Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025. This bill does four things: first, it deals with issues in the international education sector; second, it lifts the caps on Commonwealth supported places for Indigenous medical students; third, it gives new powers to TEQSA to regulate the delivery of higher education on offshore campuses; and, fourth, it introduces powers to compulsorily obtain and publish information in relation to pricing and service delivery in child care. There are also some other technical amendments.

In a sense, this is a bill that bookends the education system. It deals with education in the very early stages of life—in the early childhood education and care sector—as well as in the higher education field. It's arguably quite targeted in that respect. But education is a journey that continues through life. When you make changes to one part of the system, there are always downstream consequences. So, when we talk about changes to the early childhood education and care sector, we should also necessarily be talking about the downstream impacts on schools and eventually on vocational and higher education. When you talk about changes that have downstream impacts across our education system, you're talking about millions of Australian students, from very young children through to adult learners and their families. This is the systemic viewpoint that's necessary for this sort of bill, and it would be remiss of me not to put these changes in a broader context.

So I want to take the opportunity to say a few words about the education system more generally so that there's a proper understanding of this bill in its context, because one of the most profound shifts in our country in the last 30 years has been in the way in which we educate children. There are major demographic changes that have altered the shape of our country. These are grand demographic, cultural and lifestyle shifts which have really only become apparent through multiple censuses and public policy datasets over 20 years or more and are now reshaping our society. The trends are slow, but they're profound.

My approach to these things is shaped by the great Sir Robert Menzies, who was a tremendous believer in the transformative power of education. In 1966, whilst speaking at the University of Melbourne campus, Menzies was heckled by an angry student who wanted him to put more money into education. Menzies shot back: 'No government has ever put into money into education than I have. After listening to you, I can understand what vast amounts we still have to spend.'

Menzies's own life had been transformed through scholarships and educational opportunities. In fact, so much of his education policy reflected that biography and background. He wanted to give other Australians the same opportunities he'd had. Menzies promoted a liberal education through the universities as a public good that benefited the whole of Australian society. Two years ago, Michael Wesley told the Robert Menzies Institute about the catalytic role Menzies played in taking a marginalised and in many ways moribund university system in Australia and breathing into it a grand vision and ambition. He spoke about how Menzies's vision for the universities laid the foundation for the world-class education sector we have today.

Menzies understood the transformative power of learning, and if we are to understand the Australian population today we also need to appreciate how higher education has transformed our society. In 1996, the year John Howard was elected prime minister, 42 per cent of the population aged 15 years and over had at least one postschool qualification. By 2024, the proportion of Australians aged between 15 and 74 with a postschool qualification had jumped to 63 per cent. In 1996, 10.8 per cent of men and 10.1 per cent of women held a bachelor's degree or higher. In 2024, that number had more than tripled, with 33 per cent of Australians holding a bachelor's degree or above.

Beneath that massive change is another social story, about women's education. In 1996, similar proportions of men and women had degrees, with slightly more men than women. By last year, 37 per cent of women between the ages of 15 and 74 had a degree at bachelor's level or higher, compared to 30 per cent of men in the same bracket. If you drill down to the 25 to 34 age bracket, 41 per cent of men but 54 per cent of women had a bachelor's degree or higher. That's an extraordinary change and an extraordinary positive reflection in relation to women's education.

Returning to the specifics of the bill, the bill lays the groundwork for major future changes to the early childhood education and care sector. The impacts of those changes may flow through to other parts of the education sector landscape as it stands today, so it's worthwhile spending a moment or two outlining what that landscape looks like. The June quarter report from this year showed that there were more than a million Australian families using a childcare service, and many of those families have more than one child in child care. We're talking about a total of more than 1.4 million children attending around 15,000 different approved childcare centres. That's just under half of all Australian children aged five and under, or just over a third of children aged 12 and under. For those who use care, the majority attended centre based care, but around 40 per cent were in outside-school-hours care and just under five per cent in family day care. In 2024, there were 341,000 four- and five-year-olds enrolled in a preschool program.

There are over four million school students in Australia today. Around 63 per cent of them are in government schools, 20 per cent in Catholic schools and 17 per cent in independent schools. The non-government education sector is now the fastest growing sector, with independent schools growing by more than 18 per cent in the five years to 2024 and Catholic schools growing by more than six per cent.

In higher education, there are now 1.6 million students enrolled in our tertiary education institutions. Of those, more than 1.1 million are domestic students, and there are 589,000 international students. Student numbers are recovering from the pandemic, but men are less likely to commence higher education than they were 10 years ago. In the 2023-24 financial year, international education was worth $51 billion to the Australian economy, with $30.2 billion paid in GST and $20.6 billion paid in tuition fees. It is a major export industry and a major asset to our country.

