Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Kingston proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Prime Minister's plan to hit Australian students with $100,000 degrees

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on this incredibly important matter of public importance—that is, the Prime Minister's continued love affair with $100,000 degrees. It is so unfortunate that, despite this legislation being rejected by the this parliament on two occasions, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education seem obsessed with bringing it back a third time. I have a message for the Prime Minister and for the Minister for Education: this is a dud of a policy. It is a policy that will not have support from this parliament, and it is time they gave up.

The Prime Minister has said this week:

… a lot of people who voted for us were going to feel dudded.

They certainly felt dudded by the 2014 budget, in which the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education brought the Australian people a proposal that they had no notice of. In fact, before the last election, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education said that there would be no cuts to education. Indeed, they said that there would be no changes to university funding. The Minister for Education said this after the election in November. He said, 'No, we're not going to change the fees that we charge at universities.' It is understandable that the Australian people were shocked on budget night. Now, this bad piece of legislation—which would affect thousands of students, which would be a barrier to students choosing to take up a higher education degree and which would lead to so much debt for students—continues to be pursued by this Prime Minister. One must question whether or not it is a captain's pick.

The captain has got 'Mr Fix-it' onto the job.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fixer.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fixer, sorry. If I were in a bind, I would not call the Minister for Education, but obviously the Prime Minister has. The Prime Minister has called up the fixer and said, 'Come and fix my problem.' He has tried. He spent $15 million on advertising his changes, which have been rejected by the parliament. We know that he was demon dialling the crossbench, who were rejecting his calls. They had had enough. They did not want him to call anymore. In fact, they deleted his number from their phone. What did he do? He said: 'They might not answer my phone call, but I am going to spend $150,000 on consultants. Maybe they will answer the phone to the consultants, if they won't answer my phone call.' Of course, the fixer cannot fix this for the Prime Minister—just like he cannot fix many things for the Prime Minister. This policy has been foisted on the Australian people. It makes severe cuts to our universities—billions and billions of dollars ripped out. It deregulates universities, forcing $100,000 degrees.

The Minister for Education and the Prime Minister often claim that they have support from the university sector. We know that they are losing friends fast. They are losing friends fast when it comes to higher education and the minister's third round of proposed changes. Even the Group of Eight have said, 'It is time to go back to the drawing board.' The fixer has not been able to fix the Group of Eight; the fixer has now been told by the Group of Eight, his biggest supporters, to go back to the drawing board. So it is time for the government and the Prime Minister to abandon this plan, because the Australian people do feel incredibly dudded. As I said, this proposal is the third time that this has been brought to the parliament. Where is legislation? Of course, the Minister for Education—

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

I hear the member on the other side of the table say, 'Double D.' I have to say, if the Prime Minister would like to go to a double dissolution election on his proposal for $100,000 degrees, bring it on. That is because when I am out talking—and perhaps the Prime Minister should get out a little bit more and talk to the Australian people—the Australian people certainly do not support his $100,000 degrees. They certainly do not support his 20 per cent, on average, cut to our universities, his cut to equity programs or his cut to research—the list goes on.

We have got the mark 3 legislation, even though the Minister for Education said that if it got defeated in March, he would give up. He has had a new lease of life and one can only assume that new lease of life is just to prop up the budget. Why else would the minister have said, 'We will abandon this legislation. We will not go ahead with that in March.' But now he continues to push ahead with it. It is because these big cuts are in the budget and those on the other side need to continue to prop up their budget and continue to try to make their budget look respectable. But, as the members behind me have said, they have doubled the deficit and that doubled deficit counts the savings; they have already banked the savings of this failed policy.

But this side of the House will not back down when it comes to mark 3 of the legislation. No matter how much spending on consultants and no matter how much spending on demon dialling and advertising to the Australian people, we will not move our resolve to block this legislation. Why? Why we block this legislation? Because it is fundamentally bad policy. It is terrible policy that will leave so many locked out of the Australian university sector and locked out of the higher education sector. It is fundamentally bad policy we are seeing. You only have to look across the world where this is happening to see that. We see in the US that there is $1.2 trillion worth of student debt. That is what is happening in the US. What we know is that debt in the US is stopping people from being able to buy a house and to actually start a small business. It is an impost on the economic contribution that they are making to the country.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

Quite frankly, I find the interjections from those on the other side odd, because I have not seen them yet in the university defending this policy. They have not dared to go onto a university campus.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have!

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, they obviously did not let any students and staff know they were there. I am not sure who they were talking to.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I need police protection!

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member says that he needs police protection. I am not surprised, when he is taking Australian students and Australian universities down a very dark path. It is not surprising that he needs protection from the Australian people. I will stay on track, because I was pointing out that this is incredibly bad policy and it is time for the minister and the Prime Minister to give it up. The Prime Minister has had a bad week. There is no doubt about it; he has had a bad week. It has been a difficult time for him. My advice to him would be, if he wanted to turn his week around, to abandon this plan. He could come out tomorrow and say, 'This is a captain's pick.' One of the few popular captain's picks would be to abandon his plan for $100,000 degrees, because it absolutely bad policy.

