Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am speaking in continuation, having first got up to address this issue on the 14th of last month and being interrupted after only a short time by the adjournment debate. We know that the purpose of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 is to amend three acts: the Higher Education Support Act 2003, the Higher Education Funding Act 1988 and the Australian Research Council Act 2001. Among other things, this bill will provide new funding to cover the COAG Health Workforce and mental health package, which includes about 2,000 new places for students commencing studies in medicine, nursing, mental health and clinical psychology. It will also provide $6.2 billion over three years, which Labor supports, as it is so desperately needed given the skills shortage that the government has created.

The bill will increase the FEE-HELP limit—and this is an issue which I addressed in my short contribution on the 14th of last month—to $100,000 for medical, dental and veterinary science students and to $80,000 for other degrees. Currently, it has been capped at $50,000. The effect of this change is to increase the debt available to students. The reason the government is making this change is apparent; it is because of the spiralling cost of full-fee degrees. As I mentioned last time, more than 100 full-time degrees at various Australian universities now cost more than $100,000—even after the infamous promise of 1999, which we all recall, when the Prime Minister said:

There will be no $100,000 university fees under this government.

But, broken promises aside, the fact is that the government’s proposed increases to the FEE-HELP available to students taking these outlandishly expensive degrees are still not enough. Increased funding for higher education and the additional places for students wishing to study medicine, nursing and mental health are things that Labor supports. However, we have to condemn the complete gutting of Australian universities that this government has presided over and the standard of education that it is able to provide Australian students.

Whilst there is a great deal of concern about falling standards as a result of the pressure upon universities and the availability of courses, particularly in regional universities, there have been some bright spots, and we need to recognise them. Not the least of them is the recording, as a result of a global academic ranking published in London, of the ANU as the best university in the country. The ANU came out top of the Australian institutions and was 16th overall in the latest annual survey of the world’s universities by the Times Higher Education Supplement. This is something that we need to commend. We also need to recognise other Australian universities, including the University of Melbourne, which was in 22nd place. The University of Sydney was also involved, as was the University of New South Wales. Macquarie University finished, I think, 82nd. But they disguise what is happening on the ground in most parts of Australia. It is for this reason that I strongly endorse the second reading amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga.

I can scarcely imagine an area where this government has been so poor and so appallingly bad in the development of public policy than higher education. It is clear that the government does not have a commitment to it and that it does not know how to deal with it properly to ensure that all Australians will have fair and reasonable access to higher education services. We need just to look at the standards that are being applied. We need to be clear about one thing: I do not want to talk down, nor would I, the work being done by our tertiary institutions, the lecturers and the administrators. Given the circumstances they have been placed in by this government’s record since 1996, they confront a very difficult world. By and large, they are working assiduously and, as far as they possibly can, doing a great job. But we know that there is a belief that the quality of our university degrees is declining. It was acknowledged by one of the government’s own working groups in June this year, the Asian working group appointed to advise the PM’s Science and Innovation Council. Whether or not this is an actual decline, the perception is there. It means that our universities will have increasing difficulty over time in attracting foreign students.

What we now know is that, under the Howard administration, we have much higher staff-student ratios. Class sizes have increased massively. The result is that the student-to-staff ratios have gone from 15.6 to one in 1991, when the government came to power, to 20.7 to one in 2004. No doubt they are higher as we speak. There has been a reduction in tutorials, which are so important for developing in students the ability to debate and to participate and engage in discussion. I recall my own days at university. It was a long time ago, no doubt; nevertheless, what was good about them, what was one of the most pleasing aspects of them, was the discourse, dialogue and argument that took place during the tutorial discussions. I am sorry if it is the case that universities are now in the position of being unable to provide tutorial services or of having to provide them on a limited basis. We know that there are more online courses, which is a great teaching innovation, especially for distance education—and a thing which is particularly important in a vast electorate such as Lingiari—but overreliance on these reduces the level of interface between the student and the lecturer, and is a point which I think we need to mention.

I had cause to discuss this matter only the other day with a colleague of mine in the Northern Territory whose partner is doing a Masters of Business Administration at Charles Darwin University. He had enrolled in courses fully expecting those courses to be offered and then discovered that two of the courses—and he had taken leave and was paying for this himself—which he had been enrolled in and which were offered by the university were no longer being provided. He was forced to take one of them online through James Cook University. That is just not acceptable. While we acknowledge the important work that James Cook University does, what we need to comprehend here is that it is unacceptable in a regional area like the Northern Territory when you commit yourself to doing further education—in this case, a masters—go to the university and are offered the opportunity to do a course and register for the course only to find that they do not have staff to teach it. This set of circumstances should not be allowed to prevail.

The higher education sector is suffering from overregulation. Universities are having to account for student patterns months in advance and are being penalised in funding when they get it wrong. We also know that universities are being underfunded. The OECD put out figures last month in its report Education at a glance 2006. This 454-page report—an in-depth analysis of education systems across the developed world—delivered a damning indictment of the state of higher education under the Howard government. Australia is the only developed country to have reduced investment in TAFEs and universities between 1995 and 2003. According to the OECD, investment in these areas declined by seven per cent.

In contrast, other countries increased their investment in higher education by an average of 48 per cent: in the US, it was 67 per cent; in Canada, 37 per cent; in Japan, 32 per cent; and in Switzerland, 74 per cent. At the same time, HECS fees have been spiralling ever upwards. Australian university students now pay the second highest fees—behind only the United States—in the world. The Americanisation of Australia’s higher education system that the government has sought to introduce is happening. We need to comprehend what the negative impacts of that are on educational services being provided across this country.

The OECD’s report even goes so far as to put the blame for this on the Howard government:

... the main reason for the increase in the private share of spending on tertiary institutions between 1995 and 2003 was changes to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) that took place in 1997.

We are falling behind because of this government’s neglect. If we are to compete properly in a globalised world and achieve all we want for ourselves and for our children, then we need to compete on skills, education and innovation. The true extent of the government’s pathetic commitment to higher education was revealed in the funding information provided by the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee in February of last year. This document compares government funding of higher education between 1996 and 2003. According to these figures, the level of funding provided by the Commonwealth to universities in the form of Commonwealth government grants has remained constant in absolute terms. But it must be acknowledged that over this period total university operating expenses have increased by 36 per cent. In light of this, the funding provided by the Howard government represents a smaller and smaller percentage of the total revenue required by universities.

In 1996, Commonwealth grants made up 57 per cent of the total university revenue. In 2003, that proportion was 41 per cent. Over the same period, fees and charges have consistently increased. In 1996, universities made only 13 per cent of their revenue base by imposing fees and charges; by 2003, that figure had increased to 24 per cent. Universities have their hands tied in that regard; they have to impose these fees when the government is not bringing the money to them. The government allowed HECS debt to rise by 25 per cent. They have pretended that this was a choice made by universities, but what they really did was squeeze funding so that no university had a choice.

This reflects the Howard government’s user-pays ideology and the Americanisation of Australian universities. This obsession with driving Australia down the American path of higher education is tearing opportunities out of the reach of people in my electorate. It is worth noting that the number of Indigenous students in higher education dropped by six per cent last year. That was not the first year; that is the fourth year of decline in participation by Indigenous people in the higher education system. What does the government take from this? What has it done? What does it propose to do to address this situation?

