Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Education is the key to success, and it has been front and centre among my priorities since being elected as the federal member for Holt. I am proud to support a government that has embarked on the monumental task of fixing Australia's higher education system. This is taking place through several initiatives, including fee-free TAFE; the inquiry into the status and perceptions of vocational education and training by the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training; and, most importantly, the Australian Universities Accord. The Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023 implements the priority recommendations of the Australian Universities Accord interim report by amending the Higher Education Support Act 2003.

On 19 July 2023, Minister for Education Jason Clare brought forward a giant leap for the Australian higher education system by releasing the Australian Universities Accord interim report, which is the biggest and broadest review of Australia's higher education system in 15 years. The accord is a result of careful and considered deliberations by a number of pre-eminent Australians.

In particular, the accord team consists of the chair, Professor Mary O'Kane AC, who was formerly the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Adelaide; Professor Barney Glover AO, the Vice-Chancellor of Western Sydney University; Ms Shemara Wikramanayake, the first female Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Macquarie Group; the Hon. Jenny Macklin AC, the former Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs; Professor Larissa Behrendt AO, the first Indigenous Australian to graduate from Harvard Law School, a professor of law, and the Director of Research at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney; and the Hon. Fiona Nash, who was formerly a senator for New South Wales, the Minister for Regional Development, the Minister for Regional Communications and the Minister for Local Government and Territories and is now Australia's first Regional Education Commissioner.

Together, they bring to bear their enormous experience in our universities, business and public policy and a mix of experience in STEM and humanities. From our cities and our regions and across the political divide, their terms of reference are also broad. They have been tasked to look at everything from access to affordability, from teaching quality to research, and from governance and employment conditions to how higher education and vocational education and training can and should work more closely together.

I am proud that the Albanese Labor government is committed to opening the door of opportunity for more Australians to go to university. Thirty-six per cent of the current Australian workforce has a university qualification today. When we narrowed the sample to those in their late 20s and early 30s, this figure jumps to almost one in two. However, this is not the case everywhere. In the outer suburbs of major cities, including the communities I am proud to represent, only 23 per cent of young adults have a university degree. As per the 2021 census, just over 20 per cent of Holt residents have educational attainment at the bachelor's degree level and above, compared to 26 per cent of Australians and 29 per cent of Victorians. That's right, compared to the rest of Victoria, residents in Holt are almost a third less likely to be qualified with a bachelor's degree or more.

I welcome the accord team's recommendations that 'the only way to significantly boost the percentage of the workforce with a university qualification is to significantly increase the number of students who are currently underrepresented in our universities'. This includes students from outer suburbs, like those in my electorate of Holt; students from poorer backgrounds; students with a disability; and Indigenous students. We simply cannot delay action on such a crucial issue. We need to act now, and I am proud that the Albanese Labor government has been firm in doing so since the day we were elected.

The first part of this report makes five recommendations that are prioritised for immediate action ahead of the final report. I am proud the government has confirmed that it will implement each of the five interim recommendations, namely:

1. that we create more university study hubs—not only in the regions but also in our outer suburbs;

2. that we scrap the '50 per cent pass rule' and require better reporting on how students are progressing;

3. that we extend the demand-driven funding currently provided to Indigenous students from regional and remote areas to cover all Indigenous students;

4. that we provide funding certainty during the accord process by extending the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee into 2024 and 2025, with funding arrangements that prioritise support for equity students; and

5. that we work with state and territory governments, through National Cabinet, to improve university governance.

This legislation is necessary to affect two recommendations, 2 and 3, contained in the interim report. Specifically, this bill will amend HESA to remove the pass rate requirements for students to remain eligible for Commonwealth assistance and introduce new requirements on universities and other providers to support students to successfully complete their studies and extend the current demand driven funding for regional and remote First Nations students to all First Nation Australian undergraduate students studying bachelor or bachelor honours level courses other than courses in medicine from 2024.

Students are currently required to pass at least 50 per cent of the units they undertake to maintain eligibility for Commonwealth assistance. The pass rate is assessed after they have completed eight units in a bachelor's degree or higher or four units in a shorter course. Of students who fail, more than half currently lose eligibility for Commonwealth assistance. These pass rates were originally introduced in January 2022 by the former coalition government as a part of its job-ready graduates program to discourage students from continuing courses they are not academically suited for. However, the practical effect of these measures has been overly punitive for students.

The impact of the pass rate requirements has disproportionally affected students from First Nations, low socioeconomic statuses and other underrepresented or educationally disadvantaged cohorts, like those in my electorate of Holt. More than 13,000 students at 27 universities have already been hit by the rule. Removal of the rule has been called for by universities right across the country, like the University of Adelaide, Monash University, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of the Sunshine Coast, the University of New England, the Queensland University of Technology and Western Sydney University. We should be helping students succeed, not forcing them to quit.