The minister is losing friends very quickly. As I said, in the Group of Eight there are more and more vice-chancellors that are saying that this policy is not right. Of course, we have got the crossbench who is saying that nothing will move them, because it is fundamentally bad policy. We have each of those senators telling the minister that, so the question is: why do they pursue this? Why are they pursuing this unfair and unpopular package? It is time that they did listen to the Australian people and actually abandon this.

In the small time that I have left, I would like to say that the Labor Party stands in stark contrast. In Bluestocking Week, when we celebrate the contribution of women to higher education, we see that while the Liberal Party has $100,000 degrees, Labor has a clear program in which we will focus on STEM. We will focus on STEM because that is where the jobs of tomorrow will come from. Indeed, one of our policies—we have got a whole suite that I will not have time to go through—is that we will fund $100,000 STEM award degrees: $20,000 a year for five years, which will provide a financial incentive for students to enrol. We will focus on encouraging women to participate in that. It would be great to see those on the other side actually have a policy to address STEM and to attract women to STEM disciplines. Labor has a policy on this; the Liberal Party does not. (Time expired)

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, may I congratulate you on your election to this high office. Labor are experts at peddling false information about the government's policies. As we know, they will suggest that we have cut things when we have in fact increased the funding. They peddle misinformation in relation to our industrial relations policy. They have a shameless, if not racist attack, on our free trade agreement with China. But perhaps the greatest misinformation, which they have been peddling now for close to 18 months, is this idea that our higher education policy would lead to $100,000 degrees.

That is perhaps the greatest misinformation that they have been peddling, because the implications of what they are saying and what they have been telling the Australian people is that if this higher education package passes through the Senate, then every single degree would cost $100,000 or more. They also suggest that that would be an up-front cost to boot on top of that. Not only is that misleading, not only is that wrong and not only is that factually incorrect but it is actually sending a very poor message to those people who are thinking about wanting to go into higher education. It is destroying their hopes and their aspirations. They are starting to believe that they will no longer be able to afford to go to university. That is the damage that the Labor Party is doing by peddling this falsehood that university degrees are all going to be $100,000.

I would like to go through the facts of what we are actually proposing. What we are proposing—what we put forward through to this parliament—is to deregulate fees. As you probably know, Mr Deputy Speaker, at present there is a legal limit on what the universities can charge students. In essence, we were suggesting that we should remove that legal limit and leave it up to the university councils themselves as to what fee they should be charging university students. They would still be charging it completely through the HECS system—students would have no upfront costs, no fees that they would have to pay before they entered into that degree—but they would have the ability to set the fees, be it that they put them up or be it that they put them down. We would be entrusting the university councils, made up of the best and brightest minds in the nation, to set those fees.

The idea there was that we would get a differentiation amongst the university sector. Some universities which are striving to be the very best in the world, such as the University of Melbourne, or a university like Monash or UNSW, may indeed put up their fees for some courses so that they can offer something very unique in the world. Other universities, for particular courses, may indeed drop their fees under such a model.

But how do we know that Labor has in fact been telling falsehoods, and continues to tell falsehoods even to this very day about $100,000 degrees? How do we know this? We know this because we have been listening to what the universities themselves have been saying. I would actually like to go through this very slowly for the benefit of the opposition, so that they know what the universities themselves have been saying, given that it is the universities themselves who would be setting the fees.

Let's take a look: Queensland University of Technology issued their fee guidelines under a deregulated model on 5 December last year. Let's have a look at the proposed fees. A Bachelor of Nursing, which would be a three-year degree—how much do you think they would be suggesting for that? If you were listening to the member for Kingston and listening to the Labor Party, you would be thinking, 'Jeez, a Bachelor of Nursing at QUT in a deregulated fee environment, oh my goodness!' Let's have a look. A three-year degree: $31,800 at the max, and potentially only $21,400 at the minimum for three years. At the very most, it is less than $10,000 per year.

Let's have a look at the Bachelor of Business, where you are likely to earn more money: somewhere between $32,300 for a three-year degree, with a maximum of $41,400. The most expensive course which they tabled—and they have tabled every single course and every single bachelor degree—is a 5½-year course, which is a double degree for a Bachelor of Business and a Bachelor of Laws, which in total would be between $61,000 and $78,000 at the absolute max. Again, where is the $100,000 degree for any of those courses under this? I would like to table this for the benefit of the Labor Party so that they can see that.

Let me go to the University of La Trobe. It is a university in my great state of Victoria. The University of La Trobe said that in 2015 they are offering a guarantee that their fees will not increase by more than 10 per cent above the regulated student contribution each year of their degree—an increase of only 10 per cent.

You know what Open Universities Australia said? For the benefit of the gallery and of those people listening, they said:

… we are confident that for numerous courses deregulation of fees will … lead to—

wait for this—

a significant decrease in the cost of tuition.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Show us your modelling! The department has done modelling and won’t release it!

