Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am the son of working-class parents, parents who worked hard so that their kids had the opportunity that they never got, and that was the opportunity to get a university education. It was an opportunity that they could never afford, but I, like many of my generation, was the first person in my family who got the opportunity to go to university. In my later years of high school, I was the beneficiary of a great economics teacher, Peter Singer, who inspired in me a wonderful love and passion for economics and how governments make decisions about allocation of resources. He encouraged me to pursue and follow my passion to study economics at university, and, thankfully, I did. I got the wonderful opportunity to study at the University of New South Wales, a university in my home town, and develop that passion for economics. It was following that passion, I firmly believe, that led me to an interest in politics and how political decisions are made and, of course, to this place here. I would not have had the great privilege of representing the people of Kingsford Smith without the opportunity to pursue my passion for economics at university.

The crux of this bill, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020, is that the cost of university fees in humanities will increase and in some other degrees, particularly maths, science and other STEM based subjects, the costs will fall. I'm opposing this bill because it's unfair. It's unfair because many young people who are interested in studying humanities will have the cost of going to university increased dramatically for them, making university, in some cases, beyond their reach. So many of those young Australians who now are developing their passion for humanities subjects in their later years of high school may lose the opportunity to pursue that dream at university because of this legal reform, and that is wrong.

Anyone who's looking at the prospect of pursuing law, accounting, economics, commerce, journalism and communication, or humanities will pay more under this legislation than someone looking to do a medicine or dentistry degree. About 40 per cent of students will have their fees increased under this Morrison government's plan for this bill. Some of those courses will have cost increases of 113 per cent, and that will mean, for many low- and middle-income families, that they will lose the opportunity that I have had to get a university education. Young Australians will lose the opportunity to pursue their dreams and passions and to study their subject of choice if this law is passed. That is a great shame, and that is why this bill must be opposed.

The greater effect of this legislation, unfortunately, will be on women. All of the studies and statistics that have been produced by some of the unions and others that are opposing this indicate that women tend to enrol in humanities subjects more than STEM based subjects, so the effect of this bill may be to make it harder for women to go to university. Similarly, I can't see how this bill is going to encourage and help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians to get a university education. In fact, I think it's going to do the opposite: it's going to make it harder for many to pursue that dream of a university education. So the crux of this bill is that it makes it harder for low- and middle-income families and their kids to pursue their dream of a humanities education at university. That is wrong, that is unfair and that is why this bill should be defeated.

The second point I'd like to make is that this bill and this change to our university funding structure represent government and politicians interfering in the decisions of young Australians and families about which subjects they can pursue at university and, ultimately, which career path they should go down in their working lives. It's effectively trying to force students into certain subjects and force some young Australians to abandon their dreams and their passion for other subjects.

Most Australians believe that there's enough government in their lives without government telling parents what they want their kids to study, let alone government telling young Australians what career the government thinks they should pursue over the career they have a passion for and want to pursue. Decisions about which subjects young Australians study at university should be made by those young Australians, not by the Morrison government.

The government says that the philosophy and purpose of this bill are to encourage more Australians to study STEM subjects. It says that we have skills shortages in some of these areas and it wants more Australians to move into studying those subjects. That's fine. That objective is a reasonable one. It's the means that the government is using to achieve that objective that is wrong and represents an interference in the decisions that young Australians have the right to make. We should be encouraging people into STEM and other areas of study with incentives and encouragement, not with a big stick approach such as this bill. We should be offering scholarships to young Australians to move into the STEM subjects. We should be ensuring that there are bridging courses available to ensure that people can get their skills up to a satisfactory level to move into some of those subjects. Importantly, we should be doing more to promote science based and mathematics based subjects at high school. We can achieve these outcomes with incentives, not by the government telling students which subjects they should be pursuing and so, effectively, forcing a whole generation of young Australians onto a path that they don't want to follow and that might not be their passion and their dream.

The third point I'd like to make is that this bill is inequitable. It won't produce the outcomes that the government believe and say it will. In fact, the legislation in many respects works against its stated aim. In areas where the government want a greater enrolment, they're paying universities less per student, which doesn't make any sense, and, in course areas where they want to discourage enrolment and push people into other subjects, they're paying universities more. It simply doesn't make sense. The overall effect of this legislation, once again, is to reduce the amount of funding that's going to Australian students and to universities to subsidise places for Australian students and encourage them to pursue a university education. It's part of the Morrison government's trend of undermining university education and removing the opportunity of a university education from a generation of Australians. That will have consequences for our nation down the track. It will have consequences for the individuals because they will lose access to the opportunity of a university education if they are passionate about a particular subject. We know that the more people stay in study—the more highly educated a population is—the greater the productivity of that workforce, particularly in future years. There is no truer statement than 'if we invest in education now, we reap the benefits for our economy down the track'. This bill undermines that objective and the statement of ensuring that we as a nation are encouraging more Australians into a pathway of university education and pursuing their dreams and wishes about where they wish to go with their education. It's all part of this government's plan for making it harder for young Australians to get a good education in this day and age, particularly if you come from a low- to middle-income family or socioeconomic background, because the effect of this legislation will be to ensure that the chance to study at university is beyond the reach of many families to afford. It will be beyond the reach of many individual Australians to afford to pursue a passion in the humanities subjects at university and in a career, and that is wrong. Decisions about what you study at university and what career you pursue should be based on your dreams, on your passions and on what you think you're going to be good at, not on what the government tells you you should have to pursue into the future. So the effect of this bill, once again, is to make it harder for many of this generation's young Australians to get a decent education, and that is wrong.

For those reasons, I will be opposing this bill, like my Labor colleagues. We're calling on the bill to go to a Senate inquiry so that these issues and many more can be thrashed out and so that Australians, particularly young Australians, have the opportunity to put their point of view to this government about what is wrong with this proposed change to universities. The effect of this bill is that it will be harder for many Australians to pursue their passion in education and it will be harder in what is a particularly difficult year for many people who are finishing their final year of schooling. We all know the challenges that young Australians finishing year 12 this year are facing with COVID and the disruptions that they've had to their education this year. They don't need government making it even harder for them to pursue their dreams and study the humanities because of this legislation. It's unfair to that generation of young Australians and it represents government forcing students into areas where the government wants them to study, not where the individual student wants to study, and that is wrong.

Finally, the bill is unfair and inequitable. It will result, once again, in a reduction of subsidised university places in Australia and a reduction in funding for universities so that they can educate more young Australians, and that is wrong. On that basis, I will be voting against this bill.

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