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

I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 and the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025. These are the bills which establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, known as ATEC. Let me say at the very outset that these bills are very troubling. They establish a new regulator for an overregulated sector. They fail to articulate a clear vision for tertiary education in Australia but, at the same time, they tie it to inappropriate objectives. They don't deal properly with the independent or vocational and technical education centres and their links with universities. They are replete with problems of a technical or operational nature, and they've been criticised across the board. It's a turgid technocrats' policy that entrenches more bureaucracy. Labor loves to write its own hagiographies and they love to talk about education. When they go to write the next chapter of their own history, I fear these bills will be an unfortunate footnote. They are, to put it bluntly, not what Australia needs right now.

I want to start at the top with the policy objective. The Universities Accord started with the point that the roadmap for Australian universities needs to start with a vision and a shared objective. That's unobjectionable as a statement of general principle. Of course, if you're going to embark on reform, you should have a sense of where you're going. But the accord process then made two extraordinary leaps. First, it produced an objective for the tertiary education sector as a whole. I pause here to make this critical point. The higher education sector is more than just about our public universities. In fact, public universities make up only around 20 per cent of the higher education providers in Australia, and the tertiary education sector, which includes both higher and vocational education, is broader still. There are 4.86 million student enrolments in the independent sector. In our tertiary sector, more than 71 per cent of the enrolments are not in the public universities. But having just completed a consultation centred on the needs and demands of Australia's public universities, the accord set an objective for the remaining 71 per cent of tertiary students who arguably weren't adequately accounted for. This was the first extraordinary leap. The second was to seek to define that objective in a way that seems completely divorced from the needs and purpose of our higher education sector and, worse still, to try and entrench it in legislation.

The Universities Accord proposed a national tertiary education objective, and that's the objective which has found its way into the bill in section 13. And it's not just the objective of our tertiary education sector as a whole. It is an objective that ATEC will be required by law to take into account in the performance of every function and the exercise of every power. It's the iron rod that will guide this new regulator. So what does the objective say? The legislation says:

… the National Tertiary Education Objective is the objective for tertiary education in Australia to:

a. promote a strong, equitable and resilient democracy; and

b. drive national, economic and social development and environmental sustainability.

It's quite extraordinary. The words 'teaching', 'learning' and 'research' simply do not appear. There's nothing in there about the quality of our institutions. There's no consideration given to the way in which our tertiary system can align with or support our national interest. There's no reference to student experience. There's nothing about fostering dynamism, competition, innovation or efficiency. In fact, there's nothing at all which sets out the things you'd ordinarily expect in a statement setting expectations of an educational institution or a critical sector of our economy. But according to this government, this is the unifying objective or vision that's meant to shape our higher education sector out to the 2050s and an objective it wants to set down in law.

Let me be clear. This government's national tertiary education objective says nothing about tertiary education, and why on earth not? If you were to stop the average woman or man in the street and ask, 'What do you think should be the objective of our tertiary education system?' they'd probably say something about teaching students or doing research or the other things you generally associate with education. These considerations simply do not make their way into the definition in this bill.

That omission is bad enough in its own right. It is what the government has included that really makes the stick in the craw. Instead of talking about teaching, learning and research, the government says that our ATEC should be governed by vague and inappropriate references to 'social development and environmental sustainability'. What does social development even mean? It's an extraordinarily loaded term that goes to fundamental beliefs about the way our society should be shaped and the direction it should take in the future. It is a deeply, deeply political idea. It is the core focus of this parliament, the function of this place, to debate and contest the way our society should develop with ultimate accountability to the voters who ask us to represent them here.

This is an undefined and heavily contested and entirely inappropriate function to confer on a bureaucratic body entrenched by law in the Department of Education. Take, for instance, the ATEC's role in providing for domestic and international student allocations. Does driving social development affect those processes? Those are questions for the parliament and the people, not the ATEC. And why, regardless of the decision or the topic, is environmental sustainability shoehorned into the ATEC decision-making processes? It's a naked attempt to introduce cultural and political considerations into the decisions about our tertiary education sector.