What does this data tell us to date? There are stories in all of these figures. Take, for example, the extraordinary growth in independent and Catholic schools over the last five years. To me, that data shows broader trends. It shows that, in our society, parents want choice, and they will make sacrifices to choose the option that is right for them. It's not my job to tell parents what is best for their children. Parents know what's best for their children. It's my job to make sure that parents have the greatest range of options so that they can choose what's best for their family. The education system needs to be set up to allow parents to make that choice. My role is to do everything I can so that whatever choice they make is a good choice. I only need to look at my own electorate, where we have outstanding government, Catholic and independent schools.

As shadow education minister, you will never hear me attack our teachers. Australians love their schools. They know that their schools bring communities together. They know their teachers work hard, and that they care deeply about their students. They know their teachers are trying to give students the foundational knowledge that is so crucial to setting them up for success.

I'm a strong believer that students need to develop deep foundational knowledge to set them up and to help them understand the world around them. I want to say to Australian parents: the bases of a strong education, in reading, writing, maths, science and a proper and deep understanding of our history, are non-negotiable. These are the foundations of learning. It's only when these foundations are right that we can properly prepare our children for the future. Without those foundations, we are failing to equip our children with the tools they need to build successful and productive careers. We should expect that our education system will set high standards and drive excellence in these fields. We never want to fall into the trap of low expectations. We owe it to our children to deliver explicit teaching wherever it's needed and to empower our teachers and our principals to combat classroom disruption.

The fitness for purpose of our education system is not only in what it teaches; it's in how well it prepares the next generation for the years to come. Foundations are meant to be built upon. What's clear to me is that Australians need to be lifelong learners. There's a phrase often attributed to the American thinker Alvin Toffler, who said, 'The illiterate of the 21st century won't be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.' Ironically, it appears the quote may have been inaccurate or misattributed—but it's a good line and it makes a clear point.

We're moving into a world where the ability to adapt will be definitive of success, and there's a growing unease that our education system is just not there. While the data tells a story of the stunning success in women's education, it also tells of the decline in men's education. In 2015, 168,000 young men started their higher education journey. By 2024, that number had dropped to 158,000. This was all while our national population increased by almost 3.4 million over the same period. What's driving this trend? Is it a trend we will see continue into the future? Do the changes that we're making in bills like this one contribute to that trend in our higher education sector? These are the types of concerns, among others, we should be thinking about.

In some areas the concerns are immediate. Parts of this bill are designed, the government says, to inform future policy work in the childcare sector. That's good, and it's necessary. But it's also time for immediate action. Last night I watched the revelations on Four Corners about the way that paedophiles have been operating in Australian childcare centres. It was horrific; it's one of the most bloodcurdling and disturbing things I've ever seen on Australian television.

We've treated this with the utmost seriousness. Our approach as the opposition has always been to put children first. We've not taken a partisan view on this at any point. We supported the government's response to the horrific incidents we saw this year in Melbourne. We supported the actions of attorneys-general in relation to the working-with-children checks and even called for it to be sped up, which the Attorney did. Just this week we sought to introduce a bill to deal with the sentencing of child sex offenders and made it clear that this isn't partisan but it is urgent. We repeat our request for government support for these initiatives. When it comes to child care, safety must be the No. 1 priority.

This morning I wrote to the education minister making clear that, in our view, further action is needed to restore confidence in the sector. I was informed a moment before speaking here that the education minister has written back to me just now. I look forward to reading his letter. We're not interested in taking a partisan line on these issues. Yes, I do urge the government to support coalition moves to strengthen our laws to remove child sex offenders from our streets and to protect our communities. That is not partisan, but it is urgent. As I said to the minister, I'll countenance any serious proposal to further improve safety in our childcare centres.

I want to turn to some of the specific mechanisms in this bill, because some of these measures have been before the parliament previously in the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, which was never put to a vote in the Senate. This is not just a reheat of previous policy, because the parliament has not seen more than half of the measures that are in this bill that is currently before the parliament. The debate in the last parliament was dominated by Labor's bungled handling of the overseas student caps issue. Those caps are not part of this bill, but that doesn't mean that the other provisions of the bill are without flaw.