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A significant decrease in the cost of tuition, say Open Universities Australia. That is what they have said.

Let's have a look at this from the Australian Technology Network head, Vicki Thomson, who looks after, I think, about 10 universities in Australia. The headline here is, 'Don't be fooled by "$100,000 degrees':

So let me repeat what has been said a million times: the university sector is not looking to introduce standard $100,000 degrees and deregulation won’t deliver them.

…   …   …

It is not only wrong, it is shameful for the fear such myths are creating in the community.

That is exactly right. It is shameful.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Heaven forbid!

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kingston is interjecting over here, and it is difficult to hear with her interjections. Let me just go through it. If any university were going to increase their fees, you would think that it would be the Group of Eight universities—the so-called 'sandstone' universities. If anyone were going to increase their fees, you would think it would be them.

So let's have a look at that. The University of Western Australia, as you know, says:

Based on current legislation before the Federal Senate, UWA proposes to set an annual fee of $16,000 for domestic full-time students enrolled in its five undergraduate degree courses.

…   …   …

UWA is offering future students the opportunity to obtain a three-year undergraduate degree from one of the world's top 100 universities for less than $50,000.

Again, I still cannot find the $100,000 number.

I will go on. I will table here the Group of Eight universities. Again, they have their indicative fees for all of the Group of Eight universities—that includes the University of Adelaide—and again it gets nowhere near the $100,000 degree which Labor shamelessly prosecutes day in and day out everywhere they go. And they have been doing this for such a long time. That is an absolute disgrace.

Why does the Labor Party do this? Why does the Labor Party peddle these falsehoods day in, day out? Is it because they are just blind to hearing this information? Have they not read this information which I have been talking about today? It is all in the public domain. Do they not believe these statements from the university vice-chancellors themselves? Do they not believe these statements? What is it? We know what it is. It is just pure and unadulterated politics. It is the politics of fear the Labor Party is spreading which is having the effect of killing the aspirations and the hopes of so many people across the community. They should absolutely be ashamed of themselves, as Vicki Thomson outlined perfectly.

You know, the Labor Party used to be a reformist party. In the Hawke and Keating era, they were a reformist party. They introduced the HECS system. And we supported the introduction of the HECS system because it opened up so many more opportunities. And do you know what our package would do? It would do the same. It would open up 80,000 new opportunities for people, particularly at the associate degree level. It would open up so many more opportunities because we would be offering the biggest scholarship program in Australian history. That is what this package would do, and that is what the Labor Party are blocking. The Labor Party are peddling falsehoods and they should be ashamed of themselves. They are blocking opportunities for the Australian people.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would be fascinated to know what the member said when he was the student president at university in the bygone days when HECS was introduced. I would like to dig that up—because I have got on record what Peter Costello said about HECS when he was the student president at Monash University. You may say that the Labor Party was once great. But I am not going to say that the Liberal Party was once great—it has never been great. And this week has been a complete demonstration that we cannot point to anything they have done that was reformist or good. This week we saw the astounding event of a six-hour party room meeting. In my 17 years in this place I have never seen the Labor Party sit through six hours of discussion.

Why do I raise that? Because the Prime Minister said, quite rightly, that a lot of people who voted for the Liberal Party are going to feel dudded. Well, they feel a lot more dudded about this appalling legislation. This was an extraordinary statement from a Prime Minister who has already dudded every voter across this country. He has dudded every pensioner, every retiree, every hardworking low-and middle income family and women in particular around parental leave. Most importantly, he has dudded young people who are struggling to get an education—young people with hope and aspirations not based on their parents' income but on their ability to go to university. The Prime Minister wants to dramatically increase the out-of-pocket costs for every university degree and push some up as high as $100,000—and the Group of Eight have mentioned that.

And why do we know this could happen? Because it has happened before. It happened under the Howard government when the maximum rate for HECS was introduced. Here is how one newspaper paraphrased the then education minister, Brendan Nelson, at the time:

Education Minister Brendan Nelson has said that introducing fee flexibility would mean some course costs would rise, some would drop and others would stay the same, according to demand.

Does that sound vaguely familiar? Yes—because it is exactly what the current education minister has said. But did that happen? No, it did not. Here's what Dr Nelson said in an opinion piece he wrote at the time:

Some institutions may increase the tuition fees in some disciplines. Some institutions have already indicated they would like to reduce their fees or make no change at all.

But what happened? Here is what Dr Nelson said during debate on his bill:

Some university vice-chancellors have already said that they will not be changing their HECS charges .... it is quite wrong for critics to say that every HECS charge is going up by 30 per cent …

Sound familiar? Yes. And what happened? Everyone rose to the maximum amount of 30 per cent when there was a cap.