If environmental sustainability is relevant to the performance of ATEC's functions, it will be taken into account. That's basic administrative law principle. And if it's not relevant, it should not be taken into account. That is common sense. But under this bill, regardless of context, the ATEC is required to have regard to environmental sustainability. Quite simply, that is not the appropriate focus of our higher education sector. It means that this is a bill about ideology, not improvement.

To those opposite who say, 'Well, all we've done is adopt a recommendation of the Universities Accord,' I say that's not good enough. Governments accept and reject recommendations all the time. They're expected to have the intellectual curiosity to engage with those recommendations. They're expected to weigh consequences. They're expected to look carefully at proposals that are put to them and make decisions in light of the interests of all Australians and the electors who choose them to be in this place. Once it's in legislation, you own it; it's your policy.

It's not just me making these criticisms. The National Tertiary Education Union has slammed this ham-fisted attempt to ram more ideology into our universities and tertiary providers. It said:

The NTEU believes that this objective does not adequately address the character, nature and purpose of higher education; it makes no reference, for example, to the importance of critical inquiry, academic discovery and discourse, institutional independence or even to academic freedom. Instead, the objectives seek to define tertiary education as part of broader Government policy and could apply to virtually any sector.

Deputy Speaker, you know that, when a member of the Liberal Party is quoting the National Tertiary Education Union in its criticism of a Labor bill, the bill is in real trouble.

Deakin University, in a submission that included a detailed paper from its Vice-Chancellor, Professor Iain Martin, about the social licence of universities, emphasised the need for universities to maintain their social licence and to consider the way they are seen by the public at large. He said, 'Either through action or inaction, we are readily accused of being politicised; the playthings of left-wing, inner-urban cultural elites, who possess social and economic capital.' He specifically described education, teaching and learning as the 'core responsibility' of university and specifically argues for excellence. It's a point well made and one the government has missed. In setting its legislative objective for the entirety of the tertiary education sector, this government has missed the mark. The point of our tertiary education sector is not social development and environmental sustainability. It's education. It's learning. It's teaching. It's research. It's a dynamic, vibrant, competitive sector. It's support for our values and alignment with our national interests. If we are going to have a national tertiary education objective set out in legislation, it cannot be the one set out in clause 13.

I want to say something about the second major flaw of this bill, which is that no serious commentator has looked at our tertiary education sector and concluded that it needs yet another regulator. Perversely, though, that is exactly the situation which this government has now found itself in. In a submission to the universities governance inquiry last year, the existing regulator, TEQSA, specifically highlighted the complex governance and regulatory environment in which our institutions operate. It listed 13 different bodies which exercised some kind of oversight, influence or control of our universities. And that number rises to 14 once TEQSA itself is included. As Western Sydney University said, Australia's universities now operate under more than 300 pieces of legislation and regulation, a system it describes as a 'Frankenstein system'. This bill adds to that system. Submissions to the inquiry have made absolutely clear that the ATEC will be a regulator in all but name. Describing ATEC's function as 'stewardship' is not an answer.

Stakeholders have specifically rejected the government's denials through Senate estimates that ATEC will be a regulator, saying that attempts to do so rely on an overly technical definition of the term. I go further. it's disingenuous to say that ATEC will not be a regulator. It will exert policy influence. It will shape resource allocations. It will have the power to enter into compacts with universities, suspend them where it decides to do so and replace them with standard-form agreements. That is a suite of powers that is clearly designed and intended to regulate behaviour within a very important sector of our economy. It will operate alongside but distinct from the Department of Education, which oversees general education policy; the Department of Home Affairs, which governs international student intakes; the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, which has responsibility for skills and the VET portfolio; TEQSA, which is the specific higher education regulator; ASQA, which regulates the remainder of the tertiary sector; the National Student Ombudsman; the Australian Research Council; the National Health and Medical Research Council; Jobs and Skills Australia; state and territory regulatory bodies and designated state authorities; professional accreditation bodies; and all of the other bodies which exercise oversight, influence, control or otherwise shape the tertiary education environment. ATEC is a new regulator, and no disinterested observer would look at the constellation of higher education and VET regulatory and governance bodies and say, 'What we really need right now is yet another regulator.'

