Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support these bills, which are part of a package of legislation to expand the Australian government's tuition assurance arrangements to protect domestic upfront fee paying students at private higher education providers. This will ensure these students receive the same protection as students who access FEE-HELP or HECS-HELP assistance at private higher education providers. These amendments are about protecting students and, in so doing, supporting the viability of the higher education sector at this incredibly challenging time.

Delivering opportunities for higher education is important to me. I was fortunate to complete two degrees concurrently, in arts and social work, at the La Trobe University campus in Mildura, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the Australian National University. My experiences at university were some of the most rewarding of my life, and I want other people to have the opportunity to discover and explore their passions, as I have. I also believe that the intrinsic value of higher education, regardless of career or financial outcomes, is often understated. The pursuit of knowledge in and of itself is something to be encouraged and celebrated. To have a well-informed mind is a great asset, regardless of the career you undertake.

The first bill, the Education Legislation Amendment (Up-front Payments Tuition Protection) Bill 2020, amends the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 and the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to implement the expansion of the Australian government's Tuition Protection Service to include domestic upfront fee paying higher education students. Tuition protection aims to ensure that students are protected and supported in the event that their provider either fails to start to provide a unit to the student on the day on which the unit was scheduled to start or ceases to provide a unit to the student on the day after the unit starts but before it's completed. The second bill, the Higher Education (Up-front Payments Tuition Protection Levy) Bill 2020, imposes the upfront payment tuition protection levy, specifies the amounts that are payable by providers and prescribes the levy components and the manner in which they will be determined each year. These changes are about protecting students, and they demonstrate the government's commitment to the higher education sector. They reduce administrative burdens for providers and ensure that higher education remains affordable and accessible even during difficult times.

I support these changes as well as the Morrison-McCormack government's higher education reforms and Job-ready Graduates Package. The government responded to calls from the higher education sector by guaranteeing Commonwealth funding for universities even if there is a fall in domestic student numbers. This guarantee totals $18 billion in funding across the sector this year, which amounts to around 50 per cent of total revenue across the sector. Providers will also benefit from regulatory fee relief so they can focus on their operations and on supporting their domestic and international students.

We are also working with the sector to help Australians upskill or retrain by rolling out short online courses for new students in fields of national priority such as teaching, health and agriculture. I spoke recently to the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, Professor John Dewar, and he told me how well these courses had been taken up by students in Mildura. These short courses are heavily subsidised by the government to increase uptake, reduce costs for students and generate stimulus for education providers. I was very pleased to learn about the $251.8 million announced in the 2020 Commonwealth budget for an additional 50,000 short-course places in 2021.

We know that, as with many parts of the economy, universities and other higher education providers are facing extreme difficulties due to the outbreak of COVID-19. That's why it's so important to support higher education providers to increase their offerings and protect students at this difficult time. A highly educated, well-trained and skilful population is a key element of Australia's strength as a democratic nation and will be instrumental in our economic recovery on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic. We need highly educated minds to build, restore, innovate and grow. The delivery of priority infrastructure projects announced in this year's budget, the Technology Investment Roadmap in the energy sector and the implementation of the Modern Manufacturing Strategy will deliver enormous economic benefits to the country. That is why it is so important that the government, through measures such as those contained in these bills, supports the higher education sector to provide more opportunities for students and make it easier for students to take up these opportunities.

There is also an ever-growing need for healthcare professionals, especially in regional areas such as the electorate of Mallee, and the current crisis has laid bare the extent of that need. Delivering sufficient healthcare service provision for Mallee is a key priority for me. In Mallee we face shortages of general practitioners, nurses, and primary and allied health professionals. In 2017, the Victorian Skills Commissioner completed work in the northern half of my electorate to identify the future workforce demands of the region. The Mallee regional skills demand profile estimated that between 2017 and 2020 up to 4,400 new workers would be needed to support growth in the region. The report identified that almost one-quarter of these workers would be needed in the healthcare sector. Work has commenced to refresh this skills profile for 2020. I hope the new report shows that we have met this identified need, as I expect the future demand for the next five, 10 and 15 years will be just as great, if not greater, than in the preceding few years.

It's been incredibly encouraging that La Trobe University has been investing in regional health qualifications through a number of initiatives to meet the expected demand. Over the past 30 years La Trobe has become integral to the Mallee community. Eighty-seven per cent of the students who graduate from the Mildura campus stay and work locally, and there are around 1,600 La Trobe graduates working in the region. The importance of this university to our region cannot be understated. The changes made by the Commonwealth government to give greater flexibility to the use of Commonwealth supported places for postgraduate courses were welcomed by Professor Dewar and La Trobe University. These changes meant that La Trobe University was able to offer a number of online postgraduate health courses to regional areas, with Commonwealth supported places attached, resulting in extensively subsidised costs. The following month Rebecca Crossling from the La Trobe Mildura campus told me that eight staff at the Mildura Base Hospital had applied for a Master of Mental Health Nursing, with a further four applying for a Masters of Mental Health. Simple initiatives like these show how the government has supported universities to provide more opportunities, making life easier for students at the same time, thereby improving outcomes for the local community.

La Trobe is also doing fantastic work with their rural medical pathway program in partnership with the University of Melbourne. This program is the first to commence as part of the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network, an initiative announced in the 2018 Commonwealth budget. Under this program 15 students from regional and rural areas begin their studies at La Trobe's Bendigo or Albury-Wodonga campuses, and undertake a three-year Bachelor of Biomedical Science degree before going on to study a four-year Doctor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne's Shepparton campus.

The Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network is one part of a $95 million investment to set up the 'train in the regions, stay in the regions' program. The guiding logic behind this program is to train locally to stay locally. We know that people from a regional city or town who learn in a regional place have the best possible chance of graduating and staying in the regions to work. There are seven Mallee students undertaking this program in 2020. They are: Alfred, Isabella, Abdo, Abigail, Kunind, Madeline and Oscar. When I met these students virtually, they all indicated they aspire to work in regional and rural areas after completing their studies. Alfred, who was born in India, says he wants to travel Australia, working in remote communities, ultimately returning to Mildura to work locally. Kunind wants to pursue a career in craniofacial surgery and hopes to bring this area of medicine to areas such as rural Victoria. This is a fantastic example of what can happen when we support higher education providers to increase their offerings and make it easier for students to take up these opportunities. There are more reasons why higher education is important for Mallee.

Recently I spoke about the need to improve access to vocational education and training opportunities to meet the rising need for skilled local jobs in Mallee due to a number of emerging industries with massive growth potential. In Mallee we have seen extensive investment and growth in solar energy. We are becoming increasingly reliant on new technologies, like artificial intelligence and robotics in agriculture and horticulture, and we are pushing for more value driven invasion and value-adding manufacturing.

There is no reason why Mallee can't be a leader for 21st century innovation, but bright minds will be required to lead these developments into the future. Again, the train local, stay local approach will be crucial to support this growth and development. I'm eager to see increased opportunities to be offered in STEM degrees in regional areas, similar to what we have seen with the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network and the rural medical pathway program by La Trobe and the University of Melbourne. Supporting higher education providers to increase their offerings and make it easier for students to take up opportunities will improve outcomes for regional areas and will help places like Mallee meet their full potential. That's what the government aims to do with the changes outlined in these bills, and that's why I support their passage. I hope that we will continue to see further developments in higher education policy that work towards these regional goals.

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