Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my first speech in this place, I shared how I am forever grateful for the education, the keys to the kingdom, that I received and acknowledged that education changes lives. It changed mine, and it does so for many Australians in our communities. The words I shared in 2022—that I'm passionate about ensuring we have a robust higher education system that values intellectual curiosity and supports people to think, to experiment and to create new ideas, systems and solutions—are beliefs that I still hold, and I'm very pleased to support the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025. The Labor Party is the party of education, and the Albanese Labor government has invested in education ever since it was first elected. Whether that be through cutting student debt by 20 per cent while making the indexation system fairer, establishing a Commonwealth-paid prac system so students can get paid on placements, establishing a student ombudsman or making free TAFE permanent, we are absolutely committed to making sure that every Australian has the opportunity to pursue a great education in this country.

This bill to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, was a key recommendation of the Australian Universities Accord, and this furthers our pursuit of opening the doors of opportunity to every Australian so that their lives can be changed for the better via education. Harnessing the potential of education while creating a better and fairer tertiary education system that delivers for students and on Australia's skills needs now and into the future is absolutely one of our government's priorities, and I know how important the higher education system is to my electorate.

When the accord process was first implemented, I undertook a survey in my electorate and received hundreds and hundreds of responses about the kinds of changes people wanted to see. I made a submission to the accord on behalf of my electorate of Chisholm. I'm really pleased to see that we are continuing our work as a government to implement the recommendations from the accord reports. It is really critical that we have an education system that works for everyone. This is no matter where their postcode or income are set, because not only are we the land of the fair go but that's what the accord told us we will need to do to make sure that our country is set up for the years ahead.

We know that more jobs are going to require more skills. At the moment, 60 per cent of Australians working today have a certificate or a diploma or degree. We know—the data tells us—that by 2050 that level will need to increase to about 80 per cent, so there is some work to do. That is a significant increase. Governments must prepare and be ready to capitalise on this endeavour. It means we need to have more people at TAFE, more people at universities, like Deakin and Monash in my electorate and local area, and more opportunities for Australians to harness the potential of higher education through a fairer system.

It will be the job of the ATEC to help drive and steer this growth so that it is grounded both on fairness and to harness the skills our nation needs. This is all building on our government's mission—no-one held back, no-one left behind. It will draft compacts with individual universities. The ATEC will help improve policy, administration and coordination of the sector, and get the sector to work more like a system and will get the vocational education system and higher education system to work more closely together. When I speak to academics, vice-chancellors and students, I know that what they really want to see is a closer engagement between the vocational education system and the higher education university system.

The ATEC will provide expert, independent advice, which will help drive real and lasting reform. Like Jobs and Skills Australia, it will be independent and report directly to ministers. The ATEC will be guided by a ministerial statement of expectations. The key performance indicators for the ATEC will be established in consultation with the minister. It will publish its work plan, so that will be transparent. It will provide advice to government and publish reports. It will be able to undertake its own research. Staff will be directed by the ATEC commissioners, governed by a service-level agreement with the Department of Education. Its operations, really importantly, and as I've just mentioned, will be transparent. It will be required to consult.

Before entering this place, I worked as an academic, so I can see the absolute benefits that will come about through establishing the ATEC. An independent review of the ATEC—its role, its functions and its operations—critically, is also built in after two years and after five years, again to aid transparency. These reviews will be tabled in the House and the Senate to ensure the foundation of our higher education system is continually built on the principles of equity and participation. There will be real accountability there. It will be led by three commissioners: a full-time chief commissioner, a full-time First Nations commissioner and a part-time commissioner. Collectively, they will be required to have expertise in the university education sector and in vocational education and training. The First Nations commissioner must be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person with significant understanding of issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The ATEC will have its own decision-making powers and will take on responsibility for new mission based compacts with individual universities, setting out the number of domestic and international students in line with the government's strategic direction. It will take over responsibility for the higher education standards framework from the current Higher Education Standards Panel and provide advice on it to the Minister for Education and the sector regulator.

The Minister for Education and the Minister for Skills and Training will also be able to request advice from ATEC on a range of matters, so our future reforms and decisions take the sector with us. It will include the cost of teaching and learning in higher education and overall higher education funding amounts, including on a per student basis; student demand, skills demand and the capability of the system's ability to meet Australia's workforce needs; the strategic direction, governance, size and diversity of the higher education system; and the financial sustainability of higher education providers—and that includes not just universities but other non-university higher education providers. They'll be able to provide advice around ways to improve coordination and collaboration between the vocational and higher education university systems, and how to improve access, participation and outcomes for people facing systemic barriers to education, including Indigenous Australians, Australians with disability, Australians from a low socioeconomic background and Australians living in the regions and in the bush.

A key part of ATEC is that it will also be required to produce and publish a 'state of the tertiary education system' report every year, with the first report to cover the period starting from 1 January 2026. The report will set out current and emerging trends and issues, and system level changes needed to meet these challenges; progress on tertiary participation and attainment targets; the extent to which the higher education system is meeting Australia's current and future student skills and knowledge demands; and how well we are doing in breaking down the barriers between vocational education and university education, and breaking down the systemic barriers faced by Australians from disadvantaged backgrounds. ATEC will also publish a work plan and statement of its strategic priorities for the tertiary education system every two years, starting from 1 January 2027.

ATEC, together with this reporting mechanism, will ensure there are enough places at universities to allow more people to access the opportunities that we know higher education can deliver. That equitable approach has deep bipartisan roots in the parliament. The first Universities Commission was established in 1943 by the Curtin Labor government, and over the four following decades that commission and its successors oversaw significant reform of our higher education system. It is important to remember that John Curtin may have started this but Sir Robert Menzies continued it, and in 1959 his government introduced the Australian Universities Commission Act, which, for the first time, embedded the commission under its own standalone legislation. That was a key moment in the history of higher education, and Labor supported Menzies in this pursuit. We have a similar opportunity in front of us now to have genuine cross-parliamentary support for the bills before the House to build the foundations that set us up for the future, for a higher education system that works for everyone.

I acknowledge and thank the Minister for Education, Jason Clare; the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles; the Assistant Minister for International Education, Julian Hill; and the former Minister for Skills and Training, the Hon. Brendan O'Connor, for all their efforts. I also acknowledge and thank university vice-chancellors; peak bodies, including Universities Australia; state and territory ministers; the Department of Education; and the Accord Implementation Advisory Committee for this cohesive approach, and the National Tertiary Education Union for their engagement. I especially thank the interim commissioners of ATEC—Mary O'Kane, Larissa Behrendt and Barney Glover. The ATEC was a headline recommendation of the accord, and now we have the opportunity to turn those words into reality.

I'll end on this note: if we're not here to make life better and fairer for the next generation, and the generation after that, and the generation after that, then why are we even here at all? This is an opportunity to build something that our country can be really proud of and will set us up not just for now but for generations into the future. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

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