There is an ever increasing feeling of frustration from not only students but also the community generally about this approach to the higher education system. Student debt is higher than it has ever been. According to Senate estimates figures provided by the Department of Education, Science and Training that have just emerged, students currently owe the government more than $13 billion. By 2008-09, this figure will have increased to $18.8 billion. The average outstanding debt is about $10,560, a seven per cent increase from last year. I saw an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 13 September entitled ‘Student debt $13 billion and rising’ where the Minister for Education, Science and Training tries to explain away these extraordinary increases in student debt by attributing it to the rising number of students. The article states:

... figures from her own department show that domestic student numbers rose by just 0.2 per cent from 2004 to 2005, while the accumulated HECS debt rose by nearly $2 billion.

You do not have to be a mathematician to work out that those figures just do not compute. The same article gives a general impression of the massive hike in fees, quoting average yearly fees for a number of key disciplines. Medicine is up from $17,658 in 1997 to $49,020 in 2006. Law is up from $11,772 in 1997 to $32,680. Engineering is up from $11,772 to $27,916. They are only some examples.

I have spoken time and time again in this place about what the government’s policies are doing to regional universities. When I reflect on comments I have made in previous debates on the various pieces of legislation which have passed through this place, it is clear to me that the situation is just getting worse. Over the past years Charles Darwin University has suffered massively at the hands of the Howard government. CDU caters to 17,665 students, according to 2005 statistics from the university. That is about 10 per cent of the total population of the Northern Territory. Of this number, 5,380 people are engaged in higher education and 12,285 are in VET programs.

The CDU has a very difficult task because it seeks to deliver higher education services to a relatively small and dispersed population. The demographic of the Northern Territory is far removed from the national average. The Northern Territory has one large population base in Darwin of around 100,000-plus people and a smaller population base in Alice Springs of close to 30,000. The remainder of the population lives in widely dispersed communities, from small to large, including towns like Katherine, Tennant Creek and Nhulunbuy et cetera. Providing outreach services to these students is extremely difficult. It requires resourcing. It is worth noting—and I have used these figures before in this place—that, since 1996, the Howard government has removed $6 million a year, or around $40 million to date, in recurrent funding from the CDU alone.

Under that set of circumstances, is it any wonder that the university is having difficulty in retaining staff? Is it any wonder that the number of units being offered by the university is being cut progressively? Is it any wonder that students are starting to feel frustrated by the inability of the university to provide them with courses which are offered in their handbook? Only last week I pointed to the situation that prevailed for one student doing a masters degree in business administration at Charles Darwin University.

Then there is the impact of the change to voluntary student unionism which has been brought about by this government. I note that in last weekend’s Sunday Age, dated 8 October, an article entitled ‘Jobs, services cut as union laws bite’ says that almost 300 staff working for student services in Victorian universities have lost their jobs and that free or subsidised services such as legal services, student advocacy and dentistry have been cut back.

There is a similar situation at the ANU here in Canberra. Without income from student amenities fees, funding for clubs and societies will be slashed from something in the order of $100,000 to about $20,000. That is a cut of more than 70 per cent. It is a similar situation at Charles Darwin University. We now know that the union is running out of savings. The seven staff which were employed have lost their jobs. The services which students need to access can no longer be accessed as a direct result of this government’s programs and the change to voluntary student unionism.

I commend the amendment moved in this chamber by the member for Jagajaga. The people of Australia deserve better from this government in relation to higher education. The Australian community wants better from this government for higher education. The Australian community knows that Labor will give them a better outcome for higher education. When it comes to the next election, there will be a clear choice for the Australian people on the question of higher education: do they believe in the proper and effective funding and higher education reform that Labor proposes or do they want to support John Howard? I know what they will choose. They will choose us. (Time expired)

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise today to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006. I note many of the comments made by the member for Lingiari and I certainly agree in particular with many of the comments made in relation to regional universities. Those of us living in regional areas know how important those universities are and how important it is for young people in regional areas to be able to access tertiary education. It is certainly an issue that I have raised in this House many times and will continue to raise. On so many counts, the Howard government leaves behind those in regional Australia. There is certainly a long list of things on which we have just been left behind. Without a doubt, access to tertiary education is one of those major issues.

The legislation that we are debating here tonight really does fail to address so many of those issues in tertiary education. It really does talk about so many issues that the Howard government has forgotten about in relation to higher education. I certainly support the amendment that was moved by the member for Jagajaga. I will list the points in that amendment. It says:

... the House condemns the Government for:

(1)

jeopardising Australia’s future prosperity by reducing public investment in tertiary education, as the rest of the world increases their investment;

(2)

failing to invest in education, training, distribution and retention measures to ensure that all of Australia has enough doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to meet current and future health care needs;

(3)

massively increasing the cost of HECS, forcing students to pay up to $30,000 more for their degree;

(4)

creating an American style higher education system, where students pay more and more, with some full fee degrees costing more than $200,000, and nearly 100 full fee degrees costing more than $100,000;

(5)

massively increasing the debt burden on students with total HELP debt—

that is, the Higher Education Loan Program debt—

now over $13 billion and projected to rise to $18.8 billion in 2009;

(6)   failing to address serious concerns about standards and quality in the higher education system, putting at risk Australia’s high educational reputation and fourth largest export industry; and

(7)   an inadequate and incoherent policy response to the needs of the university system to diversify, innovate and meet Australia’s higher education needs.

That amendment really does sum up how the Howard government has failed to invest adequately in our tertiary institutions. We have certainly heard many members speak in relation to this. This failure is really clear for all to see in the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2006. The rest of the OECD countries have increased their public investment in tertiary education by an average of 48 per cent. That is a huge amount. Australia is the only country in the developed world to see a decline of seven per cent in public investment.

I personally believe that it is just outrageous that we are seeing a decline in public investment in our tertiary education system. While the rest of the developed world is increasing public investment in higher education, what do we get from the Howard government? What are they are doing? This backwards-thinking government just slashes and decreases public investment. How does that make us look on the world stage when all other countries are increasing it? There we are, just slashing it. What does that say about the value we place upon tertiary education and Australians who want to access it?

This government has also cut $5 billion in grants to universities. I have spoken in this House before about how the universities have really been held to ransom over the Howard government’s extreme industrial relations laws. Universities are forced to rip off staff or they do not get their money. It really is a disgraceful situation. Australia as a country is being left behind as a result of the Howard government’s underfunding of our tertiary institutions.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this lack of investment is most keenly felt in our regional universities, particularly in the electorate of Richmond, which I represent. As I said, this government has abandoned the people of regional Australia in so many areas, but particularly when it comes to the areas of education and training. I strongly believe that regional students should not be disadvantaged just because they choose not to attend a metropolitan university or because they are unable to attend a metropolitan university for a variety of reasons, whether it is because they want to live and study within their community, where their family and friends are, or whether it is because they or their family do not have the resources for them to be able to travel to a metropolitan centre to study, with the added costs of having to move to a major city. The reality is that those students are being severely disadvantaged because of the policies of the Howard government.

