Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to sum up the debate on the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014. I would like to thank all of my colleagues, particularly on this side of the House, who have given passionate and informed speeches about this reform bill over the course of the last week and a half of sittings. I thank those members of the opposition who have also participated, although I would not say their speeches were nearly as well informed as the ones from the side of the House, because they are not supporting the higher education reform bill. They are putting their head deeply in the sand and refusing to acknowledge the need for reform in higher education. It has been a very long debate. Most members of the government have participated in it. I thank my colleagues for doing this process a second time, for the second reform bill. It is because the government believes so fervently in these reforms that it has brought the bill back.

The reform bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and the Australian Research Council Act 2001 to implement a fair, balanced and essential set of reforms to Australia's higher education and research system. The reform bill represents the boldest ambitions for Australian higher education in generations. It aims to make it possible for Australia to develop the best higher education system in the world. Above all, this will enable our students to get an education of the quality they need and deserve in this world of intensifying international competition. It will do so while making Australian higher education more equitable, affordable and accessible than ever before. This is the right package at the right time for Australian universities and colleges. More importantly, it is the best package for students. It has been designed thoughtfully and deliberately following careful review, consideration and consultation. All the higher education peak bodies around Australia support the core elements of these reforms. They know how necessary these reforms are. It is something of an achievement that we have been able to unite the entire higher education sector around these reforms.

This bill maintains the thrust of the reforms announced as part of the 2014-15 budget, paving the way for the highest quality education, a more level playing field for students and greater autonomy for universities. Firstly, the government is ensuring that students have vastly expanded choices in what they study and where they study it. For the first time ever, every Australian students studying at a registered higher education institution in an accredited undergraduate course will receive Commonwealth support. This means that all students studying bachelor and subbachelor level courses in Australia will receive support. As a result, an additional 80,000 students a year by 2018 will receive government support. Many of these people will be the first in their families to experience the benefits of higher education. Secondly, the reform bill does what the shadow assistant Treasurer has long advocated as a necessary reform for higher education in this country—that is, deregulate student fees. The member for Fraser has also written: 'There is no reason to think that fee deregulation will adversely affect poorer students.' The reason is that HECS means that no one needs to pay one cent up-front.

The reform bill has always been about improving the quality of the education our students get, making the system fairer, increasing opportunity and diversity and ensuring that Australia has a strong, competitive higher education and research system. We cannot allow the quality of our degrees and our higher education system to be left behind amid intensifying global competition.

The Higher Education and Research Reform Bill includes important changes from the original package. These are been introduced following broad consultation with universities, higher education peak bodies, the crossbenchers and, most importantly, my colleagues, who have taken a keen interest in the amendments since the first reform bill and who have been responsible for driving change in the second. They are retaining indexation on HECS debt by the same consumer price index that was applied previously; freezing the indexation of outstanding HECS debts for primary carers of a newborn child for up to five years while they are earning under the minimum repayment threshold; creating a structural adjustment fund of $100 million over three years to assist universities to transition to a more competitive market, including those in regional areas; and providing an unprecedented package of scholarships, including a dedicated scholarship fund within the Higher Education Participation Programme. This will ensure that the assistance is focused on regional, remote and low-SES students. The reform bill guarantees that no domestic student can be charged more for a course than an international student can.

As a further safeguard, the government will direct the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to monitor prices in higher education. Like the previous bill, this reform bill will also remove the unfair VET-FEE-HELP and FEE-HELP loan fees, benefiting 130,000 students. It will extend the Commonwealth subsidies to all Australian students studying accredited bachelor level courses at all registered higher education providers for the first time. It will extend funding to an uncapped number of diploma, advanced diploma and associate degree level courses for the first time. So this government is extending the demand driven system, whereas the shadow minister for education, on the other side of the house, is talking about recapping positions for undergraduate courses and driving the system backwards rather than driving it forwards. In fact, he wants more regulation, more socialism at universities, which is exactly what the previous government—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it is not. It is not actually an exaggeration. He wants to recap the positions of undergraduate degrees. Your government, the previous government, actually extended the demand driven system to undergraduate degrees. Your shadow minister is opening the door to recapping the positions, which is socialism at university. I am afraid it has to be called for what it is. Your shadow minister for education, Senator Carr, is a member of the socialist faction of the Labor Party. So, if the socialist faction of the Labor Party do not like the name, why don't they change the name? Why do they continue to call themselves the socialist faction of the Labor Party? By his own words, the shadow minister for education has described himself as a socialist. Why don't you ring him and ask him? He will tell you.

These reforms maintain—

Opposition members interjecting—

Isn't it fascinating? Isn't it fascinating how the only moment of passion the Labor Party can raise in this debate is when they are described as what they are, which is trying to reintroduce socialism in universities? That is the part where they try to interrupt the speaker, because they do not want the speaker to make that point.