Deregulate and you all have to go to the maximum amount, especially when you are also taking away 20 per cent of the funding to universities. That is something that they took off the table—standing next to the Group of Eight—before this budget. And then it was miraculously back in the budget papers. We were told that the 20 per cent was going. We were told by the Prime Minister before he won the election that there would be no cuts to education. What a joke! What an out and out disgrace! What a lie!

We were also promised by the Minister for Education that they were not going to raise fees. But the first thing he introduced into this parliament was legislation to deregulate, which was automatically going to increase fees and take away 20 per cent of funding. Why is this so important to me? Because my electorate is home to over 50,000 university students at Monash and Clayton and the Deakin city campus at Burwood. I was at Deakin just the other day having a sausage sizzle with the students. Every one of them is concerned. They are not concerned about what we are telling them; they are concerned about what the university is not telling them. What is actually going to be the cost of their degree into the future? And it is not just for future students; it is for students now. Before, you probably would not have used higher education as a thing you would lobby on. But now everyone should have the aspiration for their child and for themselves to go to university. Deakin university will lose $157 million in funding over four years, and Monash will lose more. This will also reduce the ability to do research in this field.

And what about STEM for the future? What about the kids at great institutions like Box Hill High in my electorate, which is an amazing STEM institution already? Already, 305 students who have graduated from Box Hill High have gone on to STEM courses. This is a local government high school that provides amazing science and maths courses. In particular, it runs a program for educating boys. It is an exciting place to be. But already the students there are concerned that they will never have the opportunity to go to university. They know that their parents have made sacrifices enough. How are the government going to get away with this? The Prime Minister should be sorry for dudding every student in this country— (Time expired)

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the notion of $100,000 university degrees is one of those very rare phenomena where the sighting of the existence of the phenomenon is in direct and inverse proportion to the actual evidence of the existence of the phenomenon—and there are a few instances where that has occurred. But I know that is definitely the case here because the proposition in this MPI from members opposite is that deregulating the tertiary education sector would force universities into a position where they would charge $100,000 for degrees. We have heard 15 full minutes from members opposite of weird, wild and colourful spin. The only thing missing is one single solitary example of a $100,000 degree that they can stand up and put on Hansard. Where is it? Let the record show that there is silence! One single example—

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

That is interesting! Let's look at that head-on. In its official publication outlining its degrees, UWA is offering future students the opportunity to obtain a three-year undergraduate degree, from one of the world's top universities, for less than $50,000.

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

Is that right? You cannot become a doctor or a lawyer by only doing a single undergraduate degree? I know that your maths is average, but let me put this to you—if you do a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Law at the University of Western Australia, how many degrees are you doing? One plus one is two. If you do a Bachelor of Law at Curtin University, when you have the ability to do that as an undergraduate, how many degrees are you doing at Curtin University? That would be one. I had taken it to mean, when you had advertised quite unfairly that there would be university degrees that would cost $100,000, that you were not adding up four or five or six university degrees. It is absolutely ridiculous. You fail at the first hurdle. There is not a single example of a $100,000 degree. There are posters everywhere, up and down the corridors—not a single example. The only other phenomenon that I can think—

An opposition member interjecting—

Is that at QUT? The Bachelor of Laws at QUT, in all their scenarios, is either under or just over $50,000. This is the officially released costings of the university. Do you know what the best modelling to determine what a university fee is going to be? That is the modelling that the university provides to the students who will be paying the fee. You would think it is pretty reputable modelling. I certainly think it is more reputable than silence.

The ridiculous thing here is that university after university has come out and said that the notion of $100,000 degrees is simply absurd. QUT said:

… at a minimum, we must maintain our current university funding levels, and directly link any increase in fees to educational improvements for students.

In the 15 per cent reduction scenario, which I believe was the one they favoured, the lowest total fee for a course over three years is the Bachelor of Nursing, at $29,200, and the highest three-year course is the Bachelor of Business, at $39,100. They publish what the fees will be. The University of Western Australia have undergraduate fees at about $50,000—from a Go8 and top 100 world university.

The Group of Eight modelling of likely fees in a deregulated system has business at $59,000, humanities at $42,000, social studies at $42,000, psychology at $59,000, IT at $44,000, visual performing arts at $44,000, performing arts at $36,000, mathematics at $38,000, foreign languages at $29,000 and science at $38,000. One needs only imperfect math to see that they all fall well short—indeed, mostly by 50 per cent—of the $100,000 mark.

I can only think of a few other phenomena where there is such an inverse proportionality between the sighting of the existence of the phenomenon and the actual evidence for it—this is the Big Foot of political debate, the Elvis sighting of political debate. I understand that Kalamazoo, Michigan, is where the greatest cluster of Elvis sightings has occurred. It is a great and sad thing, because it would have been Elvis's 80th birthday on 8 January this year, but the sad and real truth is that Elvis does not exist, and yet this myth of sightings of the great man lives on, even though the evidence is zero. There is absolutely no difference whatsoever. You have got as much chance, Members opposite, of producing the king here as of demonstrating that there will be a $100,000 degree.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was Oscar Wilde who had his character in Lady Windermere's Fan Lord Darlington say that a cynic was a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. You could say that those who put a blind faith in market forces, who think deregulation is an end in itself, suffer from the same hopeless mix of obsession and ignorance. And this government, in so many areas, has shown that same inclination to let the market loose, to let prices and profits reign in areas where prices and profits do not belong and to allow the often unfair, imbalanced and distorting effects of an improperly regulated market to cause harm to Australia's social fabric.

