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

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the work the Government has undertaken in just over ten months to support Australia's higher education sector including:

(a) delivering 20,000 additional university places to areas of skills need for people underrepresented in our universities;

(b) facilitating the return of international students; and

(c) introducing the start-up legislation to support entrepreneurship, innovation and new ideas; and

(2) notes the once-in-a-generation universities accord process that the Government has commenced.

The Albanese Labor government hasn't wasted a day in seeking to better support Australia's higher education sector, an essential pillar of our nation's workforce, prosperity and future. Our commitment to ensuring that all Australians can pursue their educational aspirations and make meaningful contributions to society is demonstrated by our government's commitment to expanding university places in skill-deficient areas, facilitating the return of international students and introducing start-up legislation to support people to innovate within the higher education sector. This commitment is also demonstrated in our government's commitment to delivering a higher education system that is fit for purpose, meeting the current and future needs of the nation through our historic Universities Accord process. Higher education is a sector that is very important to me, personally—as someone who started their career in higher education—and also to my community, given that we have two universities and that a lot of my constituents are in study or work in the higher education sector.

By providing an additional 20,000 university places to areas where skills are needed, particularly for individuals who've historically been under-represented in our universities, our government has made significant progress towards fostering inclusivity and addressing the skills gap. Our proactive approach to identifying areas where specific skills are in demand exemplifies our unwavering commitment to expanding access to higher education. Our government is providing up to $485.5 million over the period 2022-23 to 2025-26 to deliver a one-off boost to additional commencing Commonwealth supported places. That's a really big deal. That's 20,000 people who will be able to pursue their ambitions of getting a degree through one of our wonderful universities in Australia. We've demonstrated a strong understanding of the significance of aligning educational pathways with the changing demands of the workforce by strategically directing the locations towards areas where skills are needed for these places.

It's really important to note that we have a deep and real commitment to inclusivity in the higher education sector, taking steps to increase inclusivity and provide equal educational opportunities for all Australians by allocating a significant portion of the additional university places to students from under-represented backgrounds. We know from data that access to higher education has historically been difficult for certain groups, including Indigenous Australians, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and those living in regional and remote areas. We are committed to fixing this. We are committed to helping those who aspire to attend university to get to university. Our government is committed to inclusivity when it comes to higher education. A tertiary sector that cultivates and celebrates diverse perspectives, encourages innovation and enriches the academic discourse by providing pathways for individuals who have historically been under-represented in our universities will be a better tertiary sector. Dedicating ourselves to ensuring that all Australians can pursue their educational aspirations and make meaningful contributions to society is foundational to Labor's commitment to the future of the higher education sector.

To promote long-lasting and fundamental change in our higher education system, our government, with oversight from the Minister for Education, has initiated a once-in-a-generation higher education review via the Australian Universities Accord. This accord is the first broad review of the higher education system since the Bradley review, and it is an opportunity to look at everything from funding and access to affordability, transparency, regulation, employment conditions and how higher education and vocational education and training can and should work together. Led by the Minister for Education, and with advice from a panel of eminent Australians, this panel and this process will engage all sectors and groups affected by higher education policy, including and not limited to universities, higher education and VET providers, educators and researchers, students, parents, unions, business, state and territory governments, and groups who've been under-represented in higher education. Importantly, this panel will make recommendations to government. We've received over 300 discussion papers already through that engagement program, and there have been over 80 stakeholder meetings already. I'm really looking forward to continuing to support higher education in Australia— (Time expired)

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

Is the motion seconded?

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for moving this important motion before the House, and I associate myself with many of her comments, apart from that bit about the 10 years of neglect. What a shock that we don't agree on that particular point! I'm speaking as someone who has been a consumer of education with my family for the best part of 20 years. We've had a bit of a one-family road test of the Australian education system as my four children have gone through primary school, secondary school and now university. Two of my children have graduated from university and two are still studying.

