Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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In Tasmania right now, the Tasmanian state Liberal government has embarked on a program of cutbacks to primary schools, high schools and colleges which is having a terribly serious impact on the public education system: the students, the teachers and the other staff in those schools. That is going on right now. In fact, Tasmanian primary schools at the moment are losing, on average, two staff members. Tasmanian colleges are losing right now, on average, four staff members. This is having all sorts of serious implications for those schools. The state education minister has said that, on average, Tasmanian class sizes will stay at around 25, or no more than 25; but I have people contacting me in my office every day now talking about class sizes of 29, 30, 31 or 32—in rooms that are made for probably 20 desks. We are also seeing, apart from the increased class sizes, programs being cut; in particular language programs, music programs, interschool sporting carnivals and so on. All of those really important parts of a person's education are being cut in schools in Tasmania. In particular, kids with special needs are now getting less and less support—kids with learning difficulties and kids with autism, and also gifted students. There is a whole range of children in the Tasmanian public education system who are not getting the support they need which, of course, has a knock-on effect for the teachers who are having to work that much harder and are not getting the support they need. The more a teacher has to focus on one particular student with a special need, the more the rest of the class is disadvantaged. That is just in Tasmania, just in the public education system. We are seeing politicians there paying lip-service to the value of education.

It is not just the Liberal Party; I will have a go at the Labor Party as well. When it comes to the tertiary sector, it was the Gillard and Rudd governments that stripped some $4,000 million out of education funding over the forward estimates, leaving our universities some $1 billion a year underfunded—before this government even came along. The point is—and it is the underlying point of the debate we are having here today—that politicians at state and federal levels, both Labor and Liberal, talk up how much they value education, but the reality is they are not demonstrating any commitment. They are not funding education as well as we could in Australia.

Let us face it: we live in a very rich and very fortunate country. The budget varies from year to year, but it hovers around $400,000 million dollars a year. Surely that is enough money to properly fund the public education system in this country at every level—from early childhood education, through primary school, high school, colleges, technical and further education and the tertiary sector. There is enough money; it is all about priorities. Yet we are not properly funding our education in this country.

Why should we value education? Why should we be putting more money in? There are many reasons. For a start, knowledge has an inherent value. It is good for a country and for a community to have more knowledge. It inherently enriches us and our community. It greatly advantages the individuals who are able to benefit from a better education. It is well documented—and self-evident—that if you can give people a better education at every level, or at any level, those people are better off. In particular, it lifts people out of poverty. If someone is better trained and better qualified, they can get a better job. They can get on better in their life; it lifts them out of poverty. It makes for a healthier community. The fact is that better educated people will tend to know how to live a healthier lifestyle; they will tend to be able to afford a healthier lifestyle and healthier food—fruit and veggies. They will be able to afford to go to the doctor. They will be a healthier community. It opens up wonderful opportunities for them. One of the surest ways to lift disadvantaged people out of that disadvantage is to give them a good education, including giving them access, on academic merit, to higher education and to a university education, because that is one of the most tangible ways to help those people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It also makes for a wealthier country, a better country and a more successful country. I think it is very telling that, against our trading partners, Australia is falling behind when it comes to our education and our education outcomes. In fact, it was easy to find just this morning a survey out of the UK that ranked Australia 13th, broadly speaking, when it comes to education outcomes compared to other countries. It was interesting that above us there was South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore—and much is made of the way China and the Chinese education system is going from strength to strength and becoming a real education powerhouse. That will give our trading partners, our competitors in the community of nations, great advantages over us that will disadvantage us down the track, not the least of which is the fact that we will become less attractive as a source of education for foreign fee-paying students compared to other countries. Why would someone come from China to Australia to a university that is falling further and further behind in the international rankings when in future they could stay in China at one of their increasing number of even better universities?

I want to talk more specifically to the reforms that are on the table right now. I did not support the first version of these reforms and I will not support this version and this bill. Frankly, I am sure I talk for a great many people when I say that the move to make universities a market-based industry through deregulation is fundamentally bad. It is a bad decision and not something we need to do in this country. We are a rich and fortunate country that can afford to properly fund universities with public money. The fact is that moving to a market-based system will make courses dearer. That is self-evident and has been well documented now. A number of commentators and professional bodies in the community are saying that, if this move to deregulate and to move to a market-based industry is allowed to go ahead, then courses will become dearer. It is as simple as that.

As courses become dearer who will be the first people to be disadvantaged? People on lower incomes. This is all fine. It is not helpful, Madam Speaker, that you are shaking your head when I am giving my speech. It is self-evident and well remarked upon that the move to deregulation will result in dearer courses and that will fundamentally disadvantage people from disadvantaged backgrounds. But they will not be the only people who will find it harder to be educated in a deregulated tertiary sector. What about older students? People who are at university retraining for a bright second career will have less time in the workforce to be able to pay that increased debt. So too will women because women tend to spend obviously less time in the workforce so they have less time to pay back their HECS debt.

As you increase the cost of courses—and that will be a tangible outcome of these reforms—it will fundamentally disadvantage people on lower incomes and from lower income families, older students who will have less time to pay off the greater cost of that education and women who will have less time in the workforce to pay back the greater cost of that education. Within the sector itself it will fundamentally disadvantage smaller and regional universities, such as the University of Tasmania in my home state of Tasmania, right around this country. It will disadvantage smaller and regional universities because it is not a level playing field. In a market-based tertiary industry these smaller universities, which perhaps are more remote, offer fewer courses and are not as prestigious, will not be as attractive in a deregulated industry and they will struggle to compete with the big fancy universities in places like Sydney, Melbourne and the other capital cities.

As universities like the University of Tasmania struggle to compete what does it mean for outposts like the Burnie and Launceston campuses, which currently run at a loss but can be cross-subsidised because of the current arrangements? It will become more and more tempting for the University of Tasmania to cut unprofitable courses and to cut unprofitable campuses. Again that will disadvantage people in those regions, which are populated with a disproportionate number of disadvantaged people and which already have a much lower level of engagement in tertiary education compared to the big cities.

It is simply not good enough and it is not necessary to deregulate tertiary education in this country. It is not necessary to move to a market-based education industry when we have a very fine tradition of doing it the way we have been doing it and we certainly have the wealth to keep doing it that way. In fact, what is needed is not deregulation and less money; what is needed is more money. What we need to do for a start is to reinstate the $4 billion that was taken out of the universities by the former Labor government. That is the sort of thing this government should be looking to do and that is the sort of thing this government can afford to do. Yes, there is an need for budget repair, but surely with a budget of around $400,000 million we could find that $4 billion to restore the funding to its historic level. Then we should be looking to the future and how we can go beyond that and get up to the OECD average because, regrettably, at the moment our universities are funded at about 0.7 per cent of GDP compared to the OECD average of one per cent.