In Richmond we are certainly very fortunate to have a campus of Southern Cross University based at Tweed Heads. We are also quite close to the Lismore campus of Southern Cross University, so many students in the electorate of Richmond travel to Lismore to access that university. In regional areas our universities are so much more than just an educational institution; they are indeed a part of the community. They are a major employer and they bring people into our area to live, study and work, and they provide a non-metrocentric option for our local youth to obtain a tertiary qualification. Better funding for our regional universities, like Southern Cross University, will of course inevitably lead to better resources and a better educational experience for all of our local students. Southern Cross University is very fortunate to have both an excellent management team and excellent staff. Of course, Southern Cross University, like all universities and particularly regional universities, is really suffering from years of underfunding by this government.

I quite regularly meet and speak with students from Southern Cross University on a whole variety of issues. I recently met with a group of social welfare students who told me how their university desperately needs many more funds. They are so concerned about the lack of funding for their university and how it impacts on their study lives and the people around them that they have actually formed their own action group and are quite committed to doing all that they can to see more funding for regional universities like Southern Cross. I commend the group of students, who are so committed to forming this action group and working really hard to get a better result for their university, but it is absolutely disgraceful that the students will have to concern and consume themselves with the funding issues because the Howard government has failed to invest in higher education. They have to spend all their time and concerns on this issue when they should be able to focus on their studies and plan for their future, but they are so distressed and concerned about what they can see happening to themselves and fellow students day by day that they have formed action groups such as this one.

I support amendment (3), condemning the government for massively increasing the cost of HECS and forcing students to pay up to $30,000 more for their degrees. The average HECS fee paid by Australian students has doubled under the Howard government. It really is a shameful record. The government should certainly be ashamed of that figure.

The HECS debt in the Richmond electorate area is almost $100 million—a huge amount. It is absolutely staggering that that amount will have to be repaid by students within Richmond. The OECD’s Education at a glance 2006 report shows that the Howard government’s HECS hikes mean that Australian university students are now paying the second highest fees in the world. That is a disgraceful record. Here we are at a time when Australia is facing a skills shortage, when there are not enough doctors, engineers and dentists, and yet prospective students are being actively discouraged from attending university because of the prospect of graduating with a huge HECS debt. The HECS debt is indeed a major burden to graduates, especially young graduates who are just starting out in their working career. Having that extra money coming out of their pay packet every week for HECS makes it so much harder for these new graduates to get ahead in life. It is a lot harder for them to buy a house, save money at all or be able to set themselves up in life.

I suspect that there are quite a few people in this House who have benefited from free tertiary education. Indeed, especially those from the Howard government side of the House could have afforded their fees up front when they were at university. HECS is a further debt for those who are less well-off in our society. This government is really moving to a position where only the very wealthy will be able to afford to go to university. I believe this government does not want an educated public. This government wants to reserve tertiary education for only the very wealthy. That is exactly where they are leading. On our side of the House we certainly believe that we should be relieving the HECS burden for our students, because that really is an important investment, not just in the students’ future but, indeed, in our nation’s future. That is the direction we should be going, not making it accessible for only the very wealthy. The HECS debt is just one of the many financial pressures felt by students. This issue certainly needs to be addressed.

On a recent visit to the Southern Cross University campus at Tweed Heads with the member for Jagajaga, many business students there told us how many of them were forced to work at least part time to be able to pay for their textbooks and fees. This government is not listening to students at all, particularly not on this issue. One of the key submissions from Southern Cross University to the government’s 2002 Higher Education at the Crossroads review was about the financial pressure felt by students. And, in their submission on the issues paper Striving for quality: learning, teaching and scholarship, Southern Cross University stated:

The University wishes to reiterate the need for income support for students … The University is also concerned that levels of debt for students should not be increased, as this will inevitably have a regressive impact on poorer students and their families.

It then, very importantly, goes on to state:

The University cannot support any proposals that would increase the existing financial burden on students.

I recently had a call from a student living in Byron Bay about the very poor support that this government provides to students. He was concerned because, he said, he could earn $70 more a fortnight on Newstart than on Austudy. I found that outrageous and I thought he had to be wrong, so I consulted the current A Guide to Australian Government Payments. It turns out he was wrong, because he would actually get $86.20 more a fortnight on Newstart than on Austudy. According to the Australian government payments booklet, the basic rate of Austudy is only $334.70 a fortnight, while Newstart is $420.90 per fortnight. So why give our students $86.20 a fortnight less? I am not being critical of the amount that people are getting on Newstart; the point I am making here is that we need to invest in our students. We need to make sure that their financial burdens are relieved, not increased. This is certainly a prime example of how tough they are doing it; that student in Byron Bay really highlighted that.

The current allowance really is an absolute pittance. So many local students tell me how impossible it is to survive, right across the board in their lives—how difficult it is. I had a student last week telling me that they virtually had to live on two-minute noodles whilst they were studying, as a result of not being able to afford to buy anything else. Now, I am not casting any aspersions on two-minute noodles but, for this particular student, having to consume not much more than that certainly made life very hard. I think that is a pretty outrageous situation.

Also, with textbooks in some subjects such as law costing as much as $300 per subject, a semester’s worth of textbooks can equate to almost two months worth of Austudy. That is a pretty large sum. So, even with students eating all those two-minute noodles, Austudy just does not stretch to cover buying the resources necessary to undertake a unit of study. I certainly do not mean to make light of this; I am just trying to say that so many students out there are doing it so tough all the time.

Of course, this situation does not improve much for mature-age or postgraduate students. When the member for Jagajaga and I met with the SCU students, one of the mature-age education students told us that she and her husband had to plan for years and years in advance to get ahead with their mortgage so that they could actually afford to go to university. If this is the situation that we are in now, if it is that difficult now for students, I really shudder to think what things might be like for our children and grandchildren in the future.

The financial pressure and the HECS hikes are an added threat to the educational prospects of the less wealthy in our country. In the last couple of years, there has been a decline in the number of Australian undergraduate places that are subsidised by HECS, and for the first time in 50 years there are fewer places available for HECS students. This side of the House has made it very clear that we will phase out full-fee places for Australian undergraduates at public universities. It has to be a basic tenet of any fair society that students gain access to higher education according to merit, not their financial means.

One of the measures in schedule 2 of this bill is to increase the FEE-HELP limit to $80,000 for most students and to $100,000 for medical, dental and veterinary science students. There are now almost 100 full-fee degrees in Australia costing more than $100,000. In reality, the increases in FEE-HELP are not sufficient to meet the real cost of these degrees. The Good Universities Guide 2007 tells us that a full-fee place in medicine-arts at the University of New South Wales costs $237,000; the same degree costs just over $219,000 at the University of Melbourne; medicine at Bond University costs $233,000; and medicine-law at Monash costs just a bit over $214,000. Of course, the average new mortgage these days is $222,000, so you can pay as much for your university degree as you do for your home. This really is an outrageous situation. It shows how the Howard government is Americanising our Australian university system. Certainly, federal Labor is committed to putting an end to that.

The cost of university, whether it be the HECS debt, the cost of living whilst studying or the full fee costs, really is often a deterrent to young people who want to go to university. This is having many negative consequences for the people of northern New South Wales, with one of the major ramifications for the area being youth unemployment. Currently, youth unemployment in Richmond is at 29.8 per cent, which is certainly a very high level. This figure is expected to rise as school leavers start looking for work, towards the end of the year. We need to make an investment in our children, to build a future for them and for our nation. We on this side of the House say we can address the skills crisis and the youth unemployment rate through training our young people. That is where our focus needs to be—on training those young people and providing a future for them. That is what is vitally important for our nation’s future and for our children’s future.

The amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga does highlight a lack of policy direction by the Howard government. But the future is certainly not all doom and gloom for our universities and for our students who desperately want to acquire a tertiary education, because we on this side of the House, federal Labor, are very serious about education and have a vision of the future for our nation and for our students. Federal Labor are designing very strong, practical measures to ensure our kids have access to affordable education and training choices.

Federal Labor’s plan includes proposals to stop the massive HECS fee increases, reduce the overall financial burden on students and provide HECS relief and extra university places for degrees in areas of skills shortage. This is an issue that I have spoken about before many times and that we all have: skills shortages throughout this country are massive and they seem to be getting worse day by day. Here we have all these impediments to people getting into university in our country, yet we are screaming out for more people with trade skills all the time. Again, those of us in regional areas, with those youth unemployment figures of about 30 per cent, need to see funds being directed to (1) alleviating that skills shortage and (2) providing a future for young people through training.

Federal Labor will support community outreach by universities, as we recognise that our universities are much more than providers of education. They are very important members of our local communities, as I said before in relation to Southern Cross University at Tweed Heads and Lismore. They do play an integral part in our community and we see throughout regional Australia what a vital role they play and how difficult and tough it is for them at the moment under the Howard government.

Under federal Labor’s funding scheme universities will be given regional loadings. Federal Labor will provide additional public money to our universities, and indeed all universities will be better off under a federal Labor government. Lifting our universities up is central to a Labor government’s economic agenda to build a prosperous future for all Australians. Federal Labor firmly believes in investing in higher education because higher education is the cornerstone of our nation’s social and economic prosperity. We need to see a lot more funding in that particular area to ensure our nation’s future.

As I have highlighted tonight, it is only federal Labor that is committed to providing that future. There are so many people out there, particularly in regional Australia, who desperately need to have a federal Labor government that can provide that future for their children and provide the necessary training that those kids need to be able to have a future. So many people I speak to are disillusioned and angry at the Howard government. They say that universities are not even on the radar for their kids because of the cost. It is an outrageous situation for a young person growing up in regional Australia that their families feel they cannot even access a university education at all.

Kelly Hoare (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 includes a multiple and disconnected series of amendments to the higher education legislation. Labor will support the bill. However, the shadow minister for education, training, science and research, the member for Jagajaga, Ms Macklin, moved the following amendment, which I would encourage all members to support:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House condemns the Government for:

(1)

jeopardising Australia’s future prosperity by reducing public investment in tertiary education, as the rest of the world increases their investment;

(2)

failing to invest in education, training, distribution and retention measures to ensure that all of Australia has enough doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to meet current and future health care needs;

(3)

massively increasing the cost of HECS, forcing students to pay up to $30,000 more for their degree;

(4)

creating an American style higher education system, where students pay more and more, with some full fee degrees costing more than $200,000, and nearly 100 full fee degrees costing more than $100,000;

(5)

massively increasing the debt burden on students with total HELP debt now over $13 billion and projected to rise to $18.8 billion in 2009;

(6)

failing to address serious concerns about standards and quality in the higher education system, putting at risk Australia’s high educational reputation and fourth largest export industry; and

(7)

an inadequate and incoherent policy response to the needs of the university system to diversify, innovate and meet Australia’s higher education needs”.

The Howard government has had an attack dog attitude to higher education since its election in 1996. With savage increases in university fees and HECS, the introduction of voluntary student unionism and funding cuts across the board, the Australian public knows that the further education and training of this country’s young people has not been an issue of priority for this government.

However, the government has at least in this bill of piecemeal legislative amendments included some positive news for Australia’s tertiary education system and our community. This bill seeks to address our critical skills shortage in medical and health services, a skills shortage which will only grow more acute as Australia’s population ages and our health as a nation deteriorates. This skills shortage is already biting in many hospitals and clinics throughout the country, with rural and regional areas particularly hard hit. There are hundreds of towns throughout Australia without a permanent medical service, forcing people to travel long distances or simply grin and bear their illnesses until a visiting doctor can make it to their town. This is an unacceptable state of affairs.

In the Charlton electorate there is a desperate need for more doctors and additional health professionals. Thanks to community campaigns, which I have been pleased to work with, we have seen additional doctors moving into the area and setting up practices, but for many towns and suburbs in my electorate such as Booragul, Blackalls Park and Morisset there is a continuing need for greater services. Urgent action is needed to address this and to ensure that the quality of Australia’s medical care, whether in the city or the bush, is not allowed to decline to the poor standards seen in other countries, where doctors and nurses are simply too overworked and too busy to give quality care to their patients. We therefore applaud the creation of nearly 1,900 more places in medical and nursing undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, which this bill will allow.

But while the government is taking a positive step in creating these new places, it is missing an opportunity to really show commitment to the development of Australia’s health services. If the government were to make all these places Commonwealth funded, as the Australian Medical Association has called for it to do, we would very quickly see a rise in the number of trained medical personnel available to fill the gaps in the workforce. The prohibitive cost of a medical or nursing degree means that only those with money to burn or those willing to get themselves deeply into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt can afford to undertake these degrees. This should not be the case. If the government possessed any vision at all on this issue, it would realize that medical and nursing students are gaining skills which are essential to the future of this country, skills we literally cannot live without. Is it reasonable then to ask these young people to pay either up-front or for the rest of their lives when their skills and training will be put to use for all of our benefit? The government’s initiative in adding these new places is at best a half measure in addressing the medical skills shortage. It seems that while they want to be seen to be addressing this problem they do not want to have to pay for it. Typically, they seem to think it is better to ask Australia’s young people and their families to pay the price.

This bill also addresses the issue of FEE-HELP loans by increasing the amount that students can borrow to $80,000 for general degrees and $100,000 for medical and nursing degrees. It seems very magnanimous of the government to increase the amount of money it is prepared to lend our poor, impoverished students. But hang on a minute: why would a student need to borrow $100,000 to fund their university education anyway? Didn’t John Howard promise us that there would be no $100,000 degrees under his leadership? Why then is the government seeking to amend the legislation to make such a sum of money available?

Sadly, the answer is obvious: the government are seeking this amendment because the Prime Minister’s promise was so much hot air—and they know it. They know that there are already degrees which cost upwards of $100,000, and in some cases even upwards of $200,000. They know that degrees like medicine and nursing can now cost as much as a small house, while even non-medical degrees routinely blow out over the $100,000 mark—for example, a combined law and communications degree at the University of Melbourne now costs $104,400; at the University of Technology in Sydney, a Bachelor of Arts combined with economics can set students back $107,640; heaven forbid if you want to round out your medical degree with studies in another field, because a combined Bachelor of Medicine and arts degree at the University of Melbourne currently costs $219,100; and, at Monash University, a combined medicine and law degree can run to $214,600.

The government probably already know what the OECD recently reported in its Education at a glance 2006 report—namely, that Australian students now pay the second highest university fees in the world, second only to the United States. In this regard, we can see that even the proposed amendments are pretty inadequate in meeting students’ borrowing needs. But that is not really the problem here. The problem is that when the Prime Minister speaks we should be able to trust what he says. When he commits to something as important as the continuing affordability of tertiary education for all those who want and need it, this should mean something. But, like so many other promises made by this government, the promise that students would never have to pay $100,000 for their university degrees has been shown to be an entirely empty one. This is as disappointing as it is unsurprising.

We should be concerned about these prices not just because they show the Prime Minister up for the liar that he is but because they will very likely cause a decline in the number of students attending university.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will withdraw that statement.

Kelly Hoare (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw it. This was the exact concern that Professor Ian Chubb, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, expressed in an interview with the Australian newspaper when he said:

There will come a point when you charge too much to too many people and a number of people won’t participate ... It’s a big debt to walk out of university with.

It certainly is a big debt. If you knew as a young person that the cost of your education was going to prevent you from owning a house, buying a car or even being able to afford to have and raise children until much later in life, would you still choose to pursue it? Of course not. Young people want the same things as people everywhere—the chance to own their own home and be self-reliant and financially secure. They should not have to choose between this and their education.

The Howard government has already diminished the standard of student life and lessened the student experience with its forceful introduction of voluntary student unionism, so I suppose we should be grateful that this current bill is not another slash and burn of students’ rights. The introduction of VSU was and is detrimental to the nature of university life, to the quality of vital services students receive and therefore to the kind of graduates our universities will produce in the future. Do we want our universities to produce mindless, spiritless drones—the kind of colourless individuals who have spent their three or five years dutifully memorising and then regurgitating tracts of information without ever participating in a sporting event, joining a rally or getting involved in something outside themselves and their career track? Perhaps this is exactly what the Howard government wants: generations of people who will step quietly and uncomplainingly from university into the workforce, plough away for 50 years and then retire, never having asked for anything, made a complaint or questioned the status quo. For this is what will happen now that VSU has sucked the life out of our university campuses and made them less like places of life learning and more like training institutions designed to turn out corporate automatons en masse.

But to return to the bill before the House, Labor believes that those provisions in the bill that will further skill the number of Australian medical and health professionals represent a long-term positive step forward in addressing Australia’s critical medical skills shortage and making more funds available to those valuable young people who are willing to hock their futures to pursue the kinds of skills and training this country desperately needs. Whilst not opposing this bill, there is much to be opposed to in the Howard government’s callous and mercenary approach to tertiary education in this country. The time will come when we need to do far more than fund extra loans and create extra fee-paying places to address the shortage of skilled and educated workers in this country, but it seems that this government simply lacks the vision to make more than these small changes. I urge all members to support the member for Jagajaga’s amendment.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have this chance to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 as it provides me with an opportunity to not only condemn the government for their failures in higher education but also espouse the nation-building approach to policy that we on this side of the House take in this very important area. On the Labor side, we are justifiably proud of our record on education and we are especially proud of our commitment to ensuring that all Australians have access to higher education if they so desire. It is Labor’s belief that higher education is the foundation of Australia’s social and economic prosperity. This is why my colleague the shadow minister for education recently released Labor’s policy white paper Australia’s universities: building our future in the world.

In stark contrast to the Howard government’s neglect in this area, Labor have released our proposals for much needed reform in this sector. It is our view that this government have failed Australian students and potential students. That is a great, big ‘F’ on the Howard government’s report card. The comments on that report card might read something like this: ‘While the government tries hard to impress with its commitment to education to all and sundry, the effort is often a case of too little too late. They have consistently chosen to ignore others except when it suits them, and even then it is only to bully and harass. Their refusal to properly index university grants leaves little to the imagination. All up, a very poor effort.’

Under this government, successive education ministers have tried to put their stamp on the sector in one way or another, each only managing to ensure that more and more Australian students miss out on the quality education that their parents were able to receive at a much better price. The bill currently before this House does have the support of Labor. It is a bill made up of a series of disconnected amendments to Australian higher education legislation. Some of the amendments within the bill arise from commitments made at the Council of Australian Governments. These commitments include long overdue funding for capital development, new medical places, new nursing places, new mental health nursing places and new clinical psychology places. Of course, these are very welcome announcements and ones that should have been made many years ago.

An article in the Australian on 28 September is yet another indication of this government’s policy failings in education and of its total lack of ability to plan for the future. The article discusses the 650,000 Australians who are currently languishing on waiting lists for publicly-funded dental care and says that the Australian Dental Association heavily criticised the government for failing to properly fund dental education. The article states that the ADA had:

... warned that young dentists were now unwilling to work in the public sector because they needed the higher pay offered by the private sector to cover their massive student debts.

That is very bad news for all those people in my electorate on those public dental waiting lists. This is mirrored in many other professions where graduates are being forced to go where the money is rather than stay in their local communities where their particular profession is needed the most. That means that they are deserting the regions in favour of lucrative private practices in the big cities. And who can blame them with this government’s massive increases in university fees and debt.

In that same article, the Australian pointed out that the ratio of dentists to population in regional areas is 33.6 per 100,000, while in the capital cities the figure is improved at 56.2 per 100,000. The figures are even worse in remote Australia, with just 22.9 dentists per 100,000 people. These failures are hurting the Australian people. In every electorate, especially regional and rural ones, there are huge numbers of constituents who cannot see a dentist or a medical specialist and in some cases they have to travel many miles from home to have a necessary procedure undertaken or to have their baby delivered. In many electorates, it is more like a Third World health service rather than a first-rate system that we as a prosperous nation should have in place.

I also point out that on top of the government’s failure to properly fund education, they have also forgotten about Indigenous Australians when it comes to higher education. The level of commencements of Indigenous students in higher education is at its lowest level in five years, having dropped by six per cent last year and by eight per cent over the past two years. This drop is being directly attributed to this government’s tightening of the eligibility requirements for Abstudy as well as the huge increase in HECS fees and the removal of student services under voluntary student unionism.

I turn now to some of the specific provisions in the bill starting with the Capital Development Pool. Schedule 1 of this bill increases funding to various sectors and groups, including the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies and the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. It also increases funding for the Capital Development Pool and the Commonwealth training scheme for new post-graduate research places in science and innovation. The increase in funding for the Capital Development Pool is welcome. The pool provides funding for infrastructure projects across our universities and any funding increase in this area is of course a positive step.

The bill also makes provision for the COAG commencements announced earlier this year. The additional funding for new places announced as part of the COAG health workforce package and prescribed within this bill are certainly a welcome move. This is finally a step in the right direction after 10 long years of neglect. Rural and regional Australia have been crying out for more doctors, more nurses and more mental health practitioners, and all this time the government has been doing nothing.

Specifically in this bill the new funding allocated in 2007 goes towards 1,036 new nursing places, 200 new medical places, 431 new mental health nursing places, 210 new post-graduate clinical psychology places and an increase in the Commonwealth contribution for nursing units. The new medical and mental health workforce places will increase in number over the next few years as a result of these measures. This is definitely a positive step and one which has our full support, though, as I mentioned previously, it is a case of being 10 years too late.

