32Offence

32 Offence

(1) A person commits an offence if: (a) either: (i) the person is a registered provider; or (ii) if the registered provider is an unincorporated body—the person is the principal executive officer of the provider; and (b) the person engages in conduct; and (c) the conduct contravenes a requirement of section 28 or 29; and (d) the provider is not covered by section 31.

Penalty: 60 penalty units.

(2) To avoid doubt, subsection (1) does not apply if a person contravenes a requirement of regulations made under section 30. (3) Subsection (1) is an offence of strict liability.

Note: For strict liability, see section 6.1 of the Criminal Code.

Division 2—Consequential amendment

Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000

6 Section 15A (after the paragraph relating to Division 1)

Insert:

• Division 2 sets out requirements for providers who receive tuition fees from a student before the student has begun to study with the provider. The provider must keep those fees in a separate account and generally cannot access the fees until the student begins the first study period with the provider.

Part 2—Application provision

7 Application

The amendments made by this Schedule apply in relation to any tuition fees for a course that are received, after Division 1 of Part 1 of this Schedule commences, by a registered provider, in respect of an overseas student or intending overseas student, before the student has begun the course.

Schedule 4—Tuition fees

Part 1—Amendments

Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000

1 Section 5 (definition of course money)

Repeal the definition.

2 Section 5 (subparagraph (b)(ii) of the definition of monitoring purpose)

Omit “course money”, substitute “pre‑paid fees”.

3 Section 5

Insert:

tuition fees has the meaning given by section 7.

4 Section 7

Repeal the section, substitute: