against structural constraints.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur members are seeing students on an everyday basis\u2026 they are hearing a lot of good things about being in Australia, but also they are facing roadblocks\u2026 classes are separated\u2026 there is no interaction between domestic and international students.\u201d<\/p>\n

ISANA members, she said, are continually trying to create connection and agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to connect them with\u00a0volunteering opportunities, making them\u00a0mentors\u2026 providing\u00a0leadership opportunities, connecting them with\u00a0short-term and long-term employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she was blunt about resourcing gaps. \u201cIf [a counsellor] was able to see all the students who needed help, they would have to work\u00a024 hours a day\u2026 Universities should play more of a role as\u00a0community connectors\u2026 if they\u2019re going to rethink their strategy and how they react to particular student experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Policy commentator Abul Rizvi had some strong words for Australia\u2019s international education sector at The PIE Live Asia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-842028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}