At the outset, I want to acknowledge the impact of COVID on our education sector and, in particular, the impact that it had on our teachers, parents and students as they dealt with a large number of challenges in a compressed period of time, which made it very difficult for many students, particularly those attending the later years of secondary college, to fulfil their obligations at that time. I want to thank the teaching community and their support networks for the work they did, particularly in looking after the welfare of students as they dealt with those rather challenging times. Remote learning wasn't easy for a lot of our young Australians, and I think they've come out the other side more resilient and stronger but still requiring some additional support as they move on to university and attempt to fulfil their tertiary studies.

Like many members in this place, I have a great passion for helping young people in my community to achieve their full potential, whether that be through the trades or through tertiary education. I think it's important that we instil in our young people what a great nation this is that we all get to enjoy, and also that we help them to recognise the opportunities that are there for them if they work hard and commit themselves to their studies and aspire to achieve everything they can possibly achieve with the skills that they have. I've been a proud supporter of the public education system. It was a choice that my family made. While I do respect choice and recognise that others choose the independent sector, my family and I chose the public sector because we wanted our children to have the opportunity to study close to home in their local primary school and secondary college. We actively supported our local public schools. My wife was a school council president for many years for the very reason that we wanted to be involved in our kids' education.

I think one of our great challenges in our regional and rural areas—the member for Chisholm spoke of it when she mentioned the new government's commitment to inclusivity—is helping to overcome the aspirational and cost barriers for rural and regional students seeking to fulfil their full potential and go on to tertiary study. There are a lot of parts of rural and regional Australia where university access is very difficult. The previous government made some inroads in that regard through improvements to the tertiary access allowance and payments to assist students from rural and regional areas when they're relocating to a metropolitan environment. I fully acknowledge that all of the easy stuff has been done in terms of government in this country, and most of the reform now is very difficult. It's a challenge to build support outside of government, and also inside government, when it comes to the Expenditure Review Committee process and getting money out of Treasury and Finance, for further reforms. But I would encourage the minister in this regard, as he seeks to improve the inclusivity for rural and regional students, to note that we still lag behind in our rural, regional and remote areas in terms of participation at the highest level of education. A challenge remains, and I offer my bipartisan support to the new minister in seeing how we can overcome any of those barriers.

The aspirational barrier is something we need to deal with as leaders in our own communities. It's up to us as leaders in those communities to encourage our young people to achieve their best, but the cost barriers and economic barriers are things that the government can continue to work on. We're going to see now, I fear—with the increased cost of living, HECS indexation bills, rental shortages and price rises—that the costs of living away from home for rural and regional students will be a bigger barrier in the next five to 10 years than perhaps it has been in the last five or 10 years. So we have a real challenge in terms of helping those rural and regional students who have to relocate to a metropolitan environment to make sure that they're well supported as they do that and that we take every measure we can as a government to allow rural and regional students to achieve their full potential.

One of the other challenges we have for regional university campuses is ensuring that our regional students see them as a worthwhile and viable choice. I think in my electorate of Gippsland, the Federation University at Churchill is increasing its range of courses, particularly around allied health, to encourage more young people to study in their own local area, because we know that those local young people who train and learn locally are more likely to work locally and help overcome some of those health and allied health workforce shortages that we face. So I encourage those opposite to recognise the important role of regional universities as they do their work and recognise the economic barriers that still face rural and regional students who are forced to move away from home. I'd also encourage them to continue to support our regional university campuses for the great work they do right throughout regional Australia.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I make a few provocative remarks about what needs to change in our great international education sector, let me be a hundred per cent clear: I love it. International students make an incredible contribution to Australia. They add vibrancy and diversity. They add over $40 billion economically and do jobs that help our country. They fund research in universities and new facilities. They build soft power for decades through human connections. As a country, we should be so grateful that young people choose to study here, and we should welcome them back.

