Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. If the modern tertiary sector has a father in Australia, it's my predecessor in Werriwa, the Hon. Gough Whitlam. In his pre-election speech in 1972, Whitlam said:

We believe that a student's merit, rather than a parent's wealth, should decide who should benefit from the community's vast financial commitment to tertiary education.

Gough fulfilled his commitment to the Australian public, and in 1974 tertiary fees were abolished. This one act changed Australia, as we heard from the member for Ryan. My family was also a beneficiary of this act.

This one act has had a remarkable impact, even now, almost 50 years later. The former member for Werriwa has made it all the more likely that bright, studious, working-class students will have their intellectual abilities recognised. It's for that reason that I'm delighted to acknowledge students in the electorate of Werriwa who have been recently awarded scholarships to attend the University of Sydney. These students are the first recipients of the MySydney Scholarship program. The scholarship is valued at $8,500 a year for the duration of an undergraduate degree. In total, 682 students have been awarded the scholarship, 60 of whom live in suburbs across the electorate of Werriwa. Recipients live in Green Valley, Bonnyrigg, Bonnyrigg Heights, Macquarie Fields, Lurnea, Ashcroft and Hinchinbrook.

The purpose of the program is to enable scholars and gifted students from low socioeconomic parts of Sydney to pursue their goals of a university education. The program will provide personalised assistance to each student to help them complete their studies to the best of their abilities. This is a life-changing level of support. It will give people from my community a chance to fulfil their potential—a potential they might not otherwise be able to fulfil. I'd like to thank the University of Sydney for their foresight in doing that for students in my community.

During the Hawke and Keating governments, Australian high schools significantly changed. Labor governments have continued to ensure the potential of students can be realised. More students were finishing year 12, necessitating an increase in the number of places for university enrolment. As a result the Dawkins review was conducted and a vast suite of reforms were implemented. The result was another education revolution. The two-tiered system of colleges of advanced education and universities was abolished, new universities were formed and the gates were opened for massive increases in student numbers. My own electorate was one of the great beneficiaries. Local colleges like the one in Macarthur joined with those in Hawkesbury, Nepean and Milperra to become what is now known as Western Sydney University, and HECS was introduced. The basis for HECS was simple: students would pay tuition fees only when they earned a decent salary. Whitlam and Dawkins' policies are not as far apart as you may think, for at their core they were taking away the need for people to have money to attend university.

The bill being debated today continues the work of Labor's commitments to education policies that provide opportunities for everyone. Announced in November last year, the Universities Accord is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to review Australia's higher education sector and to transform it so that it works for 21st-century Australia. It has brought together Australians from a broad range of areas: universities, business and public policies. Much like Labor governments before, the Albanese government is committed to ensuring higher education is not just for those who can afford or access it, and this is what the accord seeks to do. Today's bill acts on the interim report of the Australian Universities Accord panel released recently. The report lists five actions as a matter of priority: (1) that we create more university study hubs in both our regions and outer suburbs, (2) that we scrap the 50 per cent pass rule, (3) that we extend the demand-driven funding provided to Indigenous students—I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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