At a time when we are looking to cut back on our funding for the universities we should instead be looking to find the money—and the money is there with the right priorities—to get our universities at least up to the level of funding of other members of the OECD, who are our competitors in the global marketplace for the education dollar and foreign fee-paying students.

Candidates and parties make a lot of promises prior to an election. The other day the member for Indi handed me a report reminding me the Nationals went to the last federal election promising a tertiary access allowance of $10,000 to try and bridge the financial divide between city and country students. So where are the Nationals on this? I would have thought that the National Party in particular would be standing up to the Liberal Party and the education minister on this. The Nationals members of this parliament represent not only a lot of regional and rural universities but also all of those students, who were promised an awful lot before the last federal election which is not being delivered. Instead, what is being delivered is the promise of deregulation and a market based system that will make courses dearer, disadvantage regional and country universities, disadvantage people from poorer backgrounds, disadvantage older students and disadvantage women. The only people it will advantage is the government—which will have to pay less money to universities in the future—and the big eight universities, who are rubbing their hands together. These universities can charge whatever they want because they are big and prestigious. 'Don't worry about the rest, like the University of Tasmania'—that is what they are thinking.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014. Before I go into detail, I have to address some of the comments that have been made by the member for Denison. I am a little confused—and, granted, with my limited intellectual capacity that is easily done. The member for Denison bemoans the fact that tertiary institutions in this country seem to be falling in the global tables, and yet he wants to argue against this bill and therefore keep them hamstrung in terms of the reforms that will facilitate their transition into the next generation. We need to keep at heart the fact that the higher education system in this country needs support and needs to be freed from the rather restrictive legislative architecture that is placed around it.

The Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014 is important for Australia—of course it is. It provides necessary reform to keep our universities, TAFEs and colleges competitive. And it contains wins for many, including students from low-socioeconomic circumstances, our best researchers and our key industries which rely on skills oriented education and training as well as professionals. The bill represents the most significant reform to Australia's higher education sector in a generation. It has major benefits for students. The coalition's job—indeed, the job of any government in this place on education—is to widen opportunity to give everyone the chance of a tertiary education. Despite this, Labor and the Greens are sticking to an old, outdated and costly model that everybody in higher education knows is no longer working.

The government's higher education reform package has enormous benefits for students. It means they will be able to get an education of the quality they want—a truly world-class education—in the courses they want, with the support they want and at the price they need. Universities and other higher education providers are having to compete for students, which means students win. As Belinda Robinson of Universities Australia said recently, it is simply not possible to maintain the standards that students expect, or the international reputation that Australia's university system enjoys, without full fee deregulation.

The government will create the Commonwealth Scholarship scheme, the largest scheme of its type in Australian history. This will mean tens of thousands of disadvantaged students will get assistance to study in higher education. The government will introduce a new scholarship fund within the Higher Education Participation program for universities with a high level of low-SES students. The Commonwealth will for the first time be supporting all Australian undergraduate students in all registered higher education institutions in higher education diplomas, advanced diplomas, associate degrees and bachelor degrees. In supporting students in higher education diplomas, advanced diplomas, and associate degrees we will be supporting students in pathways into higher education and in diploma courses that provide them with skills for jobs. By supporting Australian students in whatever higher education institution they choose to study with—a public or private university or a non-university higher education provider, including many TAFEs—we will see lower fees for many students as the Council of Private Higher Education has confirmed. This expansion of the demand driven system will benefit over 80,000 students a year by 2018.

We are also acting to ensure that the Higher Education Loan Program remains sustainable and is fairer. Among other measures, the government is implementing a HECS indexation pause for parents or caregivers who earn less than $50,000 and are the primary carer of a child under the age of five. Another 80,000 students who are studying in vocational education and training will benefit through the abolition of the 20 per cent loan fee for VET FEE-HELP. Another 50,000 students will benefit from the abolition of the 25 per cent loan fee for FEE-HELP. The Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching will provide students with better information than ever before on which to base their course decisions.

The new Commonwealth Scholarships will create an unprecedented level of support for disadvantaged students to go to university. Under the new higher education system we will require that universities and other higher education providers provide $1 of every $5 of additional revenue raised on scholarships for disadvantaged students. Under the Commonwealth Scholarships scheme universities and higher education institutions will provide tailored, individualised support to students who have a low socioeconomic status. This might include needs based scholarships to help meet costs of living as well as to cover fee exemptions, tutorial support and assistance at other critical points in their study journey. We have been listening to students in regional Australia, and what they have been saying about the up-front costs of accessing higher education study. These Commonwealth scholarships will be of enormous benefit to students from regional Australia and other students. In addition, a new scholarship fund is being created in the Higher Education Participation Program, which will support disadvantaged students around Australia, including from regional Australia.

We are delivering more competition, which will deliver more choices for students. For the first time in Australia, the government is expanding the current system and providing support to students completing diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees. The government is investing $371.5 million to deliver this initiative. Universities will receive government support to offer more courses to more students. These qualifications will provide career opportunities and pathways to further education.

Diploma courses provide important pathways into higher education for less prepared students, giving them the opportunity to develop the skills needed to undertake higher education study. Expanding Commonwealth subsidies for these courses will ensure our students have the best chance of success. This is especially important in regional and low-socioeconomic areas, where students are less likely to enter into higher education than students living in metropolitan areas. I think that in the trade these are referred to as 'foundation studies'. I can certainly say about the example in Mount Gambier, where the University of South Australia has taken an aggressive position in the market, that those foundational studies, if it were not for a cross-subsidy from the university, would need to be met by up-front fees. We would have a failing because these up-front fees would not be paid and therefore the foundation studies not undertaken and therefore the tertiary opportunity offered to the regional student missed.

We are also extending Commonwealth support to students undertaking higher education with private universities and non-university higher education institutions. This will enable those institutions to compete with higher education institutions, which will deliver more choice. The government is investing $448.9 million to deliver that initiative. More than 80,000 students will benefit from the increased opportunities by 2018, as I mentioned earlier. This includes an estimated 48,000 students in diploma and associate diploma courses as well as 35,000 additional students undertaking bachelor courses. At the same time, universities will be empowered to set their own fees for their courses, which will generate more competition for students between a greater number of providers. This will see many students paying less than they do now for their education as government supports more higher education options. Many TAFEs and private colleges already work in partnership with universities. Those universities have been seeking funding for pathways and other diploma courses that help less prepared students succeed at university.

