Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I had the pleasure of meeting with principal Mark Hands last week and one of their students, and I listened to some of the terrific achievements of that college in working in the vocational educational system. The greatest value is that they have developed a curriculum that allows their students to gain the Queensland Certificate of Education; not only that, those students spend their two senior years also working in industry. The value of that to those students is that 93 per cent of students that graduate from that college have a job when they leave school. That innovation was put in place by the Howard government, and those opposite dismantled it.

In my electorate, where the youth unemployment rate is 17 per cent, vocational education and training is extraordinarily important. Part of the reason for my meeting last week with Principal Mark Hands was to look at developing a campus in Beenleigh to service the Yatala industrial area and other industrial areas in my electorate. So, on this side of the House, we fully support and acknowledge the importance of the vocational education sector, and we have some great service providers in all of our electorates, I am sure, and those include TAFE. The Meadowbrook campus of the Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE do a fantastic job not only in the trades and skills sector but in a number of other areas, particularly with our large migrant community.

As I have touched on, it was the previous Labor government that axed the credit transfer arrangements between VET FEE-HELP funded qualifications and university qualifications in 2012. Since then, VET FEE-HELP has undergone unanticipated growth. Between 2012 and 2014, approved education providers grew from some 119 to 254 and nominal loans debt more than quadrupled. Much of this growth was because of the unscrupulous behaviour of a minority of providers and agents, who have aggressively marketed the scheme, targeting vulnerable people who are left with significant debt but no benefit from training. I think we would all recognise that that is unconscionable. The people that are going to these organisations are looking for this training to help restore some self-confidence and pride and gain some new skills and new abilities to improve their opportunities in the workplace.

Those opposite failed our Australian students. As I said earlier, the system put in place by Labor failed to enact the necessary safeguards to protect students and taxpayers from these rorts, and out of control expansion precipitated unprecedented examples of unethical student recruitment practices, with promises of free laptops or iPads hiding astronomical fees, as dodgy operators jumped into new and easy-to-access government supplied pools of money. Labor not only failed Australian students but also failed the hardworking taxpayers whose money they treated with disregard. Those opposite had the chance to rectify these wrongs in 2013, when the first complaints were made to the National Training Regulator and the Australian Skills Quality Authority. Labor ignored these complaints. Yet, in a revelation some two years later, the shadow minister for higher education, Senator Kim Carr, finally acknowledged the need for stronger measures, outlining 'fundamental weaknesses that needed to be fixed'. I think this is a symptom of those opposite: they ignore the problem for years and years and then finally they have this hallelujah moment when they discover there is a problem and expect us to fix it in 60 seconds. I can assure those opposite that we have a diligent and prudent process. There have been many problems from those opposite that we have had to fix in the past two-and-a-bit years in government. We will fix this, and it will be for the better for the sector and, most importantly, for those people looking to study through the VET system in Australia.

I commend the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Simon Birmingham, for announcing earlier this year that a series of measures would be introduced to crack down on the unscrupulous behaviour which has left some students with a mountain of debt and no qualifications to show for it. The member for Kingston's comments earlier that the government have been sitting on their hands, doing nothing, is plainly incorrect, because we have been working on this since earlier in the year.

These important measures seek to stamp out those rorting the system and restore integrity into the higher education sector. These measures have been progressively introduced since April 2015 and are already making a positive impact. This bill provides the additional laws necessary to implement significant measures from 1 January 2016. The Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Reform) Bill 2015 seeks to prevent inappropriate enrolments and debts by implementing a number of measures, including the introduction of a two-day cooling-off period between enrolment and application for a VET FEE-HELP loan; the introduction of minimum pre-requisites to ensure students can complete the higher level VET courses for which VET FEE-HELP is available; and the requirement of a parent's or guardian's signature before a student under 18 years can request a VET FEE-HELP loan.

This bill also aims to further protect students and taxpayers by including a number of measures, such as making it easier for a student to have their debt cancelled where they have been signed up for a loan inappropriately—a cost that will be recouped from providers to protect taxpayers; introducing minimum registration and trading history requirements for new VET FEE-HELP provider applicants to ensure a proven history of delivering quality training; introducing infringement notices for breaches of the VET FEE-HELP guidelines; and making technical amendments to strengthen the department's administration of the scheme and its partnerships with ASQA to monitor and enforce compliance. Where Labor have failed to protect students and taxpayers, these measures are being introduced by the coalition government to rectify those weaknesses.

In addition to these reforms, the government's changes to VET FEE-HELP will include a number of measures to prevent students from being caught up in dodgy courses and high student debt. These changes include banning inducements for enrolment; banning withdrawal fees and other barriers if students change their mind about an enrolment; and banning inappropriate marketing, including marketing that describes a VET FEE-HELP funded course as 'free'. Education providers will also be responsible for the actions of their agents under these new changes, and providers will be banned from levying the full debt load up-front, regardless of a student's progress through the course. This will be achieved by requiring training providers to have multiple census dates and proportionate levying of fees across each course. The new measures that are being implemented by the coalition government will protect students from dodgy education and training providers and inappropriate incentives and marketing and will also protect the hard-earned tax dollars of Australians.

I commend the Minister for Education and Training and the new Minister for Vocational Education and Skills for consulting widely on the implementation of these reforms to ensure we get it right. The government has consulted with various stakeholders through a number of forums and has also appointed a VET FEE-HELP Reform Working Group—with representatives of training providers, students, employers and consumer law advocates and regulators—to advise on the implementation of the reforms, including the measures in this bill.

It is this government, on this side of the House, which is seeking to rectify the inadequacies of the previous Labor government that have led to the issues we are now facing in the VET FEE-HELP sector. For a community like mine, which has a large number of people of low socioeconomic status who are looking to improve their skills and their abilities so that they can get a job and work to contribute to their families and develop self-esteem and personal responsibility, these changes will go a long way to helping some of those who, over the past few years, have no doubt been victims of some of these rorts and rip-offs by unscrupulous VET FEE-HELP providers. I commend the bill to the House.

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