This bill also makes provision for increases in the limits for FEE-HELP. I am sure we all remember this government’s paper, Our universities: backing Australia’s future. This paper was the government’s effort at higher education policy. Wasn’t it a beauty when it was released! As has become the norm with this government, Our universities: backing Australia’s future was bursting with motherhood statements designed to appeal to anyone who took a cursory glance. But, in fact, it was a statement of intent for this government to further exert its influence over the tertiary education sector and ensure that the independence of our universities was a thing of the past. Something else we all remember is the Prime Minister’s assertion that there would not be $100,000 university degrees under this government. I guess this is like the ‘never, ever’ GST statement or perhaps like the Work Choices being good for Australia statement, or of course the government’s pledges on lower interest rates. Of course, we now see that almost 100 university degrees in this country cost over $100,000. I remember a certain Prime Minister announcing in the 2004 election that it would be the election about who the Australian public trusted the most. Well, Prime Minister, going from no $100,000 university degrees, which was your promise, to 100 degrees now costing over the $100,000 mark, I think answers that question.

The provisions within this bill increase the general FEE-HELP limit to $80,000 and to $100,000 for students studying medicine, dentistry or veterinary science. Obviously, with almost 100 courses costing over $100,000, this increase is still insufficient to meet the needs of full fee paying students in those courses. In recent months we have seen the Australian Medical Association warning potential medical students and their families away from full fee paying degrees, as they do not have the certainty of attaining a clinical training place that HECS students have—and because of the massive debt that they are left with at the end. Medical students can face a university debt the size of an average mortgage, with many medical degrees now costing upwards of $200,000.

Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, President of the AMA, has reiterated Labor’s view on tertiary education, in this case on medical degrees, by stating:

Wealth should not be a prerequisite for getting into medical school.

A medical school place should be earned through achieving the necessary tertiary entry level and having the ambition and ability to acquire highly specialised knowledge and skills, not the ability to pay exorbitant fees.

Just last week, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia issued a press release titled ‘Full fee degrees “a major barrier” to rural practice’. Similar to the dentists example I spoke of earlier, the release stated that high fees, attributed to full fee medical degrees, will stop graduates from working in rural areas. The President of the Rural Doctors Association, Dr Ross Maxwell, stated:

Charging an enormous fee deters rural origin students from studying medicine and deters graduates from seeking a career in the bush.

He continued:

It is absolutely essential that more HECS-funded medical school places and scholarships are made available in our universities, particularly for medical students coming from rural communities—given they are much more likely to return to the bush to practise after graduation—and also for other medical students who are committed to going rural after graduation.

Dr Maxwell concluded:

There is a critical need to get more home grown doctors into rural and remote practice. Full fee paying places are not the way to meet this need.

In this period of inflated real estate prices, rising interest rates and high fuel prices, the thought of graduating from university with a debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars will deter even the wealthiest of students. When is this government going to recognise the massive public benefits provided by a properly funded tertiary education sector? The economic benefit of a highly skilled workforce is much higher than the initial outlay required to properly fund universities.

This bill also introduces authority for the government to allow for differential HECS application. It allows for higher education providers to apply differential contribution amounts for students in the same course at the same institution. This is troublesome, especially in light of the fact that the minister is yet to make available the list of factors that institutions can use to determine these differential fees. While the potential to assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds exists with this amendment, there is a need to view the guidelines containing the issues that can be used to determine contributions. We would be happy to see this amendment applied to provide lower fees to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds or rural areas but do not want to see the fees for other groups raised so as to constitute a general increase in fees.

The recent revelation that the Minister for Defence, Brendan Nelson, had sought a personal explanation from Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor, Steven Schwartz, over allegations of left-wing bias shows just how far this government will go to ensure that our centres of higher education are no longer the independent institutions that they should be, but simply another arm of the government. Of course, we have the other moves to remove independence from universities, with the tying of funding to the government’s extreme workplace relations changes. The shadow minister for education, science and training’s second reading amendment sums up this government’s failings in higher education succinctly. It reads:

... whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House condemns the Government for:

(1)

jeopardising Australia’s future prosperity by reducing public investment in tertiary education, as the rest of the world increases their investment;

(2)

failing to invest in education, training, distribution and retention measures to ensure that all of Australia has enough doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to meet current and future health care needs;

(3)

massively increasing the cost of HECS, forcing students to pay up to $30,000 more for their degree;

(4)

creating an American style higher education system, where students pay more and more, with some full fee degrees costing more than $200,000, and nearly 100 full fee degrees costing more than $100,000;

(5)

massively increasing the debt burden on students with total HELP debt now over $13 billion and projected to rise to $18.8 billion in 2009;

(6)

failing to address serious concerns about standards and quality in the higher education system, putting at risk Australia’s high educational reputation and fourth largest export industry; and

(7)

an inadequate and incoherent policy response to the needs of the university system to diversify, innovate and meet Australia’s higher education needs”.

This government has persisted with its so-called reform agenda for universities, which has consisted purely of ideological arguments rather than sound practices. The lack of real reform has stymied universities and allowed Australian students to pay the price—and we know that they have paid that very high price, with student HECS-HELP debt levels at $13 billion and expected to reach almost $19 billion by 2009.

We have the ridiculous and quite alarming situation in which the rest of the OECD nations are increasing their investment in universities while this government sees fit to cut funding. And I must reiterate the phrase ‘investing in universities’, because that is exactly what it is. It is not the drain on funds that this government sees it as. It is clearly an investment in the future economic outlook of this nation. The OECD average has been an increase of 48 per cent of public funding on higher education. This represents a significant increase in public investment. Meanwhile, the Howard government has seen fit to cut investment in this country by seven per cent. You have to ask yourself: does the Howard government know something that our competitor nations do not? I do not think that is the case. This government is simply continuing a very short-term approach to holding on to power rather than governing for the good of the country, both now and into the future.

The funding cuts that I have just outlined have led to universities becoming reliant upon international full fee paying students—some to a dangerous level. Student-to-staff ratios have risen sharply, as have class sizes. These are not the best conditions for a quality education. After 10 long years of neglect by the Howard government, Australia is crying out for more scientists, doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers and more. Instead of tackling the problem and doing something constructive to ease the shortage, the government has increased fees, has cut funding and blatantly refuses to adequately index university grants.

I turn now to Labor’s policy, which is far from the ideological and neglectful policies of the Howard government. Labor firmly believes in the importance of our tertiary education sector. Labor believes in the nation-building and economic growth benefits of tertiary education. This is illustrated by our positive policy direction for higher education, as represented in our recently released white paper. Under our policy all Australian universities would be better off. Of course, the result of this will be that all Australian students will be better off. Labor believes in an Australia that has a world-class education and training system that provides real choice and higher quality.

Our policy would see a new national standards watchdog, the Australian Higher Education Quality Agency, established. The agency would ensure that Australian universities were producing quality graduates, underpinned by quality teaching and research. Labor would properly index university grants, ensuring that our institutions were adequately funded. We would scrap full fee degrees for Australian students at public universities, removing the two-tiered system that currently operates under this government, where students with the ability miss out to those with the bank account. Labor would seek to actively address the current skills shortage by expanding associate degrees to give more Australians access to training in these technical areas.

