Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for moving this important motion before the House, and I associate myself with many of her comments, apart from that bit about the 10 years of neglect. What a shock that we don't agree on that particular point! I'm speaking as someone who has been a consumer of education with my family for the best part of 20 years. We've had a bit of a one-family road test of the Australian education system as my four children have gone through primary school, secondary school and now university. Two of my children have graduated from university and two are still studying.

At the outset, I want to acknowledge the impact of COVID on our education sector and, in particular, the impact that it had on our teachers, parents and students as they dealt with a large number of challenges in a compressed period of time, which made it very difficult for many students, particularly those attending the later years of secondary college, to fulfil their obligations at that time. I want to thank the teaching community and their support networks for the work they did, particularly in looking after the welfare of students as they dealt with those rather challenging times. Remote learning wasn't easy for a lot of our young Australians, and I think they've come out the other side more resilient and stronger but still requiring some additional support as they move on to university and attempt to fulfil their tertiary studies.

Like many members in this place, I have a great passion for helping young people in my community to achieve their full potential, whether that be through the trades or through tertiary education. I think it's important that we instil in our young people what a great nation this is that we all get to enjoy, and also that we help them to recognise the opportunities that are there for them if they work hard and commit themselves to their studies and aspire to achieve everything they can possibly achieve with the skills that they have. I've been a proud supporter of the public education system. It was a choice that my family made. While I do respect choice and recognise that others choose the independent sector, my family and I chose the public sector because we wanted our children to have the opportunity to study close to home in their local primary school and secondary college. We actively supported our local public schools. My wife was a school council president for many years for the very reason that we wanted to be involved in our kids' education.

I think one of our great challenges in our regional and rural areas—the member for Chisholm spoke of it when she mentioned the new government's commitment to inclusivity—is helping to overcome the aspirational and cost barriers for rural and regional students seeking to fulfil their full potential and go on to tertiary study. There are a lot of parts of rural and regional Australia where university access is very difficult. The previous government made some inroads in that regard through improvements to the tertiary access allowance and payments to assist students from rural and regional areas when they're relocating to a metropolitan environment. I fully acknowledge that all of the easy stuff has been done in terms of government in this country, and most of the reform now is very difficult. It's a challenge to build support outside of government, and also inside government, when it comes to the Expenditure Review Committee process and getting money out of Treasury and Finance, for further reforms. But I would encourage the minister in this regard, as he seeks to improve the inclusivity for rural and regional students, to note that we still lag behind in our rural, regional and remote areas in terms of participation at the highest level of education. A challenge remains, and I offer my bipartisan support to the new minister in seeing how we can overcome any of those barriers.

The aspirational barrier is something we need to deal with as leaders in our own communities. It's up to us as leaders in those communities to encourage our young people to achieve their best, but the cost barriers and economic barriers are things that the government can continue to work on. We're going to see now, I fear—with the increased cost of living, HECS indexation bills, rental shortages and price rises—that the costs of living away from home for rural and regional students will be a bigger barrier in the next five to 10 years than perhaps it has been in the last five or 10 years. So we have a real challenge in terms of helping those rural and regional students who have to relocate to a metropolitan environment to make sure that they're well supported as they do that and that we take every measure we can as a government to allow rural and regional students to achieve their full potential.

One of the other challenges we have for regional university campuses is ensuring that our regional students see them as a worthwhile and viable choice. I think in my electorate of Gippsland, the Federation University at Churchill is increasing its range of courses, particularly around allied health, to encourage more young people to study in their own local area, because we know that those local young people who train and learn locally are more likely to work locally and help overcome some of those health and allied health workforce shortages that we face. So I encourage those opposite to recognise the important role of regional universities as they do their work and recognise the economic barriers that still face rural and regional students who are forced to move away from home. I'd also encourage them to continue to support our regional university campuses for the great work they do right throughout regional Australia.

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