Let me move to issues of duplication, cost and lack of harmonisation. These issues of excessive regulatory burden raise the related issues of duplication and cost, because, as has become clear in Senate estimates, the department, as a department of state, will retain policy oversight over all matters within its policy remit, including higher education. Inevitably, with all of the regulators, there will be overlap and there will be duplication. Translated, that means there will be cost to taxpayers. But there's a broader problem, because the $54 million that's allocated to ATEC does not create a single additional student place. It does not improve student experience. It does not add value for those who make sacrifices to attend universities. The $54 million could be allocated to fund $1 million research grants for each one of Australia's universities, with more than $10 million left over.

And when it comes to harmonisation between higher and vocational education, these bills don't achieve what they're meant to do. ATEC is intended, in part, to reduce the barriers between VET and higher education, to allow students to move back and forth between the two freely. However, the ATEC legislation appears to be focused on Australia's 43 universities, largely ignoring the 166-odd non-university higher education providers and the 3,700 tertiary education businesses. It is unclear how the ATEC can achieve harmonisation and mobility across the whole of the higher education sector in these circumstances. And at a time when interest rates are rising as a result of Labor's poor economic management, which has seen education costs balloon by 5.4 per cent—higher than the core inflation rate—there's no justification for yet more government expenditure which doesn't add to productivity or reduce the cost of education for Australians. Yet again—when Labor spends, you pay.

But the criticism of the bills doesn't stop there. Extraordinarily, there seems to have been incredible disquiet about this bill even among the very institutions that championed ATEC in the first place. Universities Australia has said:

As currently drafted, the Bill does not deliver on the Australian Universities Accord's … aspirations for an independent body to design and drive the longer-term reform agenda for Australia's tertiary system.

Independent Tertiary Education Council of Australia said:

ITECA supports reform aimed at improving the long-term clarity and cohesiveness of Australia's tertiary education system. However, the ATEC Bill as currently drafted, does not align with the stated ambition of creating an integrated and equitable tertiary framework.

The ATEC Bill suffers from drafting that is based on there being no clear needs case for the tertiary system, especially the more than 4.8 million students and over 3,700 tertiary education businesses that will have little or zero engagement with this new bureaucratic fancy.

It seems clear that the ATEC Bill before the Committee is not at a stage where it is ready for consideration by the parliament and the Commission is not ready to be established. It is far preferable to ensure that an agency of this importance is ready, and its enabling legislation is not compromised by eagerness for speed.

ITECA strongly urges the Committee to deeply consider the need for this Commission, as its core functions can, and in many cases already are being undertaken by existing agencies of the Commonwealth.

Independent Higher Education Australia said this:

The Bills establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission … as the central system "steward" for Australia's tertiary education sector. It is in fact a regulator in all but name.

… in practice, ATEC's functions, including allocation of domestic and international places, establishment and oversight/monitoring of compacts and influence on the Threshold Standards, give it a regulatory role.

… Without [expertise in the independent sector], there is a real risk that ATEC's work will default to a public-university-centric view of the tertiary system, overlooking the contributions, challenges and operating environments of independent providers. This would undermine the Commission's ability to function as a genuine system steward and would diminish the accuracy, balance and relevance of its advice to Government.

Deakin University, having described itself as a firm supporter of ATEC, said:

However, though supportive of an ATEC, and already engaged with the interim body in a productive and meaningful manner, Deakin holds several concerns regarding the proposed legislation. We posit that addressing these concerns, which range from a lack of clarity to missed opportunities to truly achieve the ambitions of establishing such a function, should be a priority.