In the last parliament, coalition senators who looked at elements of this bill in the course of the Senate committee inquiry raised a number of concerns about missteps and overreach. For instance, parts 1 and 2 of the bill are about education agents, commissions and information sharing. They're intended to address integrity concerns across the education sector following the release of the Rapid review into the exploitation of Australia's visa system by Christine Nixon. The Nixon review cited the fact that approximately 75 per cent of international students seek the assistance of an education agent. The review also deals with the current regulators for the education sector, being TEQSA and ASQA, who play no role in the supervision of education agents. Instead, the onus is on the education provider to ensure that the agents they deal with do not engage in false, misleading or unethical recruitment practices.

When this bill was last before the parliament it included definitions of the terms 'education agent' and 'education agent commission' and inserted a 'fit and proper person' test for providers engaging with education agents. Some stakeholders raised concerns about the breadth of the new definition of 'education agent' that may have had unintended consequences. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry submission stated:

… the broad definition of 'associate' may pose logistical challenges for providers, potentially deterring valuable investments and complicating compliance. To mitigate these issues, it is crucial to carefully consider the unintended consequences of these broad definitions before progressing the Bill.

In the last parliament, the submission from Independent Higher Education Australia stated:

While IHEA supports clarity through the definition of an education agent, the references to people who "provide advice or assistance" to overseas students or are "otherwise dealing with overseas students" seems quite broad, far-reaching and may capture people who are not engaged in a financially beneficial relationship with a provider. While we understand the intent is to capture all situations where there are monetary and non-monetary agreements and benefits to agents, it is not clear how a compliance regime will support the identification of non-monetary benefits.

These are real challenges. Will part 2 of schedule 1, in effect, drive up commissions in the education agents sector? This warrants careful consideration and I am concerned that consideration has not yet been given. All these concerns remain in relation to the bill before the House. I note that the government's approach here is a very long way removed from what it said it would do. Recommendation 13 in the Nixon review proposed regulating onshore and offshore education agents and adopting a model similar to that of the United States. In response, the government said:

The Minister for Home Affairs will consider expanding the remit of the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA) to include education agents as providers of visa advice.

An expanded OMARA role would be complemented by increased accountability of education providers, without requiring separate regulatory infrastructure in the Department of Education.

What about other parts of the bill? Other parts of the bill dealing with education integrity also raise concerns. For instance, the minister's power in schedule 7 to wake up and cancel any course in Australia is completely unchecked. He can do so one day simply if he is satisfied that there are or have been systemic issues in relation to the standard of delivery of the courses included in the class; the courses included in the class provide limited value to Australia's current, emerging and future skills and training needs and priorities; or if it is in the public interest to do so. That power is essentially unchecked. It's a massive power. It's arguably duplicative of the functions of the regulators, and I am worried that this might result in administrative law litigation.

There is a measure in this bill as well in relation to Indigenous medical students. This is a modest measure which we understand will only affect a very small number of students and which, given the size of the measure and the way that admissions are regulated currently, has no material impact on admission standards or supply and may help to address a small area of unmet demand.

Under this bill, TEQSA also is given additional powers. The powers it is given are to regulate offshore campuses. Why? Why put this ahead of the review that's going on right now into TEQSA's powers and functions? Why is it that, as one stakeholder put to me, institutions are self-accrediting when delivering courses on Australian soil but not when delivering those same courses offshore? The only explanation we have here is that TEQSA has asked for these powers, and we need more explanation than that.

Finally, I come to the question of child care. As with school education, parents and families and children come in different shapes and sizes. It's important that we as legislators don't tell parents how to run their families and don't mandate a one-size-fits-all system in relation to the way we undertake child care. We need to provide choices for families to meet families where they're at, and that is the thing that will underscore my approach to the question of child care more broadly. The government's explanatory materials to this bill make it clear that the measure relating to child care will be a measure that is sensitive for the sector. We understand that the information collection will start later this year through a secure platform being constructed by Deloitte.

The purpose of the childcare provisions is to compulsorily acquire information about pricing in order for the government to undertake a policy project. We understand this policy project will be initially done on a voluntary basis but that the secretary will be able to use compulsory powers if necessary. There's an obvious concern about the publication of information that may be a pricing signal. We have asked questions about who will be targeted, who decides who will be targeted and who obtains the information. As it stands, the answers are unclear. What is clear is that this pricing project comes after the Productivity Commission's June 2024 report on child care and the ACCC's childcare price inquiry, which was released in January 2024. But the powers have been introduced essentially without consultation or visibility from the sector, and we don't know what the impact will be.

This is why we are seeking to have this bill sent to the Senate committee for a short Senate inquiry—in order to unpack and scrutinise the measures in this bill. It's important that the parliament does its job in scrutinising legislation and hears from stakeholders to understand the full effects before passing the bill. It behoves us as legislators to understand the impacts before we pass this bill into law. I thank the House.

Debate adjourned.