The bill introduces requirements on universities and other providers to have policies in place to help students successfully complete their studies. Under these policies, universities and other providers would be required to demonstrate how they will identify students who are struggling and how they will connect those students with support services to help them.

In addition, the department of education will issue a discussion paper to consult with universities and providers on the content of these policies. They are expected to contain measures such as: processes for identifying students who need help; assessing a student's academic and non-academic suitability for continuing study, particularly where they have triggered an alert; connecting students to support and identifying students who have not engaged with support before their census date, whenever possible; providing sufficient non-academic supports for students, such as financial assistance, housing information and mental health supports, which is important as many students struggle because of non-academic issues; having appropriate crisis and crucial harm response arrangements; providing access to trained academic development advisers who can help a student identify what's holding them back and come up with the right response for that student; ensuring that academic and non-academic supports are age and culturally appropriate, including specific arrangements for Indigenous students; proactively offering 'special circumstances' arrangements where a provider is aware of a significant life event for a student; providing access to targeted individual literacy, numeracy and other academic supports; providing provider-driven and evidence based additional support, such as peer support; and targeted course support for academic staff, such as check-ins and flexibility on assessment arrangements.

Compliance with their student support policies will be mandatory for universities and other providers, with civil penalties applicable for breaches. Besides introducing changes that will support more students to continue their education, this bill also makes major changes to ensure Indigenous students are encouraged to study at university. Only seven per cent of young Indigenous Australians possess a bachelor's degree or higher. In fact, the rates of completion among Indigenous students are so low that a young Indigenous man today is more likely to go to jail than university.

The existing demand-driven measure was implemented in 2021 in response to the National Regional, Rural and Remote Education Strategy, the Napthine review. Under the current legislation, only Indigenous students from regional and remote Australia can access demand-driven places. In other words, only First Nations students living in areas like Gippsland are eligible, excluding those in locations like Cranbourne or Hampton Park. The proposal aims to increase First Nations enrolment numbers by expanding the eligibility of demand-driven funding to include metropolitan First Nations students studying bachelor and bachelor honours courses, except courses of study in medicine, at Table A universities.

In other words, this change will ensure all Indigenous students are eligible for a funded place at a public university if they meet the entry requirements for the course. This means that, where a student meets the entry requirements for a course, they are able to access support in the form of a Commonwealth supported place and a HELP loan. It is a proven mechanism to increase access to university for under-represented groups.

This bill means that demand-driven places for bachelor level courses, excluding medicine, will now be available to all Indigenous students regardless of where they live. Consequently, there will be no cap on First Nations students enrolling in Commonwealth supported places. Table A providers will also receive Commonwealth funding for all Indigenous students as outlined in part 2-2 of HESA. This measure directly supports efforts towards achieving Closing the Gap target 6:

By 2031, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 25-34 years who have completed a tertiary qualification (Certificate III and above) to 70 per cent.

The Department of Education estimates this may double the number of Indigenous students at university within a decade.

Similar to the Jobs and Skills Summit, the Australian Universities Accord represents a landmark review set to influence our country for generations of Australians to come. I support the passage of this bill. I am proud the Albanese Labor government is delivering on its commitment to deliver a better future for every Australian.

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

After a long-overdue 12-month review looking into our troubled university sector, the Australian Universities Accord Panel has handed down an interim report, with five recommendations for urgent action, and it's great that the government will act on these. The first recommendation is to create new regional study hubs. The second is to improve governance at universities—totally urgent in my view—by working with the states and territories through the National Cabinet. It's good to be reminded that National Cabinet can do things to influence and incentivise state and territory governments, although the government claims it can't necessarily do that in relation to other issues, like rent caps. The third recommendation is to extend a grant program for another two years and require universities to spend the remaining funding on supporting underprivileged students. These three recommendations don't require legislative change.

The Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023 was introduced to legislate the last two recommendations, the first of which is to scrap the 50 per cent rule, which saw students lose government funding if they failed more than half of their subjects. This heinous rule was originally introduced by the Morrison government as part of the Job-ready Graduates Package, which also hiked fees for humanities, arts and other courses unfavoured by the coalition. The bill also inserts a new requirement that universities must have a policy aimed at supporting students to successfully complete their units of study. The last of the five recommendations of the accord interim report is to ensure that all First Nations students are eligible for a funded place at university by extending funding to metropolitan First Nations students, rather than only regional First Nations students. We welcome this.

Overall, this is a positive bill, and we support those recommendations. However, it goes nowhere near far enough to address the fundamental systemic problems with Australia's tertiary education sector. We're missing an opportunity here to retune, to act on many urgent issues in Australian universities. There are serious issues around students' experience and rights, and they're just not addressed by this bill.

