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

I'm speaking in support of this bill. In doing so, I think that, with this bill, the government is implicitly recognising what pressure our public universities are under because the bill does extend the FEE-HELP loan exemption, which was first announced in April last year to deal with COVID because we all knew that people studying at our universities were going to be under pressure and needed that exemption from tuition fees for students studying at our public universities and private education providers. Prior to COVID, if you took out a FEE-HELP loan to pay for your undergraduate course, you also had to pay a 25 per cent loan fee. In the Higher Education Relief Package the government announced an exemption from the loan fee for units of study with a census date from 1 April to 30 September. This bill, of course, extends that loan exemption for the fee. But in doing so, the government is really admitting that our public universities are under enormous pressure. This government hasn't done much at all to support public education in Australia, particularly at that tertiary level.

We all know that the government's recent budget has built into it $150 billion worth of debt, the largest budget deficit that our nation has ever seen. A trillion dollars of debt will hit over the course of the forward estimates period, so the Australian people are saying: 'We've got a large debt, a very large budget deficit. What is this government's plan to make sure that our economy recovers from COVID in better shape than when we entered it?' I have to say that, in this bill and in everything that this government has been doing, there is no plan. If you look at the government's budget papers, they actually admit that out of this large deficit, this huge debt that future generations are going to inherit, not much occurs that will grow the Australian economy. In fact, the level of growth at the end of the forward estimates is the same as it is at the moment. Wages don't grow, so people's incomes aren't going to be increasing, and there's certainly no hope that we're going to get an improvement in labour productivity or efficiency in our economy. The key to doing that and in particular the key to improving labour productivity, which has been a handbrake on growth in our economy and will continue to be so under this government, is education, is ensuring that more Australians have better educational attainment and are more productive in the work that they do to produce incomes that contribute to GDP for this economy.

Everyone knows that the key to improving our economic performance into the future is education, getting more people into better skilled jobs. We are seeing a lack of support from this government for not only the university sector but also for the trades. In Australia, over the course of the last eight years under this government, there were 140,000 fewer apprentices than in 2013. Think of the opportunities and the productivity improvement that have been lost with that. They've smashed the TAFE system. There's been $2 billion in cuts to TAFE funding from this government. That's seen state governments push up the cost of a TAFE education and getting a trade. That's meant that many young Australians simply can't afford to anymore. And they're not; they're not taking up trades. And what is the result of that? All you need to do is walk down any main street of Australia, in any town, regional centre or city, and ask an employer how they're going with employing staff, and they'll all tell you the one thing: 'I cannot get skilled staff at the moment. I want to grow my business. The customers are there. The demand is there. I could grow my business, but I can simply cannot get skilled staff at the moment.' What is the reason for that? It's because this government has not invested in trades education and training in this country, and, as a result, we've got skill shortages.

Pre COVID, the government's solution to that was simply to import foreign labour: 'It doesn't matter; we won't invest in trades training and education. We'll be able to just import foreign labour on temporary visas so that we'll fill the gaps.' And that's what was occurring. Many of those small businesses were having to go through the rigmarole of sponsoring people and getting people in on temporary visas. Then, of course, COVID hit and the borders had to close. That stream and that wave of temporary migrants, that labour supply, has now dried up, and all of these Australian businesses, including small businesses, now have skill shortages. They have skill shortages because of the Morrison government. It's the Morrison government that's put a handbrake on the growth of small businesses and jobs in this country, and they ought to be ashamed.

It extends to the higher education sector as well. It says everything about this government's approach to higher education that it gave JobKeeper to Australian casinos, yet it refused to give JobKeeper to Australia's public universities. That says everything about this government's priorities when it comes to education: 'We won't invest in education. We won't invest in ensuring that we've got a better-skilled workforce on the back of COVID so that we can reduce some of the skill shortages that we've got and so that we can improve labour productivity and therefore get economic growth. No, we're not going to do that. It's against all of our philosophical views about education. We're not going to invest in it.' What's the result? Look at the budget papers. They tell us the result: no growth over the forward estimates, in terms of economic growth, and no growth in incomes for Australians. We're going to be stuck in this rut for many years to come because of this government and its lack of support for higher education in this country.

