James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the second reading of the Education Legislation Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill and commend the contribution from my colleague the member for Forrest. As the opposition indicated in the shadow minister's contribution earlier today, the coalition supports the passage of this bill.

There are a couple of key elements I'll touch on, but firstly I want to start by commending the tertiary sector and, in particular, the three universities in my home state of South Australia: the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia and Flinders University. I have a lot to do with all three of those institutions. I meet regularly with the vice chancellors, and I myself am an alumnus of Adelaide university and have appreciated my engagement with them. I have a University of South Australia campus in my electorate. In a city the size of Adelaide, our universities are not geographic, really; all the universities have an enormous impact, citywide and statewide regardless of where they're located. They're both multicampus and have a lot to do with my constituents in Sturt.

It's been a tough couple of years in the sector, of course. The closure of borders and the impact on international students has been very significant to the university sector in South Australia for a long time. We've been very proud of the way we've attracted international students into our institutions, not just through the universities I might add. But the three universities have all done an excellent job in making themselves sought-after institutions to study at, and all three have a very impressive cohort of international students.

I saw media reports earlier this week, or over the weekend, about the return of international students and the fact that enrolments now, at least in the three South Australian universities, are just ahead of enrolments pre-COVID. The significant caveat there is that the international students aren't all physically attending the universities in South Australia; there's still a lot of online learning going on. Frankly, for the benefit of the South Australian economy, I look forward to that diminishing dramatically and, hopefully, ceasing largely as soon as possible. International students make an exceptional contribution and impact both on the South Australian economy and on the South Australian society. They tend to be from nations that have significant multicultural representation in our community, and international students are very well supported by the universities and also by the communities in our city and state who themselves have come from similar nations to make their future in Australia. So we welcome that.

As the shadow minister mentioned, a few of the elements in this bill were put forward by the previous government. One that seems fairly common sense is to standardise the USI, Unique Student Identifier, so that it becomes the single required identification for students. That will make the standardisation of reporting on a whole range of metrics a lot more straightforward. I don't see how anyone could see any controversy around that.

I also commend and welcome making it easier for people to access enabling courses—that is, for people to not have the enabling courses applied against the limitation that would be put on how much Commonwealth support they can receive. This means we can provide a better pathway towards university qualifications for people that need to undertake some of those enabling courses that bridge the gap between them having access to undergraduate related courses and not. That seems extremely sensible.

The one that is probably the most noteworthy, which we've indicated we're happy to support, is to remove any form of discount that is provided to upfront fee payers. The way in which the public accounting works for HECS has always fascinated me, because of course it is effectively using the government's balance sheet and its significant discount to support the financing of student loans, which is excellent. No-one wants to see any curtailment around supporting everyone with the financial burdens of accessing higher education in this country. HECS has been an excellent system, which I availed myself of with my undergraduate degree many moons ago, as I did with FEE-HELP for a postgraduate degree. So that's excellent.

This does remove any discount for any portion—either the entirety or a minor element—of an upfront payment. The indication from the government is that has a significant return of revenue over the forward estimates. I understand all of the arguments, which I won't litigate, around the pros and the cons of providing any discount for upfront payment, but in this case we in the opposition are happy to support the government in that reform as well.

To reiterate, I support the bill and thank all of the tertiary institutions—in particular in my home state of South Australia, but also across the country. We've had challenges over the last few years which no-one could have predicted. We're very proud of our tertiary institutions in this country. The size of our international student cohort demonstrates that they are held in high regard across the globe. We hope that the years ahead are much more smooth and predictable and see our higher education institutions continue to flourish even further. With that, I commend the bill to the chamber.

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