The most important aspects of our shared wellbeing, and indeed the defining features of the fair go in Australia, are the public goods we enjoy and maintain together—our public health and public education systems, our land and marine environments. Yet this government in all those areas wants to privatise and deregulate or else enable the private exploitation of those shared public goods. This is ideological madness.

The government's proposed deregulation of university fees will take higher education further down the path to becoming a product to be advertised and sold to those with the greatest purchasing power. It will take university education further down the path of commodification and image marketing, and it will make Australia's productivity and innovation future subject to both personal and institutional economic self-interest.

Universities are not supermarkets, and degrees are not products to be produced at the cheapest cost and sold to the highest bidder. We are fortunate in Australia to be able to consider the path other nations have followed in comparable areas of public policy, and of course the United States is particularly relevant as a country that has favoured deregulation and the private-sector provision of health and education. On that point, it is interesting that last July, when Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz was asked to nominate the two biggest mistakes the government could make in taking Australia down the path of economic stagnation and widening inequality, he cited the deregulation of universities and the introduction of the Medicare co-payment. In stark contrast to the Minister for Education, who said Australia has much to learn from the United States, Mr Stiglitz said:

Countries that imitate the American model are kidding themselves.

He went on to say:

Trying to pretend that universities are like private markets is absurd. The worst-functioning part of the US educational market at the tertiary level is the private for-profit system. It is a disaster. It excels in one area, exploiting poor children.

If you're rich your parents can pay the fees, but if you are poor you are going to worry about how much debt you're undertaking.

It is a way of closing off opportunity and that's why the US doesn't have educational opportunity.

While we in the US are trying to re-regulate universities, you are talking about deregulating them. It really is a crime.

That is what is at issue here—a proposal to make university education less accessible and less fair. It is absolute rubbish for people to claim that the use of the HECS or HELP loan schemes makes the level of fee irrelevant. Anyone with any experience of the real world, especially the real world of people in lower income families, would know that the prospect of taking on a large debt acts as a powerful disincentive. It will mean that young people who already question whether university is a feasible option choose not to back themselves and their talent and their potential, or else choose a cheaper option than the course to which they are best suited.

In my state we do not need to speculate about how the government's proposed deregulation would change the landscape, because there has already been a clear indication from the University of Western Australia about how it would respond. UWA announced that it would replace the current three-tier system of regulated fees, where the highest fee is $10,500, with a flat fee across its five bachelor degree streams of $16,000 a year

That amounted to a price rise of 55 per cent for commerce students, 75 per cent for science students and 155 per cent for arts students.

This is the reality in prospect under the Abbott government's deregulation agenda for Australian universities and Australian students—a massive jump in the cost burden and a massive barrier and disincentive for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and from rural and regional areas, as I was, who already face additional challenges.

I have some sympathy for the universities themselves—to the extent that the government is offering fee deregulation as a sop to cover huge cuts in funding to the sector. But I am glad that the uncritical and even unbridled enthusiasm of some universities has given way to a more sober assessment of the real effects and impacts of deregulation on education, equality of opportunity and fairness in Australia.

The Abbott government's proposed funding cuts and fee deregulation for tertiary education in Australia have rightly been rejected by this parliament on two occasions; they represent another broken promise, another example of a government that wants to price everything but values nothing.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a very rare thing we are debating at the moment—a debt that the Labor Party actually does not like! In this case, it is student debt. This is a very rare thing we are debating. It is almost as rare as the $100,000 degrees that we are told about in the member for Kingston's MPI here. It says in the MPI that there are $100,000 degrees, and so it says on the posters that the Labor Party members put out the front of their offices here in Parliament House, along with all the propaganda that they are speaking to themselves about.

Where are these $100,000 degrees? We have looked high. We have looked low. The member for Aston has looked for them. The member who spoke earlier has looked for them. We have looked for them in the Group of Eight. We have looked for them in the sandstone universities. We looked for them in the University of Western Australia when it set its fees. We looked for them in QUT when it set its fees. I could look for them in the Regional Universities Network. One university that is a member of that is the Central Queensland University. They say:

Despite the scare campaign, we do not believe that $100,000 degrees will be a reality in the regions.

So they do not exist in the cities or the regions. Where, oh, where are these $100,000 degrees?

Mr Speaker, I am just going to check my drawer and see if there is a $100,000 degree in here. No, there are no 100,000 degrees in here. Perhaps you could check under your computers for me, Mr Deputy Speaker! Member for Aston, perhaps you could check in the dispatch box. Please, tell me if one of those $100,000 degrees is in there. We are having a hard time finding them.