I'm very fortunate to have the University of New South Wales in my electorate. This is a university that is a world-leading facility when it comes to solar, PV solar and photovoltaic research; medical research, particularly at the Children's Cancer Institute, which is connected to the university; technological advancements in tackling climate change; and in space research—all of the new, modern industries that Australia has enormous opportunities in. And what's this government's approach? 'We're going to deny them JobKeeper.' As a result, what happens? Five hundred jobs are lost at the University of New South Wales, with academics, tutors, admin staff, library staff, catering staff, grounds staff, cleaners and many others trying to make ends meet.

The irony is that, when COVID hit, who did we turn to and say, 'Help us get of this; help us open up our economy again. What should we do to make sure that we can eventually live with this virus and open up our economy again'? We turned to those researchers. We turned to those epidemiologists, the medical professionals, the virologists and of course the people who put together the vaccines. Where were they working? They were working in our universities. That's the thanks that they get from this government: 'We want you to come up with the vaccine for COVID, but we're not going to give you any support to make sure that you can do it.' It says everything about this government's approach to their treatment of COVID, their development of a vaccine and their lack of support for higher education. It's 17,000 people and 17,000 jobs that have been lost in our university sector as a result of this government's lack of support for Australian universities. Not only do hundreds of thousands of Australians rely on universities for their jobs but also the universities are the home of those brilliant researchers that have been developing the new treatments and equipment to combat COVID—17,000 jobs have been lost. What a shameful record from this government about approaching higher education in this country. I don't think there'd be any nation in the developed world that would have a poorer record when it comes to supporting industries that are vitally important to combatting COVID. That's the great shame about this government's recent budget—that, once again, there's this distinctive lack of support for the university sector in Australia.

We all know that education is an important contributor to the Australian economy. It was the third-largest export contributor to Australia's GDP pre-COVID. But many of those universities, of course, had to close their doors to foreign students because of the closure of the borders, so many of them have seen their incomes diminish and the number of students doing courses at their universities diminish. They classically fit the need for JobKeeper and the need for government support, but they haven't been given that support at all. Despite spending $100 billion and racking up a trillion dollars worth of debt, this government has nothing to show for it when it comes to the university sector. They've left our universities stranded.

Private, not-for-profit colleges get a lifeline. They're being given a $53 billion lifeline, but do our public universities? No, because those opposite are philosophically opposed to public universities. They see them as a hotbed of radical thought. How dare people go to university and get an education where they may be exposed to other theories that are anti to their philosophical way of life! How dare they be hotbeds of thought and philosophical views about the future of the country! No, that's not the sort of thing that they would like to support because of their philosophical objection to the notion of people thinking and thinking about the future of our country—so, 'We're simply not going to support them.' What a petty approach! What a spiteful approach to education that will see less kids, particularly those from working-class backgrounds—they say all the time that they are all about supporting workers. What rubbish! How is this about supporting workers and their kids getting into education, particularly when, last year, they amended all the fee structures so that a kid that comes from a working-class family that's got a dream of studying the humanities, economics, business or something like that, can't afford it anymore, because the costs of those courses have increased by factors of 100 per cent.

It shows you everything about this government's approach to universities. Unfortunately, the country will pay for it down the track, because we all know that we've got a deep problem in this country with labour productivity. For the first time in the history of the records that we've been keeping around labour productivity, under this government labour productivity fell. In other words, there was no growth. There has usually been a little bit of growth, and we argued about the level of growth. But, no, under this government it fell. It went backwards, and it's not going to come back any time soon because there's a distinct lack of commitment to education, be it in the trades, dealing with some of the skill shortages that we're facing in the country, or in the higher education sector, dealing with those issues around technology and doing things smarter and the jobs of the future. This government simply is not committed to that way of life and ensuring that our universities are there to grow the economy into the future, ensuring that we do have labour productivity growth once again in Australia and ensuring that we do grow our economy over the forward estimates instead of the pathetic result that we're going to get of flatlining for the rest of the forward estimates.

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