But—and, yes, there are now some big buts. The vast majority of the sector do wonderful things, but a minority of students, mainly in the bottom end of private VET, are only here to work, not study. Our student visa must not be used as a low-rent work visa. Australia's future success rests on two things: a quality education and a great student experience. After a decade of drift and neglect, Australia needs to lift our game and ruthlessly champion quality education to restore the sector's social licence and protect the good providers and students. So I want to float four possible reform ideas for debate. In private conversations, some have termed them 'nuclear options', but, hey, it's the Federation Chamber!

First: what if we revamp the entire accreditation framework for private VET providers to separate training from assessment? In year 12, assessment is fully outsourced from the school that taught the student, yet, in VET and higher ed, every provider does both the training and the assessment. What if that changed? Most providers do good things, but there are a significant minority that are selling dodgy work visas, and I'm struggling to see any other way to really regulate and ensure quality. When a car rolls off a factory production line, we determine quality by inspecting and testing it, yet in education ASQA inspect the paperwork and classroom and use that as a proxy for quality. It's like deciding that a car is quality by inspecting the factory, the tea room, the time sheets for the workers and the list of parts that made the car but never being allowed to check the car itself. Good quality providers are despairing. They report that dodgy providers just let the students in and pop the exam answers up on the board, and then the students write them down and go back to work. Can we ever really weed out the dodgy providers if we don't test the students?

Second: what if most private VET providers enrolling international students then had to reapply for their training licence? There are 904 private providers in this country that teach VET to international students. Most are great, but some are not. If we raise the bar to become an assessment provider and force the higher risk private VET providers to have their students externally assessed, then it would shock the whole system. ASQA could rapidly put those colleges selling dodgy qualifications out of business.

Third: what if we suspended enrolments in low-value courses? If Australia is worried about rapidly growing student numbers, particularly in private VET, then why not just pause new recruitment to courses with non-vocational outcomes in which vast numbers of VET students are enrolled? Really—let's be honest. What benefit is Australia getting from tens of thousands of international students enrolled in certificates and diplomas in marketing, leadership or business? There are few, if any, migration pathways, the courses are cheap and many of the students are not studying—they're working. It's a low-rent work-visa scam. Suspending recruitment to such courses would be a quick way to moderate or reduce student numbers. It's controversial but food for thought.

Fourth, what about education agents? Calls are growing right across the sector and the community to regulate the behaviour of onshore education agents. Agents play an important role in advising and recruiting new students from overseas. But rapacious onshore agents are destroying the integrity of the sector. They're demanding outrageous commissions of 30 per cent, 40 per cent or 50 per cent. They're bribing and stealing students from universities to low-cost VET providers with kickbacks, discounts and incentives. They're not acting in the best interests of the student, as they're supposed to do. They're effectively selling students to increasingly desperate providers. Especially in light of the shocking revelations about human trafficking and criminal activity, regulating agents has really now become a question of how and when, not if. The reason it hasn't happened before is frankly because it's complex and expensive, and the sector is going to pay through cost recovery.

But what if this parliament simply banned the payment of commissions or kickbacks for onshore students entirely? Instead of trying to manage their behaviour with complex regulatory schemes, what if we simply wiped the intermediaries out? Is it time to prune the tree to save the tree? We should be supporting international education and chasing the highest-quality standards, and that may mean tough decisions.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the contribution from the member for Bruce. Those are some good things that we should debate and discuss. I particularly like his first point on reform potentially separating assessment from providers. I don't know if I misheard him, but I hope he means that for all providers, not just private providers. I think that assessment absolutely must be for the public system as well.

I'd like to see the union that represents teachers in VET coming out and supporting the public system and the private system having a little bit of independent evaluation. That would be absolutely excellent. It would be dramatic, and there would be significant, significant consequences that the member for Bruce may or may not like to see. But we in the Liberal Party love merit-based assessment, reward for effort and breaking apart the protection racket of poor performance anywhere, particularly when it comes to educating the next generation of our nation. I welcome the suggestion by the member for Bruce, of all people, that some independent merit-based assessment of the entire VET system be put in place. I commit to working with him on that and supporting genuine reform that see the sunlight shine in upon the way in which the entire VET system operates. Certainly in my home state of South Australia it's almost entirely the government's system. But I'm sure they do not fear any form of independent oversight or assessment of the training that they provide or some kinds of published results of the quality of the education and training, as are being put in place. I think that's exciting, I warmly welcome it and I thank the member for Bruce for bringing that to our chamber. I look forward to seeing him get the education minister in the Labor government that he's a part of to bring forward reforms of that nature. I would look forward to speaking up in my party room were there any dissent to the concept of a robust, independent process for assessing the quality of the education that's provided across all registered training organisations in this country. I welcome the opportunity to unexpectedly agree with the member for Bruce on that.

