Senator Bell asked the Minister for Employment, Education and Training, upon notice, on 23 February 1994:

  (1) When was the China Task Force (CTF) established.

  (2) What was its purpose and terms of reference.

  (3) What staff and financial resources have been employed by the task force each financial year since its establishment.

Senator Schacht —The Minister for Employment, Education and Training has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

  (1) The China Task Force (CTF) was established in June 1990.

  (2) The purpose of the task force was:

  to ensure the provision of refunds to overseas students who had not obtained a visa but who had already paid an educational institution in Australia for a course of tuition and living expenses through the provision of:

    temporary financial assistance, in the form of loans, to institutions to assist them in meeting their refund commitments; or

    refunds directly to the overseas students by the Commonwealth in return for the students assigning their rights to recover the money from the institutions to the Commonwealth; and

  to recover from institutions debt owed to the Commonwealth flowing from the above action.

  (3) Actual expenditure to 31 January 1994 by the CTF on staffing and financial resources has been as follows:

1990-91 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94 TOTAL

Staffing Resources:

Staffing Costs $302,419 $794,389 $336,145 $137,811 $1,570,764

Financial Resources:

Running Costs $49,717 $77,073 $75,701 $72,727 $275,218

Legal Costs $83,477 $322,056 $1,072,666 $1,022,559 $2,500,758

Program Costs $26,093,136 $40,156,916 $1,948,949 $1,316,463 $69,515,464

Total Resources $26,528,749 $41,350,434 $3,433,461 $2,549,560 $73,862,204