We would seek to assist regional universities, such as the Central Queensland University, based in my electorate, by encouraging them to play to their strengths, rather than continuing this government’s policy of homogeneous institutions. The most progressive initiative within our policy is that Labor would establish an individual compact with each university. No longer would universities be treated under the Howard government’s ‘one size fits all’ approach. Under our plan, universities would negotiate with the government, allowing them to undertake the activities that they deem most suited to their institution and local needs and opportunities. Labor will also unwrap Australia’s universities from the Howard government’s red tape and allow them to maximise their individual strengths.

I am very proud to stand here today and espouse the positive nation-building approach that is provided for within our white paper entitled Australia’s universities: building our future in the world. This is our approach to reinvigorating a sector that has been allowed to languish under a government that lacks any real vision for the role that higher education plays in strengthening our country and also our regional areas, such as the one that I represent.

Labor supports this bill, as it provides the much-needed funding for extra medical and mental health workforce places, as well as much-needed capital injections for our medical schools. However, we are unwilling to let this government get away with the shocking neglect of our higher education system over the past 10 years. The second reading amendment moved by the shadow minister for education, training, science and research has my full support. I commend that amendment to the House.

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006. Labor supports this bill, but later in this speech I would like to outline my concerns about the Howard government’s approach to education, which is characterised, sadly, by budget cuts, fee increases and a lack of policy direction, in my opinion. Labor supports schedule 1 of this bill, which contains significant amounts of new money to fund the COAG health workforce and mental health packages, as well as increased funding for capital development at our universities and new science and innovation research training places as promised in the budget. The package includes 605 new commencing medical places, 1,036 new commencing nursing places, extra funding for nurse clinical training, 431 new mental health nursing places and 210 new clinical psychology places. Obviously, Labor welcomes these new places because they may begin to address our chronic health workforce shortage.

But why has the government neglected these workforce shortages for so long? It is a reasonable question. Sadly, the government has failed to invest in education, training, distribution and retention measures to make sure that all Australians have access to the doctors, nurses and other health care professionals they need. People living in my town of Canberra know all too well about these and other skills shortages. I note that the ACT Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been most forthright in its calls for something to be done about them. I commend the work of the ACT Chamber of Commerce and Industry in trying to draw attention to the skills shortages suffered in this community and trying to achieve an outcome. The Reserve Bank recently identified the shortage of skilled workers as ‘one of the most significant constraints in our economy that is putting pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates’.

Schedule 2 of the bill increases the FEE-HELP limit to $80,000 for most students and to $100,000 for medical, dental and veterinary science students. Increasing the debt available to students has become vital under this government because there are now almost 100 full fee degrees in Australia which could cost more than $100,000. Unfortunately, this indicates that the increase in the FEE-HELP limit will not be enough to help meet the real cost of many of those degrees.

Schedule 3 allows universities to charge different students in the same unit different amounts of HECS and tuition fees. Education providers will be able to set different limits for different students in the same unit, using their own discretion, based on any factor that they deem appropriate. There is only a limited scope for the government to determine matters that are not appropriate. I am very interested in seeing more detail on these prohibited factors, but unfortunately this is not yet available. If used in a positive way, the differential fee structures might assist students from a disadvantaged background, through targeted fee relief based on location or mode of delivery. However, Labor does not support deregulation resulting in higher general fee levels. When the new provisions are implemented we will be monitoring this very carefully.

Schedule 6 allows providers to introduce the new concept of winter schools, which would allow students to study units intensively in winter, similar to summer schools. Labor supports this initiative. Unlike the Howard government’s policy, innovative programs such as this are part of an overall and cohesive policy agenda for Labor.

Schedule 8 changes procedures relating to the accreditation and approval of higher education in external territories to give the minister greater power to determine matters in accordance with new ministerial guidelines. I would like to see more information about this measure too, and Labor will pursue it further in the Senate inquiry. We want to make sure that any approval and accreditation is consistent with national protocols that are developed jointly with the states and territories and endorsed by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.

Another measure of this bill about which I am very pleased is the application of indexation to university grants across forward estimates. Universities have suffered because of inadequate indexation, but this needs to be rectified to ensure that we sustain and strengthen the quality of university education in Australia.

Having outlined some of the positive measures in this bill, I would like to talk about some of my concerns about the way in which this government has failed, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, the higher education system. The government has given Australia a skills crisis that threatens our prosperity and the quality of our higher education system. Australia’s economy desperately needs scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses and teachers, among many others. But instead of acknowledging this shameful neglect, the Prime Minister is holding universities back, doubling HECS fees and refusing to fully index university grants.

The government has threatened our economic future by neglecting universities and cutting $5 billion in grants. Australia is now the only OECD nation to actually reduce public investment in tertiary education—that is, TAFEs and universities—as a percentage of GDP since 1995. That is an eight per cent decline in expenditure as a proportion of GDP compared with the OECD average of a 38 per cent increase. I repeat: we are the only OECD nation to actually reduce public investment in tertiary education as a percentage of GDP since 1995—an eight per cent decline in expenditure as a proportion of GDP compared with the OECD average of a 38 per cent increase. That is almost unbelievable, but it is true. It is a shameful situation.

When the Australian economy needs high-quality graduates to compete with the world, the Prime Minister has disgracefully made university funding conditional on the take-up of his extreme industrial relations ideology, when it should be tied to educational standards. I find this disgraceful. We have these amazing discussions going on about ideology and education. If ever there were an ideology in education, it is this: when the Prime Minister and his government make university funding conditional on the take-up of their extreme industrial relations ideology. The take-up of funding should be conditional on educational standards, not on how universities are going to contract workers to match some government ideology. It is just outrageous.

My Labor colleagues and I have a very different approach to higher education. Labor will reform Australia’s universities to build a strong economy and a smart future for this country. A Beazley Labor government will deliver world-class universities, giving Australians the best possible education and training to compete with the rest of the world and to lead the rest of the world. This country is very good at higher education; all we need to do is invest in it. We have punched so far above our weight in the past, and we can continue to do so, but only with the appropriate investment into that educational process.

Labor’s white paper titled Australia’s universities: building our future in the world points the way forward: reform of university funding, world-class and world-scale research hubs, the expansion of associate degrees, and a new Australian higher education quality agency. Labor’s nation building reforms will result in real choice and higher quality education and training for Australians. Importantly, all Australians will benefit because Labor’s much-needed reforms will also deliver the skills our country needs to compete with—and, I believe, to lead—the rest of the world.

I would like to highlight some of the initiatives in Labor’s white paper. I realise other speakers have done this, but we need to repeat this so that people hear our message. Labor will establish a tough new standards watchdog, the Australian Higher Education Quality Agency, and give it real teeth to enhance degree standards and protect quality teaching and research. The watchdog would assess the standards of degrees and the quality of research. Extra funding will be provided through adequate indexation in return for quality improvements. There has been discussion about the quality of our degrees. The reality is that unless we improve the quality we will go backwards in the world.

Labor will introduce options to reduce the HECS burden on students and to improve income support for students while they are studying. Labor will get rid of full fee degrees for Australian undergraduate students at public universities. Associate degrees will be expanded to address the national shortage of technical skills. One of the major initiatives in Labor’s plan is to establish individual compacts within each university. Universities will be able to negotiate funding with the government for four main types of activities: education, research and research education, community service and innovative activities. This will allow universities to diversify their activities, to build on their own strengths and to maximise their ability to compete. Universities will also be able to respond to local needs.