But they exist, apparently. Where? In Labor Party modelling. The only place they exist is in modelling that those opposite have paid for. It might have been done by NATSEM, but everyone knows one thing about modelling: if you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out. That is exactly what these $100,000 degrees are—absolute rubbish.

It is disgraceful that the Labor Party have come into this place and attacked the very fundamental thing we have in this country of university education that is accessible to all students. In doing so, they are undermining the system. They are undermining the system because they are going to make it financially unviable. When they come in here, their proposals all sound great. They came in here on the reply-to-the-budget night and the Leader of the Opposition said, 'We are going to make university degrees free for a bunch of people in the STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—area.' It sounds great, but ultimately nothing is free. Someone has to pay. When we looked to see what the costs were, the first to come out was at 8.59 that Thursday night when the speech was delivered by the Leader of the Opposition. It came out in The Guardian. They said, 'It is going to be $353.2 million.' That figure was too big, so the Labor Party ran around and shortly afterwards said, 'No, no. It's only $45 million.' There was a lot of confusion because these were numbers that were coming out of the Labor Party.

Then we heard from the Leader of the Opposition the next day on ABC Radio National that it was only $350 million. Then, again, later on in its FutureSmart Universities policy released that day they said it was going to be only $45 million. They went back and forth. They do not know the numbers. Then the next day in The Australian it was reported that it would be a $1.4 billion hit to the taxpayer and to the university system, making this university system unsustainable. And now they have the gall to come in here and lecture us about fictional $100,000 degrees when what we want to do is make the university system sustainable well into the future. Right now it is not and it certainly will not be if Labor come in and give out free degrees to people.

The principles we have in the university system are right. You can basically put your degree on the credit card and pay it back when you have the capacity to do so. That is a great thing for students from all walks of life, from all socioeconomic groups, and it is something that should remain in place. The Labor Party should get on board with the deregulation we are proposing.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tony Abbott continues to be an absolute nightmare for my constituents. Having won an election promising no cuts to education, the Prime Minister is determined to hit my local students and their families with $100,000 tertiary degrees. Just like the rest of the Australian public that have been repeatedly and comprehensively dudded by this Prime Minister on a whole raft of issues, my electorate is rightfully outraged.

Calwell is one of the most disadvantaged electorates in the country. It traditionally has one of the lowest rates of participation in tertiary education. By substantially increasing university fees, the participation rate will deteriorate further. The government's $100,000-degree fiasco is happening at a time when my local school and parent communities as well as myself as the federal member, the state members and the local council have been working very hard to encourage our young people to stay in school and to give them the confidence to believe that they can go on to higher learning. A lot of this work is now at risk, and it is work that comes on the back of massive investments in my electorate from previous state and federal Labor governments.

With the progressive and social justice policies of past Labor governments, we have built an education infrastructure in Calwell that we are very proud of. We have created an environment where our kids love learning and have the confidence to remain in school and aspire to realise their full potential. In fact, we encourage them to do so at all levels.

I often talk to parents about their children and see the pride that parents have in their children's achievements and the hopes they have for their education future. In my electorate there are many young people who have the necessary skills, intelligence and determination to contribute to society in great and various ways by becoming doctors, lawyers, scientists and educators, to name but a few. I visit my schools and talk to my local students, who tell me about their plans and what they hope to become some day, and a large number of them want to go to university. Yet I believe that the government, with its proposed university cuts, is stealing their dreams.

When I think of how $100,000 degrees are going to affect my community, I think of a new and emerging community, the Iraqi community. They came here as refugees, and a great number of them are tertiary qualified. In fact, I had the pleasure of attending the 80th birthday party of the first female dentist in Iraq, who resides in my electorate. She is just one example of the many members of this community who took every opportunity available to them in their home country of Iraq to complete higher education and become successful members of society. This community place a high premium on education and they want the same opportunities they had in Iraq for their children here in their new home, Australia. But $100,000 degrees will make this very difficult if not impossible, because these are not wealthy people. They are people who are trying to establish themselves in Australia by finding a job, and their priority is to provide for their families in addition to their children's education. In fact, most families in my electorate are struggling to make ends meet. So imagine what the additional burden of $100,000 degrees will do, not just to the family budget, but to their aspirations for their children.

During the Rudd-Gillard years, we significantly increased the number of Commonwealth supported places at universities for students from low socio-economic backgrounds. The university in my electorate that is attended by a large number of students is La Trobe University. As a result of the previous Labor government increasing the number of Commonwealth supported places, a number of my local students were given the opportunity to attend this university; many were the first in their families to do so.