The Tasmanian government, in diplomatic language, fired a warning shot about the introduction of unnecessary and duplicative compliance mechanisms. Referring to such mechanisms, it said:

These mechanisms should be demonstrably necessary and proportionate, avoid administrative burden and ensure that reporting requirements contribute directly to improved educational and research outcomes. Integration with existing data collections and reporting platforms is essential to minimise duplication.

Compliance obligations should, at their core, add value for students by generating actionable insights that improve equity, participation, and completion rates, rather than diverting resources from teaching and support services.

Science and Technology Australia, the peak body for the nation's science and technology sector, said:

Science & Technology Australia is concerned that while the Bill states the proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission's … powers will extend to university research and research training … there is insufficient clarity in the proposed legislation and no evidence of sufficient capability or resourcing built into the ATEC to properly support university research.

In short, ATEC does not support Australia's national research agenda.

Regional Development Australia picks up on the failure of the legislation to address the needs of regional communities. Under the heading 'Concerning gaps for regional communities', it says:

The Bill and its settings make welcome progress towards access equity for cohorts who are currently underserved, particularly at an individual student level. However, at a structural level there remains a risk that these settings may entrench or amplify existing inequities affecting regional institutions and communities, with implications for their capacity to contribute to the nation's long-term prosperity.

That's extraordinary.

And it's not just bodies who are impacted by the change that have criticised the bill. Dr Ant Bagshaw, a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education in Melbourne, broadly supports the diagnosis that Australia needs a system steward in its higher education sector, but he said this:

The Senate should recommend that ATEC not be established in its current form, and that the Department of Education be legislatively required to discharge the stewardship role with strengthened transparency, consultation and capability.

…   …   …

… system stewardship is not the same as creating a new agency.

Professor of higher education policy at Monash University Andrew Norton, one of Australia's leading public policymakers and commentators on higher education, asked, in the first question in his submission, whether an Australian tertiary education commission should be created at all. He said this:

The government's policies imply a belief that a more bureaucratic approach will improve higher education outcomes. Even if we accept this assumption, it is not clear that ATEC will improve matters significantly compared to current Department of Education arrangements.

His principal recommendation is simple—that the bills should be rejected—and the criticism he gives is devastating. Before dissecting the legislation in detail, he says this:

The following chapters—

in the submission—

identify numerous flaws in the ATEC proposal. They include recommendations to improve the bills, should they have in-principle parliamentary support. But the ATEC bills should be rejected. They would narrow higher education's purposes. As they stand, they offer universities nothing but additional government control and bureaucracy. Due to ATEC's design flaws, we can have little confidence that it will improve on the current policy framework.

Professor Mark Warburton, a highly influential academic, a respected public servant and a former adviser to the Australian government during the Hawke and Keating years, said this:

The Government has announced its "three important structural reforms that are central to setting the tertiary education system up for the future". These are the ATEC, Managed Growth Funding and Needs-based Funding. It has not provided adequate detail on how any of these proposals will advance the objectives the Government has set for them.

In his second reading speech for this Bill, the Minister declared:

the ATEC is the Accord. … It is a national project and it needs a steward that is there for the long haul. … To get the sector to work more like a system. … And to help drive real and lasting reform.

Unfortunately, the direction of change for the system is articulated only in the most broad and high-level terms:

Warburton goes on to say:

There is no satisfactory detail on how ATEC is going to achieve any of these things. Given the magnitude of ambition for ATEC, it does not seem unreasonable to ask for some detail on precisely what changes it will be making in the short term, how it will go about making those changes and what leverage it will have to enforce those changes.