The government will now fund those pathways and other diploma courses through universities and colleges, which will enable many more people in Australia to get qualifications that can be used outright or towards a university degree. The government will maintain the HELP loan scheme so that no student need pay a cent up front for their higher education till they have graduated and are earning a decent income over $50,000 a year as a result of their education.

Australian university graduates on average earn up to 75 per cent more than those who do not go on to higher education after secondary school. Over their lifetime graduates may earn around $1 million more than if they had not gone to university. It is only fair that, given this, students contribute fairly to the cost of their own education. All the higher education peak bodies around the nation support these reforms. Universities Australia, the Regional Universities Network, the Australian Technology Network, the Innovative Research Universities, the Group of Eight, TAFE Directors Australia, the Australian Council for Private Education and Teaching and the Council of Private Higher Education all support these higher education reforms. The need for reform has also been recognised by the employers of our graduates through such bodies as the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Distinguished commentators such as David Gonski, Gareth Evans, John Dawkins and Maxine McKew have urged Labor to engage positively on this topic of higher education reform.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She works for the University of Melbourne.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, we wouldn't want to listen to the universities about higher education reform; that'd be a very dumb thing to do! University leaders have shown in words and deeds that they repudiate the alarmist scare campaigns being run by those opposite. If there were a gold medal in running scare campaigns, those opposite would be atop the dais.

They also show that higher education will be accessible and affordable and that no student need pay a cent up front. I repeat that: no student needs to pay a cent up front, and no-one needs to repay anything until they are earning over $50,000 a year.

There has been much said about regional students, and their communities are, in my view, among the big winners in this reform package. Regional education providers will have the opportunity to offer more courses and compete to attract more students. By expanding government support to diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees, regional education providers will be able to offer more courses.

One such beneficiary of this new system will be the new collaboration between the University of South Australia and the world renowned Australian jazz musician James Morrison. Those two entities have come together to create the James Morrison Academy of Music. When it begins next week, it will provide sub-bachelor degrees to 70 students in Mount Gambier. These are diplomas and associate diplomas. As an aside, James Morrison was busking out the front of my office yesterday. He is only human, given that it is my office! Returning to the more serious: these tertiary opportunities would not be funded under those opposite. These 70 students from across Australia—budding jazz musicians—in the initial stage would have to find these fees and would need to pay them up front.

If our reforms are successful, these same students will get the benefit of the Higher Education Loan Program. To repeat it for those opposite in case they might be a bit slow on the uptake: as a result of our reforms, these same students will not have to pay up-front fees. So, to those students who have come to Mount Gambier to engage with this exciting collaboration between the University of South Australia and James Morrison as the first participants in the James Morrison Academy of Music I say this: the Labor Party would have you pay your fees up front and in full before you even play a single note toward your sub-bachelor degree. Those on this side of the House, including your now local member—because you have all obviously become residents of the great city of Mount Gambier—would happily have you undertake that degree, attain your qualifications and enter the workforce, and only at the point at which you are earning $50,000 a year would you be asked to repay anything, and even then at a very slow rate.

In my view, this highlights the problem. We can come into this place and wax lyrical about theories. We can be ideologues. We can talk about the problems that besiege the tertiary education sector. But the reality is this: those of us on this side of the House want to deliver practical outcomes for students in the tertiary education space. Those on the other side of the House see a political opportunity. They are the alarmists, if you like. Instead of showing the kind of foresight that we did in opposition during the Hawke-Keating era, when we saw nation-changing reform and we backed it in, those opposite see it, they know it, they know it is in the best interests of this country, but what is more important to them is the political opportunity that presents itself every day. They cannot rise above it. It is the reason that, when the people of Australia turn to decide whether we should be entitled to continue to govern this country, they will say, 'Well, what is their plan?' To those that are in the chamber on the other side, I say: you had better get working on your plan, because you do not have one, and the people of Australia know it.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is very, very clear from the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014 and from speeches of members opposite—and we have just heard a typical example of that from the member for Barker—that the Abbott government is arrogant, out of touch and totally disconnected from the Australian people. That could not have been more clear, having listened to the member for Barker. This is a government that treats the Australian people with contempt, a government in complete denial about the harm of its ill-conceived policies, and a government that has lost the confidence and the trust of the Australian people.

This legislation typifies why this government is so unpopular and why the Prime Minister is fighting for his political life. Australian people understand exactly what this legislation does, and they will not be fooled by government spin or by expensive advertising campaigns. This legislation makes university education more expensive. It is as simple as that, and no amount of denial or weasel words will change that. The legislation effectively transfers a greater portion of university costs from the government to students and their families. It is blatant cost shifting and perhaps could even be described as backdoor taxation, because it forces universities to increase their fees rather than have the government either raise taxes or cut costs.

As the Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook shows—and this is the government's own statement—the HELP debt is expected to rise from $25 billion in 2014 to $52 billion in 2016-17. That is more than doubled. In other words, that is debt that is being transferred onto families and students. That is because, contrary to the denials of government members opposite, university fees, once deregulated, will rise. Once the universities are deregulated, fees of $100,000 or more for different courses are realistic, and it is no exaggeration to say that university costs will in some cases double and even more. Of course, the higher the debt, the greater will be the effects of compounding interest on that debt once the university student completes his or her course.

It is also wrong and naive to believe that the costs of a degree are simply limited to the university fees alone. In addition to the university fees, there are, of course, living costs, travel costs and so on. But there is also, very significantly, the loss of income for four, five or six years from not going to work full time and instead going to university. Those are real costs that have to be factored in, and they are costs that already weigh heavily on young people and their families when making a career choice. So, for families already struggling financially, increasing university fees will simply shut them out. Make no mistake about that: there will be families that, as a result of these changes, will make a choice, out of necessity, that they cannot support their children going to university. Members opposite should get their heads out of the sand and stop trying to pretend that these changes will open the door to more university students. It simply will not happen, and I have no doubt that, if these changes get through this parliament, time will prove this side of parliament, the opposition, right in making that point.

When speaking about closing the gap for Indigenous Australians, the Prime Minister said that closing the gap starts by getting kids to school. It is a rightful acknowledgement of the importance of education to a young person's future. It is a statement I agree with. Getting kids to school, however, is only the start. Completing the process with a career qualification is just as important. Furthermore, the gap that the Prime Minister refers to is not confined solely to Indigenous Australians; it also exists amongst many non-Indigenous communities throughout the country. For them, a university education also closes the gap, and it enables them to fulfil their potential and pursue their own goals.