This government's budget proposes to cut over $136 million to La Trobe University's Commonwealth Grant Scheme over the next four years. I can only imagine what this will do to the opportunity for my young people to attend La Trobe University, and other universities, for that matter. In the process of slashing funds to universities, Minister Pyne claims that the government's higher education changes will benefit students from low socio-economic backgrounds because, as he says, they will create more places for brighter kids from these backgrounds. This is a con job, because the proposed Commonwealth Scholarships Program will not receive Commonwealth funding. Instead, this program will be funded entirely by student fees. So, whilst indeed the program may be of benefit to a limited number of students who meet the criteria, it is not an answer for those who miss out because of capping or eligibility criteria. My community will still be left with students who will not be able to access higher education, because they will miss out.

This is truly an extraordinary and heartbreaking waste of potential, not just for— (Time expired)

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have not heard in this discussion this afternoon is what is best for the university sector, what is best for the students of our country and what is best for the future of Australia. The opposition has conveniently neglected to address these issues. In reflecting on some of the things that universities have said about changes they would like to see in the way they operate, I will quote a few of their leaders. The peak body representing Australia's universities says that the reforms are a 'once in a generation opportunity' to shape a higher education system that is 'sustainable, affordable and equitable' for students of the nation. Universities Australia Chief Executive Belinda Robinson said failure of the package will condemn the university system to 'inevitable decline'. The Vice-Chancellor of the ANU said it would be 'a great tragedy for our nation, for our universities, for our future generations' if this opportunity were passed up. Over the last year we have heard former Labor members like Gareth Evans, John Dawkins and Maxine McKew, and the list goes on, endorsing a change.

We know that universities in Australia are facing great challenges. They are facing competition from the ever-powerful universities around the world, particularly in Asia, including China. They know that the system needs to change to give them a better chance to succeed, a better chance to operate their universities the way they want to and a better chance to determine their own future. We know the government is not increasing fees. We know that, through competition, universities will be forced to set reasonable fees. We have heard a lot about $100,000 degrees. My good colleagues, whether the member for Dawson or the member for Pearce, have clearly articulated that there is no evidence for that. As the member for Pearce said, it is like the sighting of Elvis—all myth and no evidence, no reality.

The member for Kingston raised the issue of STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics. She failed to acknowledge that the federal government has been investing considerably in STEM in recent years. There is an extra $12 million to restore focus and increase students' uptake of science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects in primary and secondary schooling across the country. This builds on another $5 million program. So we are committed to STEM—always have been, always will be. If you commit to something, it is important that you get the costings right. We have heard about Labor's costings for surpluses. Just recently the member for Dawson raised their costings for their HECS subsidisation. We know their costings bounced around numerous figures, whether $350 million or $42 million, and the media just tore this part. There is a lack of credibility to their costings. They were done on the run, with very little thought.

Labor are running a scare campaign on this issue.

I go back to what has been said by universities themselves. The Queensland University of Technology have released the modest fee increases that there would be under a deregulated system, with degrees in science and nursing costing just under $30,000, and their business-law double degree, 'one of the best in the country', would be $14,272 a year for 5½ years. That is evidence that there is no credibility to these claims of $100,000 degrees. That is Labor, again: scare campaigns, falsehoods, lack of credibility on costings and on policy. They have talked about policy a lot, but all we have is their wish list for subsidisation of degrees in which they could not even get the costings right, whereas we have moved on to what is really needed for our nation in terms of the reforms that are required to drive the university sector forward.

It is not just universities that are backing this; it is our industries and the key leaders of our business councils, such as the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. They have all submitted their recommendations on the need to change our higher education system for the future of our country because we need to compete in a new world, in a new space, with a knowledge based economy. The skills of our future generations need a change in structure and support, and that is what these reforms would offer if they are allowed to proceed. I thank the House.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Coalition MPs are claiming that $100,000 degrees do not exist. If they seriously are saying that these degrees will not become a reality under their overhaul of the higher education system, then they should release their own modelling, the modelling that they have refused to release for over a year. I have said previously that today's young people have the misfortune to face an axis of financial evil: job insecurity, housing unaffordability and student debt. It is their particular misfortune to have an education minister who does not give a continental about their financial hardship. Nor does he care about maintaining academic standards and the reputations of our universities.

If the Liberal government succeeds in its plan to deregulate university fees, we will have achieved the complete opposite of the system in the 1970s, when places were allocated on the basis of academic merit. Academic merit and performance will count for nothing. Your financial capacity—or, more accurately, your parents' capacity—to pay large fees will count for everything. Under that system, what point would there be in working hard during year 12? Of what value would be the marks of students past who have worked hard and did well in year 12? Good luck to the year 12 teachers, and secondary teachers generally, trying to encourage their students to do the hard yards and finish secondary school!

This is no scare campaign. With higher university fees, uncapped places and the reliance on overseas students, we are already seeing universities stray far from their original, noble purpose of being seekers after truth and educators of young minds. Now many of them regard making a profit as their core objective and behave like Coles and Woolworths.

The University of Wollongong bought a table at a Liberal Party fundraising breakfast in Sydney in 2011, paying $1,000 to do so. The New South Wales Auditor-General reported in 2015 that three universities had made political donations since 2008, and the Auditor-General describe this as an 'inappropriate use of public moneys' and recommended policies to prohibit political donations from universities.

