Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I was joined by the Minister for Education to officially open Uni Hub Playford, our very own suburban university study hub located right in the heart of my electorate of Spence. This journey started quite some time ago, when I was a newly elected MP. I visited schools, speaking with students, teachers and principals. I spoke with families who wanted more for their children. I spoke with workers who were looking to upskill but didn't know how they could fit that around their busy lives. And I started listening to reports and statistics, some of them quite sobering. A Jobs and Skills Australia report stated that nine out of 10 new jobs created in our economy will require some form of postschool qualification and that over half of those will require a higher education qualification. Locally, only 9.7 per cent of people in the electorate of Spence held a bachelor's degree or higher—the kind of gap that doesn't close on its own.

In mid-2023, the interim report of the Australian Universities Accord was released. As its first priority action, it recommended the establishment of what were then called tertiary study hubs. From that point, my goal was obvious: bring one of those hubs to the north. Now, I can proudly say that we have delivered that. South Australia's first and only suburban university study hub is proudly at its new home at the Elizabeth TAFE, all thanks to the Albanese Labor government's $66.9 million investment in this program—a program that makes it clear that your postcode isn't going to put a ceiling on what you can do in life. Uni Hub Playford brings uni closer for students in the north, making tertiary study more accessible for our community.

For a long time, the path to university has been much harder than it should be, not because people in the north lack talent and not because we lack the ability to put in the hard yards but because the barriers have been real. In Elizabeth, where the hub is located, only around 7.2 per cent of people have a degree. If people don't have access, they don't get the same outcomes. By making study feel achievable for people living real lives—real life in our community looks like shiftwork, it looks like raising kids and watching every dollar, and it looks like people who are already doing a lot and trying to add study on top. That's why Uni Hub Playford matters. It doesn't ask people to magically create more hours in the day; it gives students time, support and space to focus.

It also sends a message, especially to young people in the north, that higher education isn't some narrow, linear path. It's about people studying in different ways, at different times and for different reasons. It's for someone fresh out of school trying to get a start. It's for someone working full time and trying to retrain, upskill or pivot to a new profession. But too often in the north the issue isn't motivation or ability. It's whether study is actually convenient, reachable and able to fit around the day-to-day lives of students.

The most obvious barrier for people in the north is travel, the tyranny of distance. An hour or so can be lost travelling from the north to university campuses every day—hours that could have been spent studying, spending time with the kids or working an extra shift. Over time, it all adds up. That's why this place was designed to bring study closer, bring support closer and make tertiary education feel less distant, because that support matters most when things get hard—not on the first days of O-week but when there's a major assessment due. Fatigue sets in, the kids are sick, the car's broken down, and many begin to think about giving up on the dream. Having a place like this is how people push past that.

This place is about encouraging more people to enrol in a university course and helping more people complete them too, because, when more people finish their qualifications, our whole community benefits. Local industry benefits, local services benefit and families benefit. That's why the Albanese Labor government has invested in this program, recognising that opportunity shouldn't exist only in a few pockets across the country. It has been built around where people live, where people work and where people are raising their families. That's what this place represents—a practical investment in people and a recognition that potential exists everywhere, even where opportunity does not, unless we choose to build it.

In closing, I want to give a massive shout-out to the City of Playford council, who worked tirelessly to ensure that this was able to be delivered in the centre of our community. Thank you for all your hard work.