Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. At its centre, this bill is about whether a kid growing up outside capital cities can look at university, TAFE or any form of tertiary education and see a real path rather than a distant idea. It is about whether a young person in a country town or a regional community or a family without much spare money gets told that this door is open to them.

I grew up spending time in Dungog and Merriwa in New South Wales. I spent time visiting family in Auburn in South Australia and Woy Woy on the Central Coast. Those places shape the way you see education, opportunity and distance, because, in country towns, distance is not just kilometres on a map. Distance is cost. It is accommodation. It is transport. It is leaving family. It is leaving work. It is moving away from the people you know. It is trying to work out whether you belong in a lecture theatre when no-one in your immediate circle has done it before. Those communities are not short of ambition. They are not short of capable students, practical intelligence or people who work hard. What they are often short of is access—access to campuses, access to advice, access to financial support and access to someone saying early enough and clearly enough that tertiary education is a realistic option.

There is a phrase that often gets used: you cannot be what you cannot see, and there is truth in that. When a young person grows up seeing people around them go to university, apply for apprenticeships, finish diplomas, start careers, retrain and move between industries, their sense of what is possible grows. When they do not see it, that path can feel like it belongs to someone else. That is not about ability; it is about visibility. It is about confidence. It is about whether a system has been built with you in mind. Too often, it is not. This bill helps change that.

The Australian Universities Accord sets out a long-term plan for what Australia needs from its tertiary education system over the next decade and the decade after that. One of the central conclusions is clear: Australia will need more people with qualifications, certificates, diplomas and degrees. It says we will need around 80 per cent of the workforce to have a tertiary education over the coming decades. That means more people at TAFE. It means more people at university. It means more people getting skills for the jobs our economy will require. But we cannot reach that goal by relying only on the same students from the same suburbs going to the same institutions through the same pathways.

If Australia needs more skilled workers, then Australia must widen the pool of people who can get those skills. That is the logic behind this bill. The Albanese Labor government has already implemented more than 30 of the accord's 47 recommendations in full or in part. We have made HECS fairer, introduced paid prac, expanded study hubs, increased bridging courses, created the National Student Ombudsman, strengthened protections against gender based violence, opened demand driven places for First Nations students and established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission.

This bill is the next step. It provides a new managed growth funding system. In plain English, that means we're moving to a system where growth in university places is planned and funded more sensibly. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission will have a formal role in allocating Commonwealth supported places. That is important because the system should not rely on drift, guesswork or a contest where universities chase enrolments without the Commonwealth funding being properly aligned.

The bill also establishes demand driven, needs based funding. That phrase sounds technical, but the idea is straightforward: if a university enrols more students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, more First Nations students or more students studying at regional campuses, it will receive extra support to help those students participate and succeed. That funding can go to tutoring. It can go to mentoring. It can go to academic support. It can go to scholarships and grants. It can help meet the higher cost of operating campuses outside the major cities.

In this bill, the base equity amount is $1,535 and the base regional amount is $1,398. Those amounts are more than double what some previous programs involved, but the real point is not a figure in isolation. The real point is what it lets universities do. It lets a university notice when a student is struggling and intervene earlier. It lets a regional campus provide support that would otherwise be stretched too thin. It helps make success part of the funding design, not an afterthought.

For students from country areas, the obstacles do not end when they receive an offer. In some ways, that is when the real test starts. There is the cost of moving. There is the cost of staying. There is the pressure to work long hours. There is the pressure of being away from home. There is the feeling, sometimes unspoken, that university is a place built for someone else. It can determine whether a student asks for help or stays silent. It can determine whether they keep going after the first failed assessment. It can determine whether they feel like they have the right to be there. This bill says that participation and success are both part of the job. I know the value of this personally. I was the second person on one side of my family to go to university. That is not said as a complaint; it is said because it gives me a clear view of what opportunity can do when a door opens at the right time.

My own pathway was not a straight one. I went to TAFE in Maitland to get into university. I later did a pre-apprenticeship in South Metropolitan TAFE in Beaconsfield before starting my electrical apprenticeship. Years later I went to Murdoch University to study law. None of those steps were inevitable. Each one gave me a rung on the ladder. Each one gave me the chance to build a life, develop skills, change direction and contribute in a different way. I would not be who I am today without that opportunity, and that is why I do not see TAFE and university as competing ideas. I see them as part of the same ladder. For some people, the first rung is a bridging course. For others it is a certificate. For others it is an apprenticeship, a diploma, a degree and a second chance later in life.

