Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to pick up from the very wise comments of my colleague. It is always very important for us to think that education is part of what we need to do to create a place for ourselves in the 21st century economy, but so is investment in research and development and the practical application of that research. Just blindly following the mantra that it is all education, education, education can very much misguide us as to what we need to do to ensure that we have the jobs into the future and the capacity for people to exploit that education. Countries like Ireland and Italy produce very many skilled graduates who simply are unable to find work in their home country

So we know that is a necessary but certainly not a sufficient condition. If we are going to be a successful country, we have to be prepared to invest and to understand that government investment in research has been critical for the development of industries that we like to think of as 21st century industries. It was not Google, Yahoo or Facebook that developed the internet, nor did they develop Wi-Fi or touchscreens. All these things were developed within government agencies with massive government investment to explore these very new technologies. The private sector then, quite rightfully and properly, leveraged off it. But let us not be confused about this mantra of small government being the thing that is going to drive our economy forward.

In relation to higher education, there are a couple of observations. I do not want to repeat what everyone else has said. It is very important that we keep our standards high. There is some evidence that Australia is perhaps in some higher education areas becoming a less preferred destination. We have to take steps to ensure that the quality of our institutions is considered comparable to the quality in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and even in some of the Asian countries. It is really important for us always to focus not just on the quantity but also on the quality for us to maintain our ability to compete against those institutions in other First World countries. We have to be capable and prepared to invest. I repeat: part of keeping our higher education sector competitive is being prepared to invest in the research component of institutions so that they attract the brightest and best and in turn prove attractive to students overseas who see themselves having the opportunity of working in prestigious organisations, but also working on projects and with individuals who are seen to be at the leading edge of a particular discipline.

Everyone likes to come in here to talk about this fantastic export industry. It is an important industry and it is very beneficial for us. We do occasionally have to take off the rose-coloured glasses and look at where we stand particularly on higher education in relation to other universities around the world and look at ways in which we can support quality, because there is an inherent conundrum for universities and others selling their services. Do we consider the people who are buying these services to be our customers? The customer is always right, so do we ease the customer's passage through our institution, perhaps of the cost of lowering standards, or do we take a longer term gain and keep those standards high, which may create the difficulties of whether or not we pass or fail students? It is a contradiction, one I know academic institutions around the world are grappling with. How do we attract foreign fee-paying students, giving them in the short term perhaps an easier passage through the courses while maybe damaging the longer term reputation of our institutions? It is a hard game to play. We know that people tend to focus more on the short term than on the long term in looking at the performance of their institution.

I was surprised by some of the statements. I thought we had bipartisan support around this thing but as usual we had an attack on the Labor government embedded in the second reading speech—it is almost ritualistic. It is interesting that they were talking about us driving down the student figures. The figures I have, even the driven down figures supposedly of the last financial year, are well and truly in excess of anything achieved under the Howard government. So it does seem to be a rather strange criticism that during the last year of the Howard government when there were 250,000 student visa holders in Australia and in the last year of the Labor government there were 304,000, you could seek some claim that we had driven this industry backwards. There was a very substantial increase over the time of the Labor government. It peaked in 2009. I also make the point that there is absolutely no doubt that we want international students here, that we want this industry, that it creates good jobs for Australians. It has the ability to drive up standards, to make more complex and intellectually rich and robust our higher education institutions.

But there is also a price to be paid with these high levels because there is certainly no doubt that our housing affordability problems are related to the rapid rise in our population. We saw this happening very dramatically in Perth where house prices doubled within a three- to four-year period from 2003 to 2007. Growth in population does drive housing affordability problems. If we expand our population too rapidly, our ability to supply housing at a sufficient rate is simply not there. That has certainly been the experience in Australia over the last 10 years. So I do think that, whilst we must encourage this as a vibrant industry, it cannot be that numbers go up without any real thought about what that does to the burden of infrastructure and to our ability to accommodate everyone at a price that is not going to undermine affordability of housing for very many Australian people.

I certainly think we have seen that more dramatically in Perth than anywhere else. This is not blaming migrants, but this is saying that rapid population growth does bring with it some real challenges. So we should not be there with rose-coloured glasses saying that all of these issues and industries are not without their challenges. This is a good industry. I totally support us providing these measures that are going to enhance the student experience and address some of the concerns that were experienced by the industry, while at the same time maintaining quality. But I do want to say, let us not be uncritical about what some of the challenges are that come with bringing large numbers of additional people into the country in a very small space of time. Thank you.

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