We have in Australia a growing inequality between the rich and the poor of this country. According to a St Vincent de Paul Society report, between 1995 and 2011 the high-income group proportion of total income increased from 37.8 per cent of the total income to 39.5 per cent, whilst the low- and middle-income groups' proportion fell by 0.4 per cent, to 10.4 per cent and 17.3 per cent respectively. Those figures show a trend, a very clear trend, that wealth is moving from one part of the society to another and that the inequality gap is in fact widening rather than closing.

If this bill is passed, it will close the uni door to many Australians from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and further widen the gap between the rich and poor of this country. It is a matter that deeply concerns me because the region from which I come, the northern and north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide, contains some of the lower income families in the Adelaide region. Indeed, when you look at university entrance rates for the northern region of Adelaide, they currently sit at around 10 per cent. For the rest of the state, they sit at almost 25 per cent, and for the eastern suburbs they sit at 25 per cent, more than double where they sit in the northern suburbs.

If we are to close the gap and give opportunity to those people from those lower socioeconomic backgrounds to get into university, this is the last thing we should be doing. We should not be making university more expensive. I commend the University of SA and the high schools in the northern region, which have embarked upon their own programs to try and bridge that gap. But here we are with a government that is now trying to make it even more difficult by deregulating universities and in turn making university costs much higher for people who already cannot afford them.

In making that point, I am also conscious that people from those same families and the students of the schools in the northern suburbs of Adelaide have the capability and the potential to go on to university and come out with a degree. They are bright students. The barrier for them is not their academic ability but rather their financial ability. Anyone who claims that increasing university fees, deregulating university fees and the like will open the door to more students or lower fees is disingenuous or delusional. It did not happen in the UK. It did not happen in Australia when Brendan Nelson partially deregulated fees a decade ago. And it has not happened anywhere else in the world.

Higher fees will weigh heavily on families that are already struggling to fund university costs, and it does not stop there. Having completed a university degree does not guarantee a job, let alone a high-paying job. In recent months, several young people or their families have come to my office seeking assistance with trying to get themselves or their son or daughter into paid employment after they have completed their university degree. It seems to me that either we have a mismatch with the courses that are being offered in the universities and the graduates coming out of them or there is a shortage of Australian jobs in Australia, perhaps in some cases because they are being taken by 457 visa entrants and the like. But there is a real problem out there, because, from my observations, there are far too many university students who, having completed their course and achieved their qualification, cannot get a job in the profession for which they have been trained. And, regrettably, I hear too many stories of them having to move either interstate or, in some cases, overseas.

There is one young person who I am familiar with that came out of his university degree in medical science with flying colours. He cannot get a job here in Australia. He has been offered a job in the US and will take it, but he cannot get a job in Australia. He was possibly one of the brightest kids to come out of university the year he finished, which is, I believe, about 12 months ago. I think it is a shame that that is happening right before our very eyes.

Cutting education funding at any level is a retrograde step for any nation. It is a short-term money saver for governments. Conversely, investing in national education provides a national return many times over. That is why smart countries around the world are investing more in education, not less. Just as it is a wise choice for an individual to invest in an education, so too is it a wise choice for a nation to invest in education, as the benefits of a better educated society flow through to every sector of society.

We live today in a competitive global economy. We cannot dumb down the nation and expect to prosper, nor can Australia continue to rely on mineral exports to prop up our economy. Even our primary industries must continue to innovate if they are to survive. More than ever before, Australia should be doing all it can to encourage more young Australians into a profession, because Australia's future will be reliant on innovation. That is a message that has been given to us time and time again, and I hear it from members opposite as well: if Australia is to have a future, if we are to remain competitive with the rest of the world, we need to be a smart nation, a nation that invests in education, a nation that invests in innovation, a nation that invests in the education of future generations.

And yet, whilst on one hand we hear those sentiments from members on all sides of parliament, the Abbott government right now is doing everything that would suggest we are going in the opposite direction. We have seen the Abbott government cut some $878 million from our science and research agencies across Australia. We have now seen cuts made to research and development tax concessions in this country, cuts that were criticised widely by industry sectors and cuts that will have a devastating effect on the amount of research and development that is carried out in this country. We saw a major loss of research and development when the Abbott government turned its back on the automotive industry, one of the highest investors in research and development in this country for years and years, and we are about to lose most of that with the winding down of the car industry.

And now we see the Abbott government wanting to put university education out of reach of more Australians. None of these measures—cutting science and research funding, cutting research and development tax concessions, cutting university funding—will lead to a smarter nation, so perhaps members opposite need to think about matching their rhetoric with real action when it comes to the policies they bring to this parliament. Government members opposite should stop swallowing their ministers' lines. They seem oblivious to the collective damage that their short-sighted policies appear to be doing. This legislation will particularly hit hard people from low socioeconomic communities and from regional and country areas.

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

Mr Williams interjecting—

I hear the interjections from the two members opposite. I have listened to the speeches of most government members in respect of this legislation. They are clearly all singing from the same hymn sheet when they come in here. They have no thought processes of their own; there is no individual logic applied to any of the statements that they make. They simply come in here with their spin lines and repeat the same facts over and over.

Talking about facts, can I finish on this line, because this is one of the facts they keep bringing into this chamber: the claim that Labor was about to cut education funding before the last election by $6.6 billion. I hear members come in and repeat that lie time and time again. Can I suggest to them that they could just look up ABC Fact Check, which totally denies and disputes that line and gives the truth to the matter, which is that under Labor higher education funding in this country continued to rise each year. It was under Labor that higher education funding was lifted and the system was given a boost.

So, if members opposite want to support their policies, they should do so through their own thought processes; they should not just come in here and repeat the lines that are given to them by their minister, who is clearly struggling to get this policy sold. He is clearly struggling to get support from across the nation. That is why this legislation has been dragged out for days and days and days, to enable the minister to try and get whatever kind of support he can in order to get it through. This side of the House knows this legislation is bad for the country and we will oppose it.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the second time this bill has been before the House. The coalition has made it abundantly clear that we believe the higher education sector requires major reforms to keep it vibrant and competitive. Education funding is increasing by nine per cent, nine per cent, nine per cent and six per cent, over the four years of the estimates.

