Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Our higher education sector is in crisis. Corporatisation and a dangerous, generational neoliberal agenda have hollowed out our universities. I say 'generational' as one who, gratefully, started their studies at UQ, the University of Queensland, in my electorate, courtesy of free education in 1974. I still have an association with that university. I'm still an adjunct professor there. I've actually lived this history that we're talking about today. The crisis in tertiary education has sort of tracked that generational time span, and I believe it's clearly for the worse. Casualisation, wage theft and job cuts are absolutely rife in the sector. These are actual truths and are to the clear detriment of the most important people involved in the sector—the teachers, the researchers, the students and, indeed, the future of Australia.

I saw some wonderful, young schoolkids up in the gallery just before. I want them to have the same opportunities that my generation had, and that is clearly not the case at the moment. The cost of degrees is spiralling, and the government has let four years pass with no action at all to repeal the disastrous Job-ready Graduates Package, which Labor's own accord said required 'urgent remediation'. The creation of a truly independent tertiary education commission, a core recommendation of that universities accord, would create the opportunity to reform our higher education sector for the better so that our universities can actually return to their core purpose of high quality, accessible public education and research.

The Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025, unfortunately, does not represent that vision. The model put forward by the government is essentially setting up an extension of the Department of Education without adequate powers to instigate their own research or recommendations or to act independently. The actual sector has been very clear in their criticism of this bill. Universities Australia has said that, as currently drafted, the bill does not deliver on aspirations for an independent body to design and drive the longer term reform that is absolutely, desperately required. Their view, which has been echoed by a number of stakeholders, is that the bill should not be passed in its current form.

Amendments are required to ensure that the ATEC is sufficiently independent and sufficiently resourced to deliver the reform that is required. Students, staff and university leadership have been clear that the most urgent issue facing the sector is the failure to reform Job-ready Graduates, a disastrous package that has sent student debt skyrocketing and has hollowed out public funding for universities. Everyone bar the Albanese Labor government has been unanimous in their calls for JRG to be repealed. The government kicked the can down the road for years while we waited for the accord process to conclude, and now they are kicking that can further down that long road.

It appears that it will be years before we see the end of $50,000 arts degrees. Indeed, with an ATEC beholden to the minister, we may never see it at all. How does that advantage university students and the whole sector? The Albanese Labor government could repeal the Job-ready Graduates fee hikes and funding cuts today. They could do that today. They could live up to the promise of the universities accord by establishing a truly independent ATEC that is able to fulfil the role of stewarding a struggling but absolutely crucial sector. Given the flaws with this bill and the inexcusable delay to reforming Job-ready Graduates, the Greens will be abstaining in the House, and we'll be reserving our position in the Senate. It is abundantly clear that this bill needs comprehensive amendments to make it fit for purpose.

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