Student debt—we need to wipe student debt, or at least abolish indexation and raise the minimum repayment income to the median wage. Stipends for PhD students—a constituent of mine, in Ryan, spoke to me about this just last week; they need to be raised to at least the minimum wage. The age of independence and student social security payments—the independence age needs to be changed from 22 to 18, and student social security payments must be raised above the poverty line, to at least $88 a day. Mandatory placements—students need to be paid for these. Fee hikes—the fee hikes introduced as part of the Job-ready Graduates Package need to be reversed. Housing—all international students, indeed all students, must have access to safe and affordable housing. And safety—students must be kept safe from sexual assault. There are also very serious issues, again not addressed by this bill, around the governance of our universities and the appallingly poor treatment of the academic staff as well as students. The support of students and staff, rather than just administration, should be a core priority of government and universities. Without that, they cannot possibly deliver the quality education and research we need for a thriving future in Australia.

In February this year, I had the great privilege of addressing an NTEU rally and strike at the University of Queensland, speaking alongside my wonderful friend and colleague Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Greens, who for many years has been a staunch advocate for the rights of students and university workers. Like me, she has deep lived experience within the university system.

The University of Queensland is a huge institution and employer in my electorate of Ryan. It's been a big part of my life since 1974, when I first started my studies there. I've tutored and lectured, and I'm still an adjunct professor there. My husband has been a head of department and professor. My kids have been students and are now both professors. We've lived it from the inside, as it were. In 1974, I was one of the first incredibly fortunate Gough Whitlam era uni students, the grateful beneficiary, as were many others in this place, of fee-free university. Wow, there has been a lot of change over those nearly 50 years, but I'm afraid it's been retrograde change.

What was different in 1974? That was the first year of free university that lasted until the end of my degree. We had a very diverse cohort as, finally, tertiary education was accessible. There were healthy student-teacher ratios, properly paid and better-respected staff with career advancement opportunities, including tenure. We know what has happened since then. Now we have both struggling students and struggling teachers. I strongly supported the NTEU in their strike action for better conditions. They were suffering under the abominably poor governance and conduct of the Australian university sector. Most other workplaces could certainly not get away with the poor employment conditions, poor conditions for casual staff, inadequate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment targets, inadequate salary increases, unsustainable academic workloads, forced redundancies, outsourcing, poor progression for casuals, problems around long-service leave and reproductive health and wellbeing leave, and simplification of casual rates—which basically means staff have to negotiate with managers how much prep time they should be paid for, and it is likely to result in less pay for casual staff as there'll no longer be a minimum.

UQ, like most other universities, has been behaving like the most venal of corporations. This has dire negative effects on both students and staff, and I'm afraid current legislation and regulatory frameworks do not address this broken system. UQ, to use it as an example, purports to be a revered institution. UQ ranks among the world's top universities. UQ says they have 'a strong focus on teaching excellence'. In fact, UQ's teachers have won for UQ more national teaching awards than any other Australian university. UQ needs to support its teachers. To do that, UQ and other universities need to model fair working conditions, to be in alignment with broader public expectations to provide high-quality education. This is clearly hampered when universities treat teachers like slaves and students like cash customers.

Governments and universities need to support the aspirations of all students and the rights of their workers and, importantly, increase representation of First Nations people—and more broadly, act in accordance with the basic principles of social justice. These are just baseline requirements of any company or employer these days. You can do it, universities! It's about priorities. UQ and other universities continued to generate very healthy profits and returns during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they still do. We have vice-chancellors earning frankly ridiculously stratospheric salaries while students starve and teachers are treated like slaves.

In a harrowing report released that same week in February, we discovered that wage theft has shamefully become an endemic part of universities' business models. This report uncovered the staggering value of wages stolen in the university sector. An analysis of cases conservatively found that $83.4 million was owed to staff across the higher education sector. Further cases will almost certainly top $90 million—a shameful indictment. So what we need to demand on top of this bill is a major, urgent response from governments and universities. The NTEU has recovered many millions of dollars in stolen wages. Shamefully, some universities have chosen to pursue expensive litigation to fight the staff whose wages they have stolen.

That's how the teachers and researchers are being screwed over. Now, back to the students. If this government is serious about improving access to universities, it needs to stop ignoring the giant elephant in the room—student debt. Spiralling student debt is an absolute scourge, disproportionately disadvantaging First Nations students, women and young people. Yet, on 1 June 2023, this government indexed student debts at a staggering 7.1 per cent, up from 3.9 the year before. Based on Parliamentary Library estimates, in just two years of the Labor government, student debt could increase by an astronomical 15 per cent, rising faster than it can be paid off. The Greens attempted to stop this indexation increase, but Labor blocked that, ignoring desperate pleas for relief and causing untold long-term pain for people who are being locked out of the housing market, denied personal loans and rethinking dreams of further study.