He's talked about some other things. He's obviously very concerned about the amount of migration in this country. He's part of a government that's bringing in 1½ million people through things like, as he's just described, these dodgy renting-worker schemes. He's in the government, so I wish him all strength to his arm in convincing this government that the 1½ million people coming into the country across the forward estimates of the budget—without any planning for the infrastructure and services required to support that spectacular and dramatic increase in our population. I wish him well, within the government he's a member of, in succeeding in the debates, however the Labor Party have these debates, if they have them at all. I wish him well in what he's just expressed to the Federation Chamber in that regard.

Having used most of my time talking about the member for Bruce, I will quickly put on the record in brief what I was going to say in my full five minutes, and that is that we certainly welcome the opportunity in this debate to talk about higher education and its important place within the tertiary system. The member for Bruce has made a good point by introducing VET into this debate, because for too long we've treated higher education as purely being about university-level degree qualifications, and it is wrong to have the sort of elitism in our society where we suggest that the optimal pathway is going to university. Welcome and good luck to all those like myself that go to university, but there are also a number of other very rewarding career pathways that don't require a need to go to university.

This motion talks about government funding to the sector. The most significant thing I'm being contacted about as a local member right now in this sector is the dramatic increase in HECS debts, which of course is occurring because inflation is so high. Of course, when you've got a government running inflation so high, everything that's index linked, including HECS debts, dramatically increases. It is surprising people with HECS debts, because I suppose they never thought that inflation could run this hot, but that's what happens under Labor governments. We're seeing it now, and we've seen it in the past. I merely say to all the students and others in my electorate who contact me that hopefully a change of government will see this high inflation reduced and those debts not increase so dramatically. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Dr Garland, the member for Chisholm, for this higher education motion because education policies foster great transformational opportunities in life. That's why it's always at the core of labour policies and Labor policies—from setting up mechanics institutes and arts centres for workers to improve themselves at night back in the 1800s, right through to universal education and the Gonski reforms of this century. Education permits individuals and societies to thrive. Obviously, early childhood is crucial, primary and high school consolidate and allow some catch-up, and vocational education can then be an important pathway to prosperity and dignity. However, in this speech, I'd like to focus particularly on university education.

In many ways, university provides the pinnacle for many educational journeys—that transformative experience that opens doors, expands horizons and shapes the future not only of the individual but also of the country that they then shape with their knowledge. Therefore, ensuring access to university education is not just a matter of personal opportunity but a matter of societal progress. Having strong universities is in our national interest. That's why, just over a year after the Albanese Labor government was elected, we're delivering an additional 20,000 university places to tackle skills shortages and give more students from under-represented backgrounds the chance to go to university.

This country needs our best and brightest people at university. A university education plays a pivotal role in promoting social mobility and reducing inequality. It serves as a powerful equaliser, breaking down barriers and creating opportunities for individuals from all backgrounds, mixing the bush with the city, the poor with the wealthy, new Australians with old Australians and the rest of the world, all in that atmosphere of learning. Importantly, these extra 20,000 university places have been allocated to support students who are currently under-represented in our universities. These are students from poorer families, students from regional Australia—which would've been me 40 years ago—First Nations students, Australians with a disability, and students who are the first in their family to set foot in a university. These extra places have the potential to change people's lives, and I'm proud to be a part of a government that's helping to train the next generation of Australian workers to step up and take charge.