Many of the claims made about the Government's response to the Accord are inflated …

This person was a higher-education adviser during the Hawke and Keating governments. He goes on:

In Higher Education Attainment Under the New Managed Growth Funding System

it's one of his papers—

I show how both the claimed expansion associated with Fee-free Uni Ready places and the claimed additional funding provided in the 2024-25 MYEFO changes are overstated. I provide evidence that planned government funding will most likely result in lower higher education attainment in the 2030s, than in 2021. …

In his Second Reading Speech, the Minister stated of ATEC that "Its operations will be transparent". The Bill does not provide for this.

It's pretty damning criticism.

Many others criticise the ATEC's perceived lack of independence and its failure to deliver on what was originally conceived of when ATEC supporters first pitched the idea to government. The list of critics is extraordinary. Unions, government bodies, universities, independent providers, experts—all of these are saying that the ATEC legislation currently before this parliament is not fit to pass.

Before I go further, let me be clear. There is a committee process that is underway right now in the other place. We respect the committee process, and I hope it is an extensive committee process. There were 60 different submissions made to that committee—powerful, insightful and careful analysis from across the sector. We need to hear from those witnesses, and the committee will fail in its duty if we do not hear from them. If the government doesn't call the witnesses I've mentioned today, it will fail, because the Australian public deserves to hear from the authors to understand where this legislation is good and where it is not. They deserve to hear from the experts in the field and those with a stake—witnesses like Professor Mark Warburton, a highly respected academic from the University of Melbourne who wrote a penetrating and insightful analysis that deserves recognition and careful consideration, and bodies like the Independent Tertiary Education Council of Australia and Independent Higher Education Australia. They have the most skin in this game when it comes to this legislation, because tertiary education is more than just our universities.

As IHEA said, Australia's higher education system consists not only of public universities but of a broad range of independent higher education providers, including private universities, university colleges and both not-for-profit and for-profit non-university higher education providers, or NUHEPs, and the range of providers is much broader once VET is added. ITECA covers both, and it points out that the independent sector accounts for 77 per cent of all higher education institutions in Australia and 92 per cent of registered training organisations. Of course we should be hearing from those types of bodies. Doing otherwise is a disservice to the parliamentary committee, and it's a disservice to the Australian people, who expect us to properly scrutinise legislation. So I hope that this committee in the Senate has the opportunity to properly scrutinise the legislation, to ask questions of expert witnesses and to understand from bodies who operate in the field how this bill will affect them in a practical way, and I hope that the government would support me in showing this basic respect for stakeholders and the parliamentary process in having a proper inquiry.

Let me finish by saying this. There are bigger questions about our tertiary sector that need to be solved and where, in the last couple of years, government policy has not made any real inroads. How long can we continue with one third of our universities struggling? Does the current balance between vocational and higher education really suit Australia's long-term needs? What is the process and methodology that should be adopted for international student intakes? How do we deal with low volume, expensive but strategically important skill sets and capabilities that are taught in our universities but which are expensive to maintain? How do we maintain the presence of those regional campuses that feed activity and meet the needs of communities outside the big cities? How do we provide and promote competition and dynamism between the public and independent sector? What is the long-term trajectory of Australia's standing on the international stage, given the growth of its campuses in South-East Asia, China and in our region more broadly and their ability to offer comparable quality at a lower price point? Are our universities losing their social licence? What is the impact of AI, which right now can develop and sequence information almost to a university level and almost for free turn it into a package or a podcast that I can use to educate myself? What does that mean for our sector? What steps do we as a nation need to take right now in terms of our policy settings and longer term development to best position ourselves to train and educate future generations?

These are big questions, and they should be answered by the Australian Department of Education as the minister's principal policy adviser. Otherwise, what's the department doing? It doesn't run any schools. It doesn't run any childcare centres. It doesn't run any vocational or higher education institutions. If it's not answering these questions, what is it doing? Regardless, none of these questions are answered by these bills. Those opposite will say that the purpose of ATEC is to answer them. That's not a good answer. It doesn't explain why the department can't or won't do it, and it doesn't explain what the department will do going forward. It doesn't even explain why the sector needs yet another regulator. In any event, the gap between answering those questions and the options put forward in this bill is just too wide. Even if you support ATEC in principle, this legislation is too problematic.