To secure that reform, we have consulted further with senators to provide a new bill. This bill keeps the intent of the first bill but with some changes negotiated with the senators. We have worked with Senator Day to keep the indexation rate for student debt at the CPI as opposed to the previously suggested 10-year bond rate. Senator Madigan wanted a pause on HECS indexation for new parents with children under five years of age. We will introduce a structural adjustment fund to assist our universities, particularly those in regional areas, such as my University, Townsville's James Cook University, to assist with the transition to a more competitive market.

But—and this is a big 'but'—the sector needs reform if it is to be a player in the future of education in this country and around the world. The university sector gets that. The VET sector gets that. They understand it and they want the reform. It would seem to me that the only ones not interested in this debate are Labor and the Greens. For instance, the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University said, when this reform was first put to the House and the university sector: 'It is no small achievement when an often divided and fractious sector unites around a major change'. So it is with this bill. The university sector, with the exception of the University of Canberra, recognises the need to reform and the value of these reforms to their sector.

Labor keep trotting out their tired, hackneyed talking points, saying this is a budget bill and not an education bill. My answer to that assertion is that every bill in this place is a budget bill. Nothing is for free. We must pay for it all. That is the difference between the two sides. We understand that something has to be paid for. When the Hawke and Keating governments introduced HECS—which seems to have been glossed over by those opposite—it was also a budget bill. Paul Keating understood that things had to be paid for out of the budget.

Liberal Senator Bill Teague led our response to the package of bills, which included HECS, in a major change to higher education, which, incidentally, in 1989 was not taken to an election. This is what then Senator Teague said:

We in the Opposition are opposed to the graduate tax, but we will be supporting the higher education contribution scheme in this legislation, for several reasons. First, it is a Budget Bill and we respect the ability of an elected government in the House of Representatives to determine a Budget and its financial provision for higher education.

That is what a responsible opposition does. It respects the government's right to set a budget. We would not be having this argument today if it was not for the complete and utter negativity of those opposite and in the Senate.

Most of Labor's speeches throughout this debate seem to hark back to the days of Whitlam and free education. We have just heard the member for Makin say that it is unfair that people should have to pay for their education. Where they should be focused, though, is on the Hawke and Keating governments who brought HECS into being in 1989—again, without taking it to an election. The coalition did not make it easy for them to pass the legislation in this chamber. But Labor had the numbers on this floor and it was their budget, so it passed through the Senate.

Today, we see the obstructionist approach of the arch populist Labor Party—who would rather spin than govern, who would rather obfuscate than participate, who would rather sit on the sidelines and carp than get into the game and have a go. What have they become? They are a vacuum of policy and a repository of negativity never before seen in this place. Their sanctimony knows no bounds. We hear every member opposite praise their performance in government. They keep trotting out lines about universities under Labor and increasing funds to the sector. What their talking points do not roll out is what they took from higher education.

Just let me run through a couple here: the 2013-14 budget had an efficiency dividend of two per cent in 2014 and 1.25 per cent in 2015 applying to most grants to universities—a $902 million cut; removal of the 10 per cent HECS-HELP discount and the five per cent HELP payments bonus from 1 January 2014—a $276.7 million cut; and conversion from the Student Start-up Scholarships to student loans—$1,182.5 billion cut from higher education; a cap on tax deductibility for self-education expenses which did not proceed because we stopped it—they cut $514.3 million. It is all the way through here: in 2012-2013 MYEFO—and the bloke sitting at the dispatch box knows all about those things—the general interest charge to student loan debt was $7.5 million; there were changes to the rate of funding to the Sustainable Research Excellence program—$563.7 million was cut from the sector; concessional facilitation funding—conditional funding to encourage universities to agree to the inclusion of performance targets in their mission based compacts—$384.6 million was cut; in the 2011-2012 MYEFO they reinstated band 2 student contributions for mathematics, statistics and science units for new students—$1,030.9 million was cut from higher education; and a reduction of the HECS-HELP discount and voluntary payment bonus in 2011-2012 was $607.7 million cut from higher education.

This means a total of $6.6552 billion cut from higher education. None of these were ever taken to an election—not one! So all this furphy about things having to be taken to an election! Governments are elected to govern; was the response to the GFC taken to an election? No, it was not. They needed to act because the circumstances changed, and so they got in and they acted. We respect that. When we came into government and the budget came in, the circumstances had changed and so we acted. None of these things were taken to the election and none of these cuts to higher education were education bills. They were all budget bills. Yet, Labor sees our attempt at genuine reform in this vital sector as an opportunity for populist nirvana to hark back to the Whitlam era of free education. Their comments seem to miss completely the fact that they introduced HECS without taking it to an election.

None of their speeches list the changes they made to the higher education sector, but that seems to be okay. It is the beauty of opposition that none of the people opposite say what they would do if we get these reforms through. What they want to say is, 'If they get these reforms through, we will reverse them if we come back to government.' We said that with the carbon tax; we also followed through and we did it. Not one person over there has said that if we get these things through that they will reverse them, and I call on them to do so.

So, why reform? I was lucky enough to be in the chamber when the member for Pearce, now Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Christian Porter, spoke on this matter. In that very fine address he added this line from the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, where he said in relation to the importance of these reforms:

At stake is whether a viable higher education system can endure.

At this stage I would like to continue to quote from the member for Pearce's speech from 28 October last year, where he said that what the Whitlam government did was a valid social experiment:

… could Australia increase the percentage of low-income students in tertiary education by making tertiary degrees free for all tertiary students? That was the social policy argument that dominated this space for decades. But the argument was also conducted for decades in an environment where the Australian tertiary sector existed in a global market that was relatively stable—comparatively, amazingly stable.

Today's global market for higher education is not stable. It is changing very quickly and very aggressively.

He went on to suggest that when HECS was introduced in 1989, and further, when those HECS fees were increased by almost 800 per cent by the Keating and Howard governments, that participation in higher education continued to grow.

Again, as the member for Pearce opined:

Does introducing deferred fees for students decrease the percentage of low-income students? No, it does not. Once introduced, does expanding the share of their fees that students are required to fund decrease the percentage of low-income students? No, it does not. Are fees the primary, or even a substantial, determinant of the percentage of low-income students? No, they are not.

But, do not take Christian Porter's word for it. Universities Australia came out last year and called for the parliament to support the deregulation of Australian universities. They still support this. They are the peak body in this sector and their opinion should have some form of effect on the ALP. They said at the time:

The introduction into Parliament of the Federal Government's higher education legislation is a chance for all parliamentarians to seize the opportunity for making real, lasting changes that are needed in positioning our universities for the challenges of the future.