Uncapped places and deregulated fees are just another free-market dream that will give us declining academic quality and increasing social inequality. Indeed, the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption says that universities are now so financially reliant on international students that they are unable to fully confront academic incompetence and poor language skills, plagiarism or even bribery. ICAC says in its report:

There is no simple solution that will effectively eliminate the gap between the capabilities of the students and the academic demands of the universities, and no easy way to eliminate the corruption pressures created by the gap.

It says:

Students may be struggling to pass, but universities cannot afford to fail them.

It also says:

For students entering universities with low levels of English, false entry qualifications or financial pressures to work rather than study, cheating in some form or another will often be seen as an easy solution for passing the course.

This cheating has included the use of ghostwriters, stealing exam papers and hacking lecturers' computers.

ABC's Four Corners program reported in April 2015 that education agents in China, which supplies one-quarter of Australia's international students, advise on how to get around enrolment standards. It also quoted current and former academics, who said that plagiarism was being ignored in universities and that there were strong internal pressure in universities to pass failing students. University of Queensland Professor Paul Frijters said:

'We've got to pass the vast majority of our students no matter what their level is, no matter what their prior knowledge is, no matter how much or how little effort they put in.'

Zena O'Connor, a lecturer in the architecture, design and planning faculty at the University of Sydney, said the university's response when told that plagiarism had increased sharply was, 'Thank you for your feedback.'

It is regrettable that students are now under such pressure, with high fees and a shortage of graduate jobs, that they are driven to cheat. It is a clear sign that we have taken a wrong turn in relation to tertiary education. If we deregulate student fees, as the minister proposes, this government will be shamelessly selling out our young people and fitting them up for unprecedented levels of student debt. It is a scandalous way to treat our young people. Despite all the bluff and bluster on the government benches, there is absolutely no doubt that fee deregulation will lead to substantial fee hikes, as has occurred everywhere else it has been done. (Time expired)

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To Labor members opposite, who think that a scare campaign is just a bit of fun—I have seen the laughter that has gone on today as part of this debate—I say: you have to be very careful what you wish for because, when you get it, it may be different to what you expect. Yes, your scare campaign about $100,000 university degrees might have looked like a bit of fun to you, but it certainly did not to the students in rural and regional Australia. That campaign actually has scared some young people; you got what you wished for. There are young people who have changed their minds about their future education opportunities because of your scare campaign. If that was Labor's intent, I am appalled. But that is exactly what it has done. I had a recent higher education forum, and that was some of the feedback that I got—that the campaign about $100,000 fees has actually prevented some young people from taking up their higher education opportunities. That is exactly what is going on. If young regional and rural students were not facing challenges, here is another one.

We saw what Labor did when they changed the criteria for youth allowance, given the challenges facing rural and regional students with accommodation. This is not their first go at this. We saw the effect on a whole lot of young rural and regional students during those early Labor years. And here they are still at it. That is the bit that I find particularly appalling. It is having an impact. That is the cruel personal cost of this type of campaign. It may have looked like a political opportunity—and they are very proud of those posters—but what is the human cost? Did they ever think of the human cost to a young person who has limited funds and a family in a small regional community that is already struggling to support them to go away from home and study? When they see those headlines—'$100,000 university fees'—what does that do to that family? I do not think Labor even gave any thought to what that might do to the aspirations of younger people.

As we know, universities in Australia have always come at a financial cost to students. Until 1974 university fees were the norm, and governments of both persuasions had policies and plans to make tertiary education available to as many people as possible. A Curtin Labor government increased the number of university graduates. In response it increased the number of scholarships funded by the Commonwealth. The Menzies Liberal government invested in higher education, especially in sciences, investing heavily in additional universities to cater for increased demand. Menzies also increased scholarships, and the coalition created a new category of federally funded tertiary institutions called colleges of advanced education, to provide even more bachelor-level degrees. Of course that very least respected Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, abolished university fees, and then Bob Hawke had to make a different decision and he introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme.

Governments from both sides of politics—the rational ones anyway—believe that students need to make a contribution towards their own higher education. Both sides have a system where government funds the up-front cost, and the beneficiaries, the students themselves, are given the capacity to pay off their debt over time, as their income allows. This makes sure that all students have the same capacity to absorb and pay off higher education fees. But, as I said earlier, we should note that not all students have the same access to tertiary education. Those from a regional and rural area face accommodation and other costs that often are not part of what a student from a metropolitan area faces.

Labor have no understanding of this, or not only would they not have changed the youth allowance—going back all those years to when they first came into government—they would not be out there with posters threatening $100,000 university fees and scaring young people away from even trying to attain their higher education dreams. Those young people will come back to regional areas and be part of our future. That is exactly what we want to ensure. That is what the additional scholarships were about in our plan, and that is exactly what Labor have voted against. They have voted against further and greater opportunity for rural and regional students.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.