The City of Sydney council passed a motion on April 8th in support of the campaign to get international and part time students concession opal cards as pressure mounts on the NSW government from student organisations, universities, and MPs to legislate the policy in the upcoming budget.
The most recent push started with an SRC and SUPRA e-petition late last year which reached the needed 20,000 signatures in March to be tabled for parliamentary debate. The debate is scheduled for May 9th at 4pm.
NSW is currently the only state in Australia to not offer travel concessions to part time and international students. In sharp contrast to Victoria and Queensland, where there has been a bipartisan push to give all students heavy discounts on public transport in the last decade, NSW has only trailed the policy between 2012 and 2016.
The campaign to achieve concessions began in 2002 when a SUPRA report into the issue led to a complaint with the Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW against the Transport Ministry of NSW, alleging that the policy was discriminatory.
Councillor and Deputy Chair of the Transport, Heritage, and Planning Committee HY William Chan raised and presided over the motion. During his remarks, he expressed support for the work of student organisations like SUPRA for their work on the e-petition. The Lord Mayor Clover Moore was also present and expressed her support for the changes.
The motion noted that Opal fares increased by an average of 3.7% in October 2023 and that most of the students who do study part time are “women, carers, and people with disabilities.”
Beyond the council endorsing the policy, the motion also called on Moore to write to Transport Minister Jo Haylen “requesting that the necessary regulatory changes are made” so international and part time students “are eligible for public transport concessions in line with other Australian states and territories.”
Councillor Chan told Honi “We will continue to champion the rights of university students in Sydney until the necessary regulatory changes are made.”
Moore wrote to Haylen for the first time last year in July expressing support for the policy and asking the department to investigate all incentive options but was told Transport NSW was not considering the change.
In a letter to Moore, Haylen said that international students had to demonstrate they had the sufficient funds to cover living expenses before being granted their visa.
“These living expenses include covering transport needs,” the letter said.
The minister has not released a public response to the petition and Honi understands they have not communicated the government’s support privately to student organisations or universities.
The NSW Vice Chancellor Committee, which includes University of Sydney Vice Chancellor Mark Scott, also sent a letter to the minister on March 18th urging the government “address the longstanding issues of travel concessions for international and part time students in NSW.” by considering the petition.
Honi understands that the NTEU has also been asked to pass a similar motion of support and write to the government.
SUPRA president Weihong Liang met with Newtown MP Jenny Leong on April 6th to plan for the parliamentary debate in May. Liang told Honi that he and Leong “will work intensively over the next three weeks to try to attract more MPs’ attention.”
Student organizations have also met with Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich and he also expressed support for the petition.
SUPRA is calling on current and former students to attend the parliamentary gallery and there are plans to hold a press conference before the debate.