Education should not be a debt sentence. The student loan system is broken. It's time to wipe all student debt and make TAFE and uni free. That's what the Greens are fighting for. There's so much more the government should be doing, like addressing mandatory unpaid placements, where students are required to work countless hours without pay or compensation. This is especially common in feminised fields, like nursing and teaching, thus further entrenching gender inequality. A teaching bachelor degree mandates four months of unpaid full-time hours to qualify; nursing, five months; and social work, more than six months, pushing students to their physical, emotional and economic limits. It's an absolute travesty that a Labor government is allowing this to go on. If this government was really serious about supporting students, it would take action to address student poverty, lower the age of independence from 22 to 18, and raise student social security payments above the poverty line, to at least $88 a day. Students are struggling to pay rent and to afford food and transport costs. This is an appalling situation in a wealthy country like ours.

It's about priorities. The government cannot argue that a healthy education system is unaffordable, when they're giving $313 billion in tax breaks to the wealthy and spending $368 billion on nuclear powered submarines. An education system that pushes students further into inequality is a broken one, and a welfare system that doesn't lift people above the poverty line to ensure that they're living in dignity is an utterly cruel one. So come on, government: legislate and regulate a new framework in which our universities operate as responsible employers and institutions, prioritising education not profit. Support the students and the teachers, who are the engine of our education system. If not, the stated vision for the future of our tertiary education system is mere marketing spin.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. If the modern tertiary sector has a father in Australia, it's my predecessor in Werriwa, the Hon. Gough Whitlam. In his pre-election speech in 1972, Whitlam said:

We believe that a student's merit, rather than a parent's wealth, should decide who should benefit from the community's vast financial commitment to tertiary education.

Gough fulfilled his commitment to the Australian public, and in 1974 tertiary fees were abolished. This one act changed Australia, as we heard from the member for Ryan. My family was also a beneficiary of this act.

This one act has had a remarkable impact, even now, almost 50 years later. The former member for Werriwa has made it all the more likely that bright, studious, working-class students will have their intellectual abilities recognised. It's for that reason that I'm delighted to acknowledge students in the electorate of Werriwa who have been recently awarded scholarships to attend the University of Sydney. These students are the first recipients of the MySydney Scholarship program. The scholarship is valued at $8,500 a year for the duration of an undergraduate degree. In total, 682 students have been awarded the scholarship, 60 of whom live in suburbs across the electorate of Werriwa. Recipients live in Green Valley, Bonnyrigg, Bonnyrigg Heights, Macquarie Fields, Lurnea, Ashcroft and Hinchinbrook.

The purpose of the program is to enable scholars and gifted students from low socioeconomic parts of Sydney to pursue their goals of a university education. The program will provide personalised assistance to each student to help them complete their studies to the best of their abilities. This is a life-changing level of support. It will give people from my community a chance to fulfil their potential—a potential they might not otherwise be able to fulfil. I'd like to thank the University of Sydney for their foresight in doing that for students in my community.

During the Hawke and Keating governments, Australian high schools significantly changed. Labor governments have continued to ensure the potential of students can be realised. More students were finishing year 12, necessitating an increase in the number of places for university enrolment. As a result the Dawkins review was conducted and a vast suite of reforms were implemented. The result was another education revolution. The two-tiered system of colleges of advanced education and universities was abolished, new universities were formed and the gates were opened for massive increases in student numbers. My own electorate was one of the great beneficiaries. Local colleges like the one in Macarthur joined with those in Hawkesbury, Nepean and Milperra to become what is now known as Western Sydney University, and HECS was introduced. The basis for HECS was simple: students would pay tuition fees only when they earned a decent salary. Whitlam and Dawkins' policies are not as far apart as you may think, for at their core they were taking away the need for people to have money to attend university.

The bill being debated today continues the work of Labor's commitments to education policies that provide opportunities for everyone. Announced in November last year, the Universities Accord is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to review Australia's higher education sector and to transform it so that it works for 21st-century Australia. It has brought together Australians from a broad range of areas: universities, business and public policies. Much like Labor governments before, the Albanese government is committed to ensuring higher education is not just for those who can afford or access it, and this is what the accord seeks to do. Today's bill acts on the interim report of the Australian Universities Accord panel released recently. The report lists five actions as a matter of priority: (1) that we create more university study hubs in both our regions and outer suburbs, (2) that we scrap the 50 per cent pass rule, (3) that we extend the demand-driven funding provided to Indigenous students—I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.