I'm also very proud to report that international students are on the way back. They're critical Australian assets; the biggest export that we don't dig out of the ground. It took a huge hit from COVID-19 for many years; this $40 billion export industry was cut in half. But international students have long played a significant role in our universities, and during the pandemic we really saw how the significant withdrawal of overseas students had such a negative impact on our university campuses—not just on their accounts but in so many other ways. Sadly, it wasn't helped by the fact that the international students who were living in Australia were told to 'go home' by the Morrison government. Remember those words? 'Go home.' Those words from the member for Cook did far more damage than his disastrous 'Where the bloody hell are you?' ad campaign from before he came into parliament. With those brutal words, the member for Cook turned our soft-power ambassadors into disgruntled agents and knockers.

The Albanese government is rebuilding our international education sector. We've broken the back of the visa backlog and announced an extension of work rights for students who get degrees in areas where we have a skills shortage, and thankfully the students are coming back. Data from the ABS shows that more than 59,000 came to Australia in January—more than double the number in the same period last year—and almost 143,000 returned in February for the start of the university semester. We introduced our start-up legislation that will help young Australian entrepreneurs to get help to bring their ideas to life by creating a 2,000 HELP-style loans each year. The new loans will enable eligible students to participate in that higher education based accelerator program—loans that will give eligible students critical support and access to the mentors and facilities that they need to start their new businesses in Australia.

Late last year the education minister announced the once-in-a-generation Universities Accord, which will build a long-term plan for Australia's higher education system and will be the first broad review of higher education since the Bradley review back in 2008. The Universities Accord is an opportunity to look at everything, from funding and access to affordability to transparency, regulation, employment conditions, and how higher and vocational education and training can and should work together.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is wonderful to talk on this motion. Higher education is so important to the future of our country as well as to the individual. I, like many in this House, am fortunate to have a degree. I can say that without the HECS system I wouldn't have had that opportunity. When I was growing up we did not have the financial means to pay for university. So, to be able to delay that payment was so important to me and to my siblings in being able to get an education at university.

As the member for Sturt talked about, when talking about HECS, the biggest issue facing higher education that I hear about all the time is the inflation rate, now at 7.1 per cent, which means that HECS debts are being indexed at that rate, so many students are incurring an increase in their debt that is greater than their repayments, which is causing significant anguish and concern for them. It's not something we hear the government talking about. The obvious and first solution is to bring inflation down and focus on that, through their fiscal means, which they need to continue to do to drive inflation down to our two to three per cent band.

But they also need to be creative and look at other ways to support students. I think we should have a conversation about mechanisms that we have—potentially pausing, much like the former government did with the fuel excise, cutting that rebate in half for six months because of the war in Ukraine. It was immediate action to give people relief at that time. We need to have a conversation about what we can do to help students who are incurring these HECS debts as we speak. So, I'd support any conversation that we can have in a bipartisan way to address this challenge for all students.

But moving to the motion, I must say, it was a little bit light, after what this government says about 12 months of achievements, and in many ways it sums up some of the challenges here. There's not a lot happening in this space. But let's go through it in a little bit more detail. If we look at the 20,000 places that they've announced, it sounds great, although I always get concerned when there's a big announcement from this government about big numbers and what they've achieved, because generally when you look a little bit deeper it's actually not there in the detail. So, I trusted my instinct; I did a little bit research on the minister's own website about the 20,000 places. Interestingly, he lists only 13,389 that have been placed so far. So I thought, well, there's still 2023-24; we're running out of time, but potentially there are more to come. But applications closed on 19 September 2022. So, they closed last year, and almost 12 months later there's an almost 7,000-place shortfall in that 20,000. So this is question for the minister: is the announcement of 20,000 so we can get it out into the media with our press releases and move motions like this? Is it actually 20,000 places or are we going to end up at about 13,000? That would be a long way short of the 20,000 figure.