There is still no movement from those opposite.

Professor Ian Young, said last year that higher education in this country is at a crossroads:

It is time for us to make choices about what we want for our country and what we want for future generations. Time to make choices about the future of our universities.

In Minister Pyne's second reading speech from last year, he said:

Currently our universities are at risk of being left behind and overtaken by the growing university systems in our region and across the globe as these systems increase their capacity and new forms of online and blended delivery take hold.

We must aspire to not only keep up with our competitors, but keep ahead of them.

I have two daughters who attend university. When we brought these reforms in at the last budget I did two things. Firstly, I asked my daughters if the cost of their course would affect their decision to continue higher education. Neither said it would. Both said the cost of the course was unknown to them because they wanted the job at the end of it. The cost of the course did not matter to them at all; HECS was just a way to get the degree and a better job—the job they wanted. Both have since changed courses, by the way.

As I said in my speech of 2 September last year, the day after the budget was handed down and this policy announced, members of my staff went to James Cook University, where we surveyed 140 people—students. I acknowledge that this was not a scientific survey and that I am not a market researcher, but the results were pretty telling. Seventy per cent of the people asked had no idea how much their chosen course would cost them in HECS, 20 per cent had some idea and 10 per cent knew exactly. So, on this side of the chamber, we are talking about the future of the higher education sector. On that side of the chamber, they are talking about Gough Whitlam. Yeah, those guys are ready to govern!

Additionally, this bill will provide access to HECS-style assistance for vocational education training students. It removes the punitive loan fee of 20 per cent for VET FEE-HELP. This will assist tens of thousands of Australian students undertaking VET courses, and it gets rid of the 25 per cent loan fee for FEE-HELP for those who study with private institutions. It also removes the lifetime limits on all Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) schemes and discontinues the ineffective HECS-HELP benefit.

So we are offering a system which will see our tertiary education sector remain at the forefront of international higher education into the future. We are offering a system where not one student will have to borrow a single cent up front. We are offering a system where not one cent will have to be repaid until they earn $53,000.00 per annum. We are offering a better than world class opportunity to every student in the country.

What are the people across the chamber offering? Nothing. They are stuck with their Greens mates either actively knocking things down and destroying jobs or just saying 'no' because they have fallen victim to partisan populist politics. They are devoid of all ideas. They are nowhere.

This bill will strengthen the university sector to weather a storm coming from aggressive and ultra-competitive overseas universities. We must address these issues and we must act now. I am proud to be part of a government which wants to do more than just throw money out the window as we drive along the road, hoping that some will be spent wisely.

Labor's assertion that this is a budget bill and not an education bill tells me all I need to know about the opposition and why they are unfit to govern. They honestly think that things can be for free, that things do not cost. I have news for them. Nothing is free. It all costs. And the bills for our expenditure must be paid.

I stand shoulder to shoulder with my minister, Christopher Pyne, in his quest to see our country prepare for a glorious future and not live on a distant past. I thank the House.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014. I condemn the government's efforts to destroy this country's highly acclaimed tertiary education system and, quite frankly, cause great harm to the long-term economic and social development of this country. Another member, the member for Herbert, who spoke before me, thought that we on this side would raise Gough Whitlam. I think most members and the member for Herbert should recognise that if it were not for the then member for Werriwa, those sitting on his front bench over there would not have had the opportunity to go to university in the first place. I would not take kindly to the rubbishing of the contributions of the former member for Werriwa, who only recently was given great accolades in this place for the contributions he made in social development and particularly for what he did in furthering the educational attainments of many people in this country including myself. Had it not been for the Whitlam government, I would not have been able to gain a university education either.

The bill before us strips $3.9 billion worth of cuts out of the government's $5.8 billion cuts to education. This is stripping money out of our education system. Our education system is one that has been based on fairness and opportunity for all—very much a concept from the Whitlam period. It is a great source of pride, and always has been, on the international stage. It is an acclaimed system but it is now clearly under threat. This government, despite repeated promises before the election that 'there will be no cuts to education', has come up with a range of measures that will make it even more difficult for young people, particularly for those in electorates like mine where young people come from struggling families, to reach their full potential. Deregulation will allow universities a free hand when it comes to setting student fees, and poses the very real prospect of $100,000 degrees.

In addition, the bill poses the threat of slashing Commonwealth supported places in undergraduate degrees by 20 per cent, changing the HECS payment threshold as well as changing the indexation of university funding. This is going to result in less money being invested in our tertiary education sector. It is hardly the hallmark of a smart nation to slash education and then pretend to believe in a future.

The government also proposes expanding the subsidies for non-university higher education providers and those providing sub-degree programs. This in itself will threaten the quality and the reputation of our existing world class tertiary education system. If there is nothing stopping our universities from taking full advantage of deregulation and making up any shortfall in Commonwealth funding, which is already proposed, by shifting costs onto students then it will come as no surprise that it has been predicted that fees will rise by 30 per cent for most university students but for various courses they could rise by as much as 60 per cent. For instance, a law degree currently at Bond University, which is a private institution, already costs $120,000 whereas the same degree in a public institution costs around about $30,000.

The Howard government—bless its cotton socks—made a huge inroad into education. It made efforts to increase private involvement in the university sector thereby causing significant damage to Australia's reputation as a provider of quality university education. It certainly allowed international students to come to this country and buy university places, which is what we saw occur as a consequence of those policies.

It is clear that this government is set to continue the trend of privatising tertiary education, even including our VET sector. Private education facilities are keen to get involved and cherry-pick the most popular and profitable courses causing the closure of TAFE campuses and courses, thousands of teachers and administrators being thrown on the scrap heap as well as an increase in student fees. In New South Wales alone, we are seeing this played out right now. TAFE fees in New South Wales have already risen by an average of 9.5 per cent and 1200 teaching jobs have been slashed. I think everyone in this House knows that TAFE is universally recognised and respected; TAFE has been at the frontline in responding to industry needs and providing employees with the skills needed by industry to remain competitive into the future.

As a result of decisions by state and federal Liberal governments, it is becoming more and more difficult for young people in this country to gain the skills and knowledge they need to compete in an ever competitive world. University education and VET education will soon be out of reach for many. Fee deregulation and cuts to funding will also make it far more difficult for people returning to study—particularly mature age students—to upskill. They are coming into a system that is loaded with costs—bear in mind that many mature age students also maintain a house, a family and a household. They also face the challenge of paying off their first degrees, which will now have a real interest rate of six per cent for all HECS and HELP debt. It will raise the total cost of their education but also extend the period of their repayments. How can that come from a government that believes in a smart country—a government that should believe in a future for Australia?

