Andrew Leigh

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

Education Committee Report

Parliament House, Canberra

Thursday, 13 August 2026

I have to say what a pleasure it is to be speaking in this debate after the Member for Banks, Zhi Soon and just before the Members for Reid, Sally Sitou, and Menzies, Gabriel Ng. The Labor caucus has become a better caucus in the 16 years that I've served in it. One of the ways it's become better has not only been your entry into the caucus, Deputy Speaker, but also the greater diversity that we now have in our caucus - a caucus which now looks more like the community that it serves.

When I was five, I briefly attended a primary school in Banda Aceh in the north of Sumatra. Our lessons were conducted in Indonesian, and much of the school day consisted of learning nation-building songs, because the national government wanted to ensure that all Acehnese thought of themselves as Indonesian first and Acehnese second. We played in the muddy playground, and my mother recalls at the time that the sole white child in the class was also the only child whose white shirt came home brown at the end of every day.

My father, Michael Leigh AM, was working at Syiah Kuala University helping strengthen social science research across Indonesian universities and Islamic institutes. My mother was beginning her research on Acehnese crafts, which she turned into a book, Tangan-Tangan Trampil: Seni Kerajinan Aceh = Hands of Time: The Crafts of Aceh, and then on Indonesian education, including the Pancasila principles, which became her doctoral thesis. We lived in Aceh for two years and in Jakarta for a year, and that helped shape how I see our region and the value of Australia engaging with the world.

Australia is at its best when we see multiculturalism as a strength and international engagement as a quality. We benefit from those person-to-person links, which allow Australians to be more secure, to be more economically prosperous and to enjoy so much of what the region has to offer through our outbound tourism and the benefits that inbound tourism brings to Australia in jobs and prosperity.

We have continued to engage with the region through the Jakarta treaty signed this year - the Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security - and through the third Australia-India annual summit held in Melbourne last month, during which Prime Minister Modi visited Australia and agreed to expand the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and pursue fresh areas of economic cooperation. Australia has supported Timor-Leste's accession as ASEAN's 11th member and stabilised the relationship with China while protecting Australian interests and without compromising what matters to Australians.

Our foreign policy is also strengthened through our strong engagement with First Nations Australians. A point that I remember former Foreign Minister Bob Carr making to me is that, when you engage in international meetings, your domestic policies and particularly your policies as they relate to First Nations people are taken into account in how other nations engage. Asia accounts for some 60 per cent of our two-way trade, and we benefit from Asia being such a fast-growing region and from our engagement in the region.

It's in that context that the government commissioned the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education to complete a report titled Security and prosperity in Asia: building Asia capability in Australia through the education system and beyond. I commend the member for Gellibrand, Tim Watts, for his leadership on this report. It received some 195 submissions and held 11 public hearings. It defines Asia capability broadly, including language proficiency and cultural literacy, country knowledge and regional experience. Its main argument is that Asia capability is a sovereign capability, one that Australia can exercise in its own right.

There are some really troubling statistics in the report. Domestic university enrolments in South-East Asian languages fell 75 per cent between 2005 and 2024. Of Australia's one million domestic university students, just 500 are studying Indonesian. At the year 12 level, enrolments in Indonesian fell from 1,161 in 2010 to 486 in 2024. I confess that my own Bahasa has faded over the years, though I do sometimes like to remind my children that, while English just has the word 'hot', Indonesian has 'panas' meaning hot in temperature and 'pedas' meaning spicy. That can help us at dinner. It doesn't help that my Indonesian proficiency is sadly unequal to that of the 500 Australians who are studying at Australian universities.

We have the example of great scholars such as Herb Feith and Jamie Mackie, whose work built stronger ties, but we need more of that kind of Indonesian engagement. The problem comes too in China expertise. In the five years to 2021, only 17 students completed honours in Chinese studies with language, and, among more than 2,300 postgraduate coursework programs offered by Australian universities, only 21 include an Asia focused specialisation. Hindi is taught at only two Australian universities despite the fact that Australia's Indian diaspora is around a million people, including a terrific community in my electorate of Fenner.

The report recommends stronger pathways through schools and university language hubs supported by better national data. It understands that, while AI translation is getting better, it doesn't bring the cultural literacy that bilingualism does. It acknowledges how important it is to have school exchange or university placements. A homestay can create those relationships and memories that can sustain years of study. The report also recognised the way in which Australian institutions can sometimes overlook expertise that is already inside their workplace. Employees notice who gets promoted based on their language skills or their regional networks that sit outside their formal job descriptions.

The report also notes that, while Asian-language learning is declining at the school and university levels, we have a great strength in our community language schools. In 2023, 631 community language schools taught more than a hundred languages to over a hundred thousand students. I see in my own electorate the terrific work of community language schools being done. But that is not translated into formal skills recognition or into community teachers having workable pathways into qualified classroom teaching.

We need to see more Australian business leaders championing Australian capability in position descriptions. We need to see more board members asking whether regional strategy draws on people with genuine country knowledge. We need to have universities and employers maintaining a closer conversation about demand which allows students to see clear pathways into great jobs as a result of studying Indonesian or Hindi. We need to support more Asian Australian staff into senior roles through peak bodies such that exist in the legal services sector. Organisations such as Asialink, with whom I spoke last Friday, are doing a power of good in building these skills across the region.

When I sat in that Banda Aceh classroom, my understanding of Indonesian came through songs and stories. Today, we need that expertise built through skills and business ties, and this terrific report is a great place to start.