Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses who attend this day.
Mr. McAlpine, I'm interested. I was an international student. I went to Portland, Oregon, and did a science degree and I went to Australia and did a law degree as well as an MBA. I have to tell you what attracted me to Australia was the sun, not necessarily the great education. However, I didn't get to see much of it; I did spend a lot of time indoors in classrooms.
I'm curious. I know Australia has a huge program for international students. In fact, Bond University, where I attended at the time, back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, was 40% international students. On the makeup of that, about 35% to 36%, I would say, were probably students from Asia, because of course they're natural trading partners in Asia. There were a lot of Indians as well, because of the trade and also because of the proximity. They have three billion people on their doorstep who they do business with.
For a single answer, don't you see that as more of a natural reason why Australia, with the same per capita, in essence, for land mass, has a lot more foreign students?