Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

She is amazing! She used to work for the assistant minister at the bench here. But her story is one that reflects a lot of people in Australia and one that we want to encourage, regardless of age.

Mum was in her late 40s when she first enrolled to go to university. She'd always dreamed she could go to university, and, when her youngest child finished high school, she said, 'It's my turn.' She did undergraduate, honours and then her PhD. Then she moved to Canberra to start working. She continued to work and research in the sector, and that is where she is today. She's overseas at the moment speaking at a conference. That's how her career has progressed. That story should be the opportunity for every Australian, but what we're seeing is more and more people from a working-class background or people who are first in family not enrolling to go to university. You have to ask: why? That's what the interim report seeks to highlight.

The lack of student support services is one issue. Cost is becoming another issue. We've also seen mentioned in the interim report that workforce shortages are a crucial issue. The lack of forward planning in relation to jobs and skills is a concern. The report also says:

Australia's research excellence is well known, but it is built on uncertain financial foundations. These threaten Australia's sovereign capability and cause us to miss opportunities to adapt, develop and localise knowledge to the benefit of industry, communities and the wider economy.

That's part of our challenge here. If we keep saying we want to be a skilled nation, a nation that builds things and a nation that is at the forefront of thinking, we need strong research universities. We need a situation where we're not always demanding an immediate outcome but allowing time to think, to work through and to research, as they say.

The interim report also talks about:

While the importance of lifelong learning has been well understood for some time, our system needs to be better at providing a more flexible and adaptive approach to learning.

By that I don't believe that they just mean 'go online'. It shouldn't just be about 100 per cent online. I acknowledge that that works for some students. Doing the night class online and being able to do lectures at a time that works for them could suit some students who might be upskilling, who might have a family or who might want that work-life balance, but it doesn't work for everybody—particularly for students who might be from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly for students who might need that extra support and particularly, too, for students who learn through engaging, through interacting and through being able to discuss, debate and test ideas with their peers. They learn from being able to do lab experiments with their peers and from being able to do that hands-on learning. That is why we need to have a really good look at higher education.

I mentioned cost a moment ago. I think this is an issue that we really need to look at in this country, and I'm hoping that in the final report we start to see some recommendations about the fair cost of a higher education degree. I don't agree with the Greens when they say, 'Just make it free for everybody.' I believe that all Australians see that there is some contribution that they should be making towards their higher education, but for many students it's become quite unaffordable. Well into their 40s and 50s, they are still paying off a debt to our government in terms of their higher education. I believe that we've stepped quite a way from the original idea about what HECS was and what was first envisaged by Dawkins and by Hawke when it was introduced many years ago.

I have some sympathy for people who are saying, 'My debt is increasing with CPI.' We need to look at the impact that their HECS-HELP debt is having on other aspects later in their life. We have to be really conscious that young people today going to university are making a decision—whether it's informed or not informed and whether it's right or not—of: 'Do I buy a home, or do I get a university degree?' because the cost of both is quite high. When you're going for a loan, the bank asks you, 'Do you have a HECS-HELP debt you have to pay back to the government?' At this point as well is where we start to talk about HECS. We have to have a really honest conversation about who pays it back, how much gets paid back and the proportion of women who actually pay back their HECS debt. Believe it or not, 30 per cent of women will never pay back their HECS debt to the Commonwealth, because of the jobs they have, the interrupted wages they earn when they take time off to care for young children or for elderly relatives and the fact that some, like my mum, started university late in life and have shorter careers. The fact is that we have such a high proportion of women who will never pay back their HECS debt. It's not income the government will get, and I think that's where we have to have a really honest conversation about the debt we expect people to pay back. What is the contribution we do seek students to pay?

I also do believe we need to be more targeted. We need to have a really honest conversation about the skills and the kinds of work we're looking for. Another criticism that came up in the interim report did focus on the Job-ready Graduates changes, saying that funding and finance arrangements risked damage to the sector if left unaddressed, and I think that's a really important point. The interim report is saying not only that we are falling behind and don't quite have the structure or the vision for higher education we need for the future but that further damage was done to an already vulnerable sector by decisions made by the previous government.

We all know the stats. We all know what skills we need going forward. The analysis prepared by the BIS Oxford Economics review suggested that, by 2050, approximately 55 per cent of all jobs will require higher education qualifications, yet to meet this need we don't have the system in place. To meet this demand we need to grow the sector significantly, making sure we've got not just the capital infrastructure but the places and the support services required to get the skills and the workers we need. Skilled migration absolutely will always be part of our Australian make-up, but we can't rely solely on skilled migration to fill all the skills gaps we need. We should be giving an opportunity to everybody in Australia who wants to have access to higher education.

That is why I support the measures in this bill. Ceasing the 50 per cent pass rule will give students an opportunity, if they have had a tough year, to keep studying. They may have a better year the year after. Extending the demand-driven funding for metropolitan First Nations students, not just for remote and rural students, will give every First Nations student the opportunity to study. Given we know an Indigenous man is more likely to end up in jail than to have a university degree, this measure should be noncontroversial for everybody in this place. Let's encourage every First Nations Australian to access higher education if they choose to do so. The ones in my part of the world are studying degrees that will lead them straight back to their community. They're studying to be nurses. They're studying to be teachers. They're studying criminology. They're studying courses where they want to gain the skills to work back in their community, and it's not just them. This is the same for migrant communities and the same for many people who are first in their family to be studying, most of whom pick a career course that will lead them back to their communities to help, whether it be social work or nursing, just to name a few.

These measures before us are just two of the many things we need to do to get higher education in our country back on track. Our government are ready and willing and want to see the final report because I do believe we have the right team in place to bring about the big reforms needed. It's long overdue. The idea that we can keep cutting, sticking and gluing back together higher education just isn't working. The sector is in trouble. We need to act. It starts from the foundation of what kind of higher education system we want in Australia. What is its purpose? Where should we go? We need well-funded research that's supported. We need good university degrees and opportunities for all students, regardless of their postcode, to access. We need to make sure that the staff, the teachers and the support staff working in that sector have that continuity of employment that they so deserve.

See this speech in context