Anne Urquhart (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier today we passed the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. I am from regional Tasmania, and I want to speak today about how the Albanese Labor government is working with and supporting regional Australia through university study hubs, just one of the many areas we are developing to support regional Australia.

On 17 July I officially opened Study King Island in Currie. It was one of 12 new regional university study hubs across Australia announced as part of cohort 4 in 2024 and is one of three hubs in Tasmania, all in regional areas, funded through the Australian government's Regional University Study Hubs program.

The support that this hub provides makes it possible for students to remain in their local community while undertaking further studies. The hub supports students to study online courses at any territory provider throughout Australia. The hub is a game changer for students on King Island to get a degree and get ahead in their careers while staying on the island close to home with their friends, family and community. Already the hub is supporting 10 students, and it was only opened a couple of weeks ago. There is more work being done to encourage more students.

Facilities available at the hub include computers, high-speed internet and breakout spaces as well as academic skills and administrative support. Currently, only 22 per cent of young people on King Island have a bachelor's degree or higher. We know that university participation goes up where university study hubs are established. Study King Island is a prime example of how our study hubs can help regional and remote students achieve academic success in tertiary education. It is operated by West Coast Heritage. It also built on the success of the existing hub, Study Hub West Coast. They are operating two sites, in Smithton and in Zeehan. Study Hub West Coast has supported over 330 students since opening, and they are all in regional Tasmania.

The Regional University Study Hubs program takes an innovative approach to improving access to tertiary education for regional and remote students. The program aims to improve and support diversity and equity of access and participation and to help students achieve their academic goals without having to leave their community. The program is community embedded, with communities like King Island leading the design, development and operation of each hub to ensure that they meet the needs of the local community. The most popular courses among students at regional university study hubs are in areas such as health, at 34 per cent, and education, at 17 per cent. Those are two lots of skills that we desperately need to have in regional Australia.

The expansion of the Regional University Study Hubs program is helping to remove barriers and allowing for students to access high-quality tertiary education. Priority action 1 of the Australian Universities Accord interim report is to extend visible local access to tertiary education by creating additional regional university study hubs and establish a similar concept for suburban metropolitan locations. In response, the Australian government is investing $66.9 million to more than double the number of university study hubs across the country in outer suburbs and in our regions.

The government has committed to a target recommended by the Australian Universities Accord for 80 per cent of the working-age population to have a tertiary level qualification by 2050. Initiatives like the Regional University Study Hubs can play an important role in reaching that target and assisting particularly our regional students—and a number of those are mature-age students—to access university study within their areas so that they don't have to go further away. The university study hubs open up the doors of opportunity for young people to get an education that's closer to home.

I'll have a lot more to say on regional Australia at the next opportunity, because there is a whole lot more to say about how we are assisting regional Australia through many, many various ways and means. A number of the previous speakers on this side have spoken about how we are assisting with that, but I wanted to focus on the university study hubs and education as a result of cutting the student debt bill that we have passed today.

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