Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There was a recent article jointly authored by the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. In it, they said:

It is no small achievement when an often divided and fractious sector unites around a major change.

Having lectured and, indeed, been involved in administration at a number of Australian universities, I must say that is an understatement of Goliath-like proportions. It is like herding cats wearing tweed jackets, trying to get universities to agree on anything. But with the notable exception of the University of Canberra, which is sticking out like a sore thumb on this one, there is almost unanimous agreement among the university sector that these reforms should be supported. In the same article it is stated that:

At stake is whether a viable higher education system can endure.

Though much rhetoric focuses on the Whitlam promise of free higher education, the present system was established by the Hawke government from 1989; it abandoned a brief experiment with free places as inequitable. What has been amazing about listening to successive runs of this debate is there is a 1974 argument, with respect to higher education reform, and then there is a 2014 argument. The 1974 policy argument dominated the higher education space for close to three decades—probably 25 years. The 1974 question is this: could Australia increase the percentage of low-income students in tertiary education by making tertiary degrees free for all tertiary students? That was the social policy argument that dominated this space for decades. But the argument was also conducted for decades in an environment where the Australian tertiary sector existed in a global market that was relatively stable—comparatively, amazingly stable.

For decades we were asking ourselves whether universal low fees, or no fees, would achieve greater participation for the sons and daughters of low-income earners. That was a logical question to ask for several decades. It was logical because we were involved, firstly, in a ceteris paribus environment internationally; things were not changing around us. But it was logical, also, because we really did not have the answer. There are two observations to make about that debate. The first is that the central question of that debate has now been unequivocally and empirically answered by every single major factual review of the sector. Does introducing deferred fees for students decrease the percentage of low-income students? No, it does not. Once introduced, does expanding the share of their fees that students are required to fund decrease the percentage of low-income students? No, it does not. Are fees the primary, or even a substantial, determinant of the percentage of low-income students? No, they are not.

In 1996 payments went up, largely under the members opposite, nearly eightfold to $900 million. Higher education participation went up from 400,000 to 525,000. Lower fees, or no fees, do not address the real or actual determinants of participation which are social conditions, parental expectations and secondary school preparation. The social policy question has been answered. No member opposite has offered anything that resembles empirical evidence to suggest otherwise. It is a dead question. The way in which you increase participation is by increasing scale.

More fundamental to that point is that the circumstances which have prevailed for decades while we answered this question have now changed irrevocably, fundamentally and with quite astonishing speed. There are two basic changes. Firstly, the number and quality of Asian universities has increased at absolutely astonishing speed and the number of students that now move from nation to nation to pursue tertiary education has similarly risen in astonishing numbers. Basically, what we are facing is that tertiary education has become a globally traded commodity. What happens if you do nothing in that environment? We had the lesson of that under the members opposite: from the 2009-10 peak, when there was no reform—and, I admit, some bungling along the way under the members opposite—there was a loss of billions of dollars in export income from the tertiary sector. Between 2009 and 2012, the number of international student enrolments fell by 130,000 students. That is not an indicator that the Australian tertiary education sector is in good health; that is an indicator of an education sector in great need of reform. To see the consensus for the grave necessity of reform, you need go no further than the universities themselves. The Australian Catholic University said:

Rejecting the package wholesale is not a vote for university equity. It is a vote against reality.

Universities Australia said:

It is simply not possible to maintain the standards that students expect or the international reputation that Australia's university system enjoys without full fee deregulation.

The Regional Universities Network said:

… the only way the sector can maintain quality and remain internationally competitive is through the deregulation of student fees.

The 1974 argument is over.

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