When it comes to uncapping university fees and the increased privatisation of tertiary education, domestic and international experience confirms our worst fears. Student fees have risen sharply across the world. I am not aware of any country which has deregulated university fees having lower student fees. I was reading recently about the UK experience. Deregulation was introduced there in 2012 and fees were capped at £9000, but out of 123 universities there are only two this year that are not charging the highest allowable fee. If it is capped at £9000, every institution bar two is charging up to the maximum possible. That shows up the idea of opening the market to competitive forces to drive fees down as the furphy it is; and those opposite know it.

The US has seen a rapid expansion of for-profit colleges; 75 per cent of all enrolments are now to private institutions. These colleges are owned by corporations or equity firms—companies that can be bought and sold on the stock exchange or as part of equity developments. These colleges charge significantly higher than average tuition fees, but, interestingly, they actually target students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. They take advantage of the assistance packages offered by government. While these colleges spend a lot of time in marketing and recruiting, I doubt that they are out there giving away iPad, as happens in this country. Over half the students do not graduate, but they leave with astronomical debts. It is clear that the main goal of these profit-driven organisations is just that—making a profit It is not about the support and welfare of students. We need to ask ourselves: do we really want to copy a system that places tertiary education out of the reach of many? Why go down the path of attempting to Americanise our tertiary education system?

As I have said many times in this place, I represent the most multicultural electorate in the whole of the country. That is a source of great pride, but the area I represent has significant pockets of disadvantage. Parents in my electorate work pretty hard to provide for their families and to give their kids opportunities—opportunities in many cases that they themselves did not have. They encourage their kids to study, often spending long hours in after-hours tuition, and they aspire to have their kids succeed—to obtain a tertiary qualification and to make the most of themselves. I think it is a natural inclination for any parent to want their children to do better than they did; and these people work very hard to do that. It would be very disheartening to see hard-working, academically gifted students miss out on university places because of this government's inconsiderate decisions in cutting the amount of money allocated to tertiary education and in shifting the cost onto students.

In my electorate 6.7 per cent of the population is on the way to completing a degree. That is close to 10,000 people, but the truth is that many of these people would not be able to handle the huge financial pressures that they are set to face with the changes proposed by this bill. Many of them attend the University of Western Sydney—a great institution—which is now set to receive $64 million less in income from this government in the transition period, 2015-2020.

We are clearly moving in a direction where fairness and equality of opportunity are second to the financial circumstances of parents. If parents can pay they will certainly be accommodated in a full-fee paying deregulated system. Those opposite are set to destroy the Whitlam legacy of equal opportunity for all. The member for Herbert wanted to ridicule those on this side of the House for supporting Gough Whitlam and what he sought to do in education in this country. If anything, Gough Whitlam will go down as a visionary, because one thing he very much believed in was that education was the future of this country and he invested heavily in it.

Higher education is a key factor in the economic, cultural and social development of our nation. It plays a vital role in our international competitiveness and the future prosperity of Australia. If Australia is to compete for the jobs of the future, students need to have access to high-quality, well-funded education, regardless of their postcode or background. That is why we on this side of the House will be opposing this bill. It is nothing but a retrograde step and a failure to invest in the future of this country.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak to the amendments outlined in the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014, because I strongly believe that education provides a great foundation for people to gain the necessary knowledge, skills and qualifications they need to pursue the best possible employment opportunities, which, in turn, will help create a better future for themselves and their families. This is a belief quite close to my heart, as a university graduate, a former teacher, a mentor to a number of young people in my electorate and as a mother of two young children who I want to have access to the best possible opportunities to set them up for the best possible future for their lives.

That is why I so strongly support these reforms and why I urge members opposite, who would seek to create fear and uncertainty about the impact of these reforms, to look beyond the smokescreen of their own ideology and see what we are actually building, not what they claim we are trying to destroy. If they stopped for a moment to breathe and to fan away the smoke created by the fires they are attempting to light, members opposite might glimpse—even for a moment—an outline of what we are actually seeking to build: a solid framework for a once-in-a-generation opportunity for significant reform. If members opposite could see the framework, perhaps they would be able to make out the foundations. Then, if they can make out the foundations and the framework, maybe members opposite would then also perceive the quality of the bricks and mortar and tiles that are being laid by these reforms. If so, perhaps then they would also see that the architecture that is outlined in this legislation is actually about providing the best possible educational opportunities for all Australians, not just some.

In saying this, I speak as someone who grew up in a largely single income family, the eldest of five children, in a home where I was lucky enough to have parents who also knew the importance of education. My father was a high school teacher. I remember growing up back in the 1980s, during the times of the high interest rates we experienced under a former Labor government, delivering pamphlets and doing a paper run with my dad and my younger siblings which helped to pay for our school fees and our school uniforms and helped to pay the mortgage.

I also remember being a student at university in the early 1990s, working through the week during semester in casual employment, then working full time during my university holidays at a factory in West Gosford. I worked full time during my holidays in order to save up enough money by the beginning of each year to pay not only for my university texts but also for the compulsory student union fees that were imposed—quite high fees, if I recall correctly—but I never heard members from the other side of the chamber argue against their imposition. As I said in an earlier contribution to this debate, I also remember that while my HSC result enabled me to apply to any university in Australia for the humanities degree I wanted to study—no HSC result could have enabled me to make the one choice I would have perhaps liked to make—the choice to study locally.

So in making my contribution to this debate today, I speak as one acutely conscious of the impact of our reforms on those with less privileged backgrounds; those from regional areas—and I count my electorate of Robertson on the New South Wales Central Coast as a regional area—and those for whom access to choice of university is an important consideration.

I am advised that more than 4,600 students leave the Central Coast daily to Sydney to commute to their chosen metropolitan university. They do so because, at present, many do not have the choice to study in our region. Around 4,500 do have that choice—and I am enormously proud of the considerable investment made by the University of Newcastle into its Central Coast Campus at Ourimbah. There are another 4,500 at the TAFE campus there. The Ourimbah campus of Newcastle University offers 19 complete degrees plus online and split-site learning options, and its reputation in our region is of the highest order. But, after 25 years and consistently high rankings when it comes to student achievement and research, there are still only 4,500 university students at the Ourimbah campus. Why is that? Is it because of its location, a picturesque campus in the most beautiful region of the most beautiful country in the world? Is it because the mere fact that it is a smaller campus with less choice of courses means that many students from the Central Coast attend metropolitan based universities because the fees they pay for the privilege are the same regardless of which university they attend? Or is it because the current structure of the regulated system that our universities operate in do not allow them to think more innovatively, to explore more opportunity and to offer compelling and competitive courses that not only attract more students but importantly, outstanding staff as well?