Labor will develop major research hubs to ensure that Australia has world-class, world-scale research capabilities in key areas. I repeat: this country has proven itself in the past to be the most wonderful resource for good research, innovation and science. All we have to do is invest in it. It is in here in our community to be exploited, to be discovered and to be an advantage for all.

Labor is committed to a higher education system which meets the needs of students and employers and which also builds a stronger economy. Therefore, I support the second reading amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga. I understand that the amendment has been outlined already, but it is important that I repeat it for the record. The amendment reads:

… the House condemns the Government for:

(1)

jeopardising Australia’s future prosperity by reducing public investment in tertiary education, as the rest of the world increases their investment;

(2)

failing to invest in education, training, distribution and retention measures to ensure that all of Australia has enough doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to meet current and future health care needs;

(3)

massively increasing the cost of HECS, forcing students to pay up to $30,000 more for their degree;

(4)

creating an American style higher education system, where students pay more and more, with some full fee degrees costing more than $200,000, and nearly 100 full fee degrees costing more than $100,000;

(5)

massively increasing the debt burden on students with total HELP debt now over $13 billion and projected to rise to $18.8 billion in 2009;

(6)

failing to address serious concerns about standards and quality in the higher education system, putting at risk Australia’s high educational reputation and fourth largest export industry; and

(7)

an inadequate and incoherent policy response to the needs of the university system to diversify, innovate and meet Australia’s higher education needs”.

It is indeed a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak on this bill. It is an important bill, and we support it.

This bill also gives us the opportunity to talk at length about the reality of the higher education system in this country. Many times as we stand in this place and point out what we believe to be deficiencies and disappointments in government policy, we get accused of scaremongering, accused of telling untruths and accused of all sorts of things. There are statistics attached to higher education in this country that are absolute fact and cannot be denied. If the government are going to have a debate on ideology, I think it is about time they looked at themselves first and realised that, in relation to education, the best ideology they can have is to honestly invest in the education system in this country for our future.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make some further comments on this bill.

Leave granted.

My speech on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 was, as far as I am concerned, really about thanking the people who were involved in bringing on stream the first new medical school in Australia for some 40 years. I also want to thank the Prime Minister and the member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay, for the work that they did, which was also very instrumental in securing the medical school. Finally, I want to thank Bernard Moulden, the Vice-Chancellor of James Cook University.

At the dinner celebrating the graduation of the first medical students from the first new medical school in Australia for 40 years, he went through all the people that he had to thank and then he said, ‘The quintessential moment at which we secured the school was when I spoke to the decision maker in Canberra, who said, “After reading the submission closely, it is not available to me to refuse your application.” So the person we most want to thank is the person who wrote the submission, the secretary to the committee who secured the medical school and one of the driving forces at all times: Mary Jane Katter-Streeton.’ So I want to put on the record our sincere thanks to Mary Jane as well.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In summing up the debate on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 I would like to dispel some of the myths that were portrayed earlier and to set the record straight as far as some of the facts are concerned. For instance, the repayment threshold for HECS stands at $38,148. That is what a student needs to be earning before they have to pay back 1c of the government funded education that has been there to support them. The average debt of a university student is $10,500—not the $250,000 that has been cast around this room here this afternoon. Also, it is important to note that 97 per cent of all students were in a Commonwealth supported place. That shows the commitment of the Australian federal government, the Howard government, to giving young students the opportunity to try to get the highest possible level of education that they possibly can get.

I thank all of the members who spoke on this bill. I thank the members for Lingiari, Shortland, Lalor, Richmond, Capricornia, Charlton and Kennedy—whom we just heard from again briefly—for their support of this bill. The bill before the House is a clear expression of the Australian government’s strong commitment to higher education. The Australian government education sector will benefit from an increase of more than $559.6 million in funding as a result of the 2006-07 budget measures contained in this bill. These measures will help drive the diversity of the sector and address critical workforce shortages. The bill will benefit our universities by providing additional funds to support quality learning and teaching, particularly in courses that have high infrastructure needs, and by allowing greater flexibility in the setting of student contributions and tuition fees. The bill will also encourage greater participation in higher education by improving the range of study options available to all students.

This bill contains measures which will significantly boost training in vital health courses as part of the Australian government’s contribution to the health workforce and mental health packages of the Council of Australian Governments. The Australian government recognises the need to train more doctors and nurses to address the workforce shortages. To this end, the bill provides funding for 605 new commencing medical places and 1,036 new commencing nursing places. Some of the new medical places will be bonded to areas of workforce shortages, which will improve the distribution of medical graduates in rural and regional areas.

An additional 431 new mental health nursing places and 210 new clinical psychology places will be provided, which will expand the mental health workforce and help to ensure Australians have access to high-quality mental health services. The increase in the Australian government’s contribution to support clinical training for nursing students will enable higher education providers to expand and improve their clinical training arrangements and help nurses better prepare for their work in hospitals and other settings. Significantly, this bill commits an extra $91.6 million over four years for the Capital Development Pool program, which will assist universities to provide courses in areas that have high infrastructure needs.

James Cook University, the University of New England and the University of Queensland will benefit from $25.5 million in capital funding to support the delivery of new medical places. The increased FEE-HELP limits will improve student choices, help students to make choices about the courses that they would like to study and promote a more diverse higher education sector. The sector will benefit too from increased flexibility to set student contributions and tuition fees. Providers will be able to set fees and contributions to reflect the differing costs involved in providing the same course to different types of students, such as those at different campuses or undertaking study via a different method of delivery.

Two hundred and fifty new postgraduate research scholarships will be made possible through the commercialisation training scheme. These new scholarships will help students to develop skills in research commercialisation and intellectual property management and ensure that the next generation of Australian researchers are equipped with the necessary skills to bring research based ideas, inventions and innovations to the marketplace.

The Australian government is committed to a more diverse higher education sector which provides real student choices. The 2006-07 budget measures contained in this bill will add to the $11 billion that is already committed to the higher education sector through the Backing Australia’s Future higher education reforms. The success of these reforms is already evident. Recently the Minister for Education, Science and Training released the 2005 higher education statistics, which showed that university student enrolments had reached a record high of more than 957,000 students. This included an increase of approximately 10,000 additional Australian students who commenced an undergraduate course in 2005.

Australia has a world-class education system that is successful in attracting both Australian and international students. The Australian government has contributed to the success with a reform process that has improved the long-term sustainability of Australia’s higher education institutions. I note with interest the report on this bill released today by the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education. I welcome the report’s recommendation that this bill should be passed without amendment. Importantly I also note the committee’s frustration with the frivolous referral of this bill for its consideration by the opposition.

As the report notes, higher education stakeholders welcomed the measures in this bill. If the opposition had listened to these stakeholders it might not have wasted the committee’s time.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on, Pat!

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry if that sounds a little bit harsh but it seems to be true in this case because there has been a great waste of time. In fact every one of the opposition speakers have commended this bill to the House and supported this bill in their opening statements. The bill reflects the Australian government’s commitment to ensuring that our universities continue to play a vital role in Australia’s economic, cultural and social development. I urge all members of this House to support this bill.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Jagajaga has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a message from His Excellency the Governor-General recommending in accordance with section 56 of the Constitution an appropriation for the purposes of this bill.