This reforms maintain the spirit and the objectives of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which was created by Labor over 25 years ago. One of the interesting things about this debate over the last few weeks has been how the former Labor leaders who introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, and those around the Labor Party at the time who were advising John Dawkins about the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, have been so disappointed in the approach of the Labor opposition to this issue, in walking away from serious reform. They are proposing reforms. John Dawkins is proposing support for this measure. He describes it as not a very significant reform that Labor is opposing. People like Bruce Chapman, the father of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, David Phillips, who was an adviser to John Dawkins when he was the Minister for Employment, Education and Training, and Peter Dawkins, who is an academic who used to work for John Dawkins when he was the education minister, are proposing, through columns and through discussions with the government and the crossbenches, ways of achieving higher education reform, because they are so bitterly disappointed in the Labor Party's approach to this bill. Labor's only approach has been to oppose this bill. People like Maxine McKew, the former member for Bennelong, say that Labor should support reform. Gareth Evans—the former deputy leader of the Labor Party in opposition, the former Senate leader and the Chancellor of the Australian National University—is urging the Labor Party to support reform. So the sensible members of the Labor Party—people who used to believe in reform, in creating jobs, in supporting families and in extending opportunity to more students around Australia—are urging the Labor Party to support this bill: John Dawkins and Gareth Evans.

Here is another one: the member for Fraser, the shadow Assistant Treasurer. He supports reform. He has written about reform. He has had to eat his words.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the minister willing to give way?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I will.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister name a single vice-chancellor who supports his entire package, cuts included?

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leader of the House, we are in the phase of summing up; but if you would like to respond to the question, you may. It would not normally be allowed, but I will ask the Leader of the House to respond to the question.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Free-flowing debate is a good thing in this chamber and there should be a lot more of it, so I am happy to take the intervention. I can tell the member for Fraser that there are 41 universities in Australia and 40 out of 41 vice-chancellors support the higher education reform bill. They want the bill passed. I have never met a vice-chancellor who wanted to have a cut—never met one!—but I can tell you that I have met 40 out of 41 who support the government's higher education reform bill.

I know the member for Fraser is embarrassed. I would be embarrassed too, if I was a reasonably intelligent member as the member for Fraser is—someone who can put some words together and write a book, and he has written several. He is an intelligent academic. I would be embarrassed, too, if I was forced to eat my words in the humiliating way the member for Fraser has been forced to eat his words over the higher education reform bill. He knows, and John Dawkins knows, and Maxine McKew knows, and Gareth Evans knows—they all know that reform to our universities is required. If we do not reform universities—if we do not give universities the opportunity to be their best selves—they will stagnate, and the member for Fraser knows that. It will be a slow decline into mediocrity. Those are not my words; they are the words of the vice-chancellors and Universities Australia. We will be facing a slow decline into mediocrity if we do not allow reform.

How could the Labor Party come in here and oppose these bills when they know themselves that, when they were in government, they cut $6.6 billion from the higher education system? I have the document here and I am going to table it. Go through the $6.6552 billion of cuts to higher education; that is how much they cut from higher education. Now they come in here and oppose the government which is trying to get revenue flowing back to the universities to replace that $6.655 billion. We are trying to help the universities to gain revenue. How are we going to do that?

We are going to do it by asking the people who get the most benefit from their education to make a slightly larger contribution. At the moment students are paying about 45 or 48 per cent of the cost of their education and the taxpayer is covering the other half—more than half. All we are asking students to do with this reform bill is to pay about half each with the taxpayer—fifty-fifty. At the moment they pay just under 50 per cent of the cost of their education; we are asking them to pay about fifty-fifty. What benefits do they get? They get the lowest unemployment rate of anybody in the economy. They earn 75 per cent more over a lifetime if they have an undergraduate degree. They have longer life expectancies. They have better health outcomes. They get a significant private benefit. There is also a public benefit, and that is why the government is happy—

Honourable members interjecting—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for controlling the chamber so successfully during this debate. There is also a public benefit, and that is why the government is prepared to continue to use taxpayers' money to subsidise the education of students at university. Therefore, we are still prepared to pay about fifty-fifty.

But it is not the government's money, it is the taxpayers' money—the taxpayers of Australia, the vast majority of whom do not have an undergraduate degree. The vast majority of people are prepared to subsidise the education of students at university because they know it is good for the students and they know it is good for society in general. We certainly support that ambition and that philosophy. I commend this bill to the House. I am very much looking forward to its transition to the Senate where I believe, in the fullness of time, it will be successful.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that this bill be now read a second time.

I have received a message from His Excellency the Administrator recommending, in accordance with section 56 of the Constitution, an appropriation for the purpose of this bill.