So I ask those members opposite to imagine just for a moment what the future of a university campus on the Central Coast of New South Wales could be as a result of these incredibly important reforms. What additional faculties might it be possible to establish if a university like Newcastle, an outstanding university with an impressive pedigree despite its relative youth, was allowed to look for unique value propositions that would meet the needs of a growing region, attract students from around Australia and indeed the globe, and invest in the right courses that meet student demand and reflect their own expertise? What great future may lie ahead for a research intensive regional university like Newcastle, already in the world-class rankings, if it were let off the regulatory leash, so to speak, and allowed to create truly world-class educational and research opportunities to the benefit of current and future Australians wishing to pursue higher education?

Newcastle University has already identified the need to encourage more students from the Central Coast into university study through its pathways programs. More than 900 students were enrolled through the pathways program in 2013. As a snapshot into the diverse student mix on the Central Coast, more than 40 per cent of these students were from low socio-economic backgrounds and 55 per cent were mature-age students. So the opportunity for even more students on the Central Coast to benefit from the expansion of increased opportunities for diploma and sub-bachelor degrees is made possible by these reforms outlined in the bill.

In saying this, may I also commend Newcastle University for its pursuit of excellence in all fields, particularly in the areas of medicine and engineering. I thank vice-chancellor Professor Caroline McMillen for her outstanding leadership and stewardship of Newcastle University, and I acknowledge the significant and ongoing commitment that the university has made to providing excellence in educational opportunities on the Central Coast for more than two decades now.

If I sound passionate about these reforms, it is because I am. They make possible the world-class education that Australian students deserve and that our employees, entrepreneurs, businesses, schools, teaching hospitals need in order to build an even better tomorrow than what we enjoy today.

Despite what members opposite may say, the reforms outlined in this bill do not reduce opportunity for more students to access tertiary education—far from it. Competition enables choice and choice and quality of education ensure that more students, not fewer, will benefit from these reforms, and more students benefiting from choice and quality of education in turn of course, ultimately, benefits all of us as a nation.

We simply cannot allow a scare campaign by those members opposite to force a gradual decline into mediocrity in Australian higher education, nor should we allow members opposite to get away with their own dreadful record: the $6.6 billion that Labor ripped out of higher education and research between 2011 and 2013 hangs as a millstone around their necks.

In contrast, by allowing universities to set their own tuition fees from 2016 and enabling universities to specialise or offer more courses, regional universities like Newcastle will benefit because they can compete more successfully to attract more students. Because of HECS, under these reforms no student will pay a cent up-front for their university fees and no student will need to repay a cent until they are earning over $50,000 per year. And because of the choice and flexibility that is encouraged by these reforms, and because of the competition for the student dollar that deregulation of fees will engender, no university is likely to hoick up their fees to the sorts of heights that we hear in the cacophony of hysteria created by members opposite, who are trying to stymie this legislation. What members opposite they fail to understand, quite sadly, in my view, is that all they are really doing is trying to stymie future opportunities for students on the Central Coast—for children who today are still in primary school or preschool, for my children, for our children and for our children's children.

International competition alone demands that we at least consider these reforms and the very real benefit they will bring to regions like my own right around Australia. In fact, the Regional Universities Network has been publicly calling for these reforms to be passed by the House. The Chair of the Regional Universities Network, Professor Peter Lee, has made it clear, as have so many other leaders in this sector from across Australia, that it is not in the interest of students or universities to continue to let this issue drag on. Simply, these reforms should be passed—and it is not just Professor Lee. Universities Australia, the Regional Universities Network, the Australian Technology Network, the Innovative Research Universities, the Group of Eight, TAFE Directors Australia, the Australian Council of Private Education and Teaching, and the Council of Private Higher Education are all supporting the higher education reforms with amendments.

The need for reform has also been recognised by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the very organisations who represent many of the employees of future graduates. A major reason for this is the benefits to students from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds through our new Commonwealth Scholarships. This is the greatest scholarship scheme in Australia's history. It makes sense, because the brightest students from disadvantaged backgrounds should not have to miss out on forging pathways into education and employment.

Under these reforms, universities, along with other higher education providers, will play their part in this. Along with other higher education providers, they will spend $1 in every $5 of additional revenue raised into these scholarships for disadvantaged students. The institutions will also provide support to students from a low-socioeconomic background. This could assist students with the costs of living, as well as to cover fee exemptions, tutorial support or other assistance throughout their study.

The government are determined to widen opportunity and give everyone a chance at university. We know how important this is and we are working hard to ensure we get the reforms right. That is why we have proposed five key amendments in this bill, which builds on the strength of what was previously put to the House. The first is to retain CPI indexation for HECS debts, rather than moving to the 10-year bond rate—and I acknowledge Senator Day's contribution to this important amendment. The government have also accepted Senator Madigan's amendment, introducing an interest rate pause on debts for primary carers of children aged less than five who are earning less than the minimum repayment threshold. This is a good thing for new parents and it makes HECS even stronger.

The third important amendment will establish a structural adjustment fund so that universities can transition to the new environment, especially benefiting regionally located universities. In addition, a dedicated scholarship fund for universities with high proportions of students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds will be funded directly by the Commonwealth. This will add to the already generous Commonwealth scholarship scheme, which means thousands of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and in rural and regional communities will have even more help to get to university. Finally, we will also amend legislative guidelines so domestic fees are lower than international fees.

These amendments all add to the heart of these reforms: to deliver a higher education package that is fair and balanced, that spreads opportunity for students and ensures Australia is not left behind in global competition. It is worth repeating: students will remain protected by HECS. No Australian student has to pay even a single cent up-front. And no-one needs to fork out a cent until they are earning over $50,000 a year.

These groundbreaking reforms, including these amendments, expand a demand-driven system. Over 80,000 students each year will be provided additional support by 2018 under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. This includes an estimated 48,000 students in diploma, advanced diploma and associate degree courses, and 35,000 additional students undertaking bachelor courses. For current and future students, 50,000 students can look forward to benefitting from the abolition of the 25 per cent— (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The honourable member will have leave to continue her remarks when the debate is continued.