Good policy keeps the ladder in place; great policy makes sure more people can reach the first rung. That is why I'm less interested in reciting every number in the legislation and more interested in what those numbers mean when they land in a family living room in a regional town. They mean a student in Merriwa does not have to see university as something for other people. They mean a student in Dungog who has the ability, drive and curiosity has a better chance of finding a pathway. They mean a young person on the Central Coast, in country South Australia or in any regional community should not have to overcome the system before they even begin their course. And they mean that Australia get the nurses, teachers, engineers, electricians, social workers, accountants, scientists and skilled workers that we will need.

I often speak about my trade training and TAFE because that is part of my story. I became an electrician. I know the value of a trade, and I know that university is not the only path to a good life, and it should never be treated as the only respectable path. A good tertiary system is not university versus TAFE. It is not degree versus trade. It is about building a system where people can get the skills that suit them and where those pathways are respected.

The bill also effectively uncaps the number of places for students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and regional areas through the new managed growth arrangements. The ATEC will be able to allocate additional places where they are needed. If the demand from those students exceeds the allocation pool, the ATEC can seek an increase. When a student has the marks, the ability and the determination, the system should be able to respond.

This bill is also about stewardship. That is not always an exciting word, but it is a necessary one. For too long, parts of the higher education policy have been pulled towards short term politics, institutional competition and funding settings that do not always meet national needs. The ATEC is intended to provide a more coherent view across the sector, including through mission based compacts.

When the Commonwealth invests in higher education, it should know what we are trying to achieve: more teachers, more nurses, more workers in areas of national demand, stronger research, viable regional campuses and better pathways for students who have been locked out. This bill also contains provisions about international student places and modernises information-sharing between the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, and the ATEC. Those provisions are important for administration and oversight. The machinery needs to work even if the machinery provisions rarely stir the soul.

For a young person in a regional town, a single closed door can be enough to stop them. The family cannot afford rent in the city. The student cannot afford to stop working. The campus is too far away. The course feels out of reach. The paperwork is confusing. The student starts but falls behind and the support is not there. Each of these barriers can look small from Canberra. They do not look small when you are the one facing them. The purpose of government is not to pretend those barriers do not exist; it is to remove as many of them as we reasonably can. That is why this bill is important; it funds growth in a managed way and attaches additional support to the students and the campuses that need it most.

For the electorate of Moore, this reform also has a local significance. We have the Joondalup Learning Precinct with Edith Cowan University, North Metropolitan TAFE and the Western Australia Police Academy. We know the value of education precincts that connect skills, training, employment and community. But this is not only about Moore; it is about the national interest. Australia cannot afford to waste talent because of postcode, family income or background. We cannot tell regional kids to dream big then build a system that makes those dreams too expensive, too distant and too fragile. We need the child in the country school to know that university is possible. We need the apprentice to know that further study is possible. We need the single parent returning to study to know that support exists. We need First Nations students who earn a place to know the place will be there. We need regional campus to know that its higher operating costs are recognised and not ignored.

This bill does not solve every problem in higher education—no single bill does, and anyone who claims otherwise either has not read enough legislation or has read far too much of their own press release—but it does make real structural change. It moves us towards a system where growth is planned, funding follows need and opportunity is not rationed by geography. I support this bill because it reflects a principle Labor should always defend—talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. Government has a responsibility to narrow that gap. The child growing up in Dungog, Merriwa, Auburn, Woy Woy, Joondalup or anywhere else in Australia should be able to see a path forward. They should be able to pursue a trade, a diploma, a degree or a change in career without the system quietly telling them that ambition is reserved for someone else.

I got chances because education and training opened doors for me. I will do everything I can to make sure more people get the same chance and bring more people up the ladder of opportunity that this bill helps build. It says that if you have the ability and determination, the country should back you. That is good education policy, it is good economic policy and, most importantly, it is the kind of country we should be building. I commend the bill to the House.

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