Also in that detail—which the minister didn't talk about at the time—is the fact that this program is temporary. By 2028, the funding will be gone. It's not even going to exist. They didn't mention, at any stage, that it was temporary. Again, if you look below the media release and the headline with this government, the detail's not there to actually be supporting students. Obviously, facilitating the return of international students is fantastic and amazing. We've opened our borders and students across the globe are coming back. Well done! It would've happened anyway.

Going to the introduction of the start-up legislation: when Labor talk about supporting start-ups and entrepreneurships, what they don't talk about is the budget. They shut down the Accelerating Commercialisation program. They don't talk about how they closed the entrepreneurs' program, and they definitely don't talk about how they've frozen, and are potentially stopping, the Boosting Female Founders Initiative that supports female entrepreneurs to grow their businesses with seed money of $250,000 to $500,000. Again, we hear a lot about what they're doing; they don't talk about the cuts. We hear a lot about female participation in the workforce. It's vital. I can't think of anything more than important than supporting female entrepreneurs, particularly post COVID, as the digital economy has continued to climb and there are so many opportunities for all Australians. I know there are many women, mums in particular, that started their own business through COVID, and now they've had this program paused. It's taken away from them the certainty that they can create a great future for themselves and their families.

This motion is light on action. Even the measures they've included don't stack up, and it is not delivering for higher education.

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The benefits of higher education are clear. University graduates are more likely to be employed compared to their non-graduate counterparts, with 72 per cent of bachelor degree graduates in full-time employment within four months of completing their studies, compared to 58 per cent of people with only a high school qualification. Australian workers with a university degree earned 55 per cent more than those who only completed year 10. In summary, those with a university degree are more likely to be in full-time employment and are more likely to be earning more than those who don't have a degree.

What is lost in these numbers, though, is the transformative power that higher education can have on an individual, and the impact that they can go on to have on our society. Consider someone like Professor Rae Cooper from the University of Sydney. She was the first in her family to go to university. It was a big adventure for a country kid from Merriwa in the Upper Hunter to move to Sydney to study. The adjustment for a country kid studying at one of Australia's leading universities can be overwhelming. It was something Professor Cooper experienced, and she dropped out in her first semester. She returned the next year, and not only did she survive university but she thrived. Majoring in industrial relations at the University of New South Wales, Professor Cooper was awarded the University Medal, and so began a lifelong love of researching work, employment and women. From there, she went on to complete her PhD at the University of Sydney, and she has been there ever since. We are all the beneficiaries of that.

Professor Cooper has gone on to become one of the most influential researchers and thinkers on women in the workplace. She's the co-director of the Women, Work and Leadership Research Group at the University of Sydney Business School, an initiative studying gender and work, women's careers and flexible employment. Such has been the invaluable contribution of her research that she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2019. Her contribution, however, extends beyond research and its application. Professor Cooper has also been a mentor for so many students who needed extra support at university. In her own words, she spent:

… 20 years identifying and seeking out students who looked lost in my classes. Down to the last one, they are first in family students, usually from the country or outer suburbs.

Professor Cooper was also my PhD supervisor, so I experienced firsthand how invaluable her mentorship can be. Sadly, that PhD is on hiatus now that I'm in this role, but I'm thankful to Professor Cooper for her support of me and so many other students. She changed lives in more ways than one. Professor Cooper's story is just one example of the transformative power of education.

I'm proud to be part of a government that recognises this and values our universities. Where the previous coalition government actively undermined the sector, they oversaw the most amount of job losses the sector has ever seen, with estimates of around 12,000 jobs lost during the pandemic. In contrast, we've committed $485 million to fund an additional 20,000 university places in areas of skills shortages. These places have been specifically set aside to increase participation for underrepresented groups, those from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, regional students, students living with a disability, First Nations people and those who are the first in a family to study at university.

There's more for us to do, and that work is currently underway with the Australian Universities Accord, a 12-month review of Australia's higher education system. Led by an expert independent panel, the accord will drive lasting and transformational reform in the higher education sector, because, on this side of the House, we want to make sure the doors of higher education and the doors of opportunity are open to all.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.