So, in summing up, let me say this. If forced to vote on this legislation before the committee completes its inquiry, the Liberal Party will oppose this legislation. That is the holding position. We will join the very large chorus of stakeholders and interested parties saying these bills are not fit to pass, and we will continue working on those bigger questions in the interests of all Australians. In closing, I thank the House and move the amendment as circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes with concern that:

(a) Australia's tertiary education sector is significantly over-regulated;

(b) providers report to multiple competing and overlapping bodies; and

(c) some providers are required by law to deal with more than 300 different pieces of legislation and regulation;

(2) affirms that the objective of tertiary education in Australia must focus on teaching, learning and research, and should otherwise be aimed at promoting a dynamic and innovative sector that provides a positive student experience, delivers value for money, improves Australia's productivity and supports Australian values;

(3) further notes widespread concern among the tertiary sector and expert stakeholders about the drafting of this legislation; and

(4) calls for this legislation to be the subject of proper and thorough scrutiny".

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

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

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor is the party of education and of training. We know the power of education and training, which transform lives and transform communities. As the Minister for Skills and Training, I'm very proud of the work of this government, particularly that of the Minister for Education, to ensure that our tertiary education system—both university education and vocational education—is in the best shape for Australians now and well into the future.

The Australian Tertiary Education Commission is a key piece of the puzzle in this regard. This was, of course, a recommendation from the Australian Universities Accord, a blueprint that tells us about the kind of work that we need to get on with doing to set up the system for the next 20 years and those structural reforms that we need to pursue: building stronger links between vocational education and universities, allocating funding under the new Managed Growth Funding System, implementing needs based funding within the core funding model and negotiating mission based compacts to support the sector. Fundamentally, what the accord tells us is that, in the coming years, there will be more jobs requiring more skills and requiring vocational qualifications, higher education qualifications or both. Australia needs to grow the number of Australians with a tertiary qualification to four in five. To achieve this, we need to set the system up to meet the modern needs of Australians.

At the very core of this is breaking down those artificial barriers that have separated our university and vocational education systems. As I said at the National Press Club last year, these are 'a barrier to meeting the needs of our modern economy, and that contributes to skills mismatches and shortages in critical areas'. We can make it easier for Australians to get the right skills in whatever combination that might be, bring together the very best of both pathways that work for students and unlock the breadth of opportunities that will allow us to grow our country's productivity. This is where the ATEC can and will play an essential role.

In developing a tertiary roadmap, the ATEC will plot the next steps for those who seek to move between university and vocational education—a system to support students to gain qualifications that are matched to the skills needs across our diverse communities. It will build on and support the work that we already see progressing in the sector, like that of the University of Canberra and the Canberra Institute of Technology, who have introduced guaranteed pathways from diploma to degree across courses like nursing, early childhood education and care, accounting and project management. Similarly, the partnership between TAFE NSW and Western Sydney University is removing barriers for TAFE students entering into university degrees through a single enrolment package and putting in place appropriate student supports to make this as seamless as possible. TAFE NSW Meadowbank campus has forged a partnership with Macquarie University, Microsoft and the University of Technology Sydney to establish the Institute of Applied Technology Digital, a place for students to upskill and expand knowledge in cyber, AI, software and data analytics through bite-sized microskill courses and practical microcredential courses. It's great to see TAFEs and universities jumping at these opportunities, and it's this kind of forward thinking our government hopes to support through the ATEC.

On this note, I want to highlight an area of work in my portfolio responsibilities that I am proud of because it shows how we can break down these barriers in practice. This is through TAFE centres of excellence. There are 14 of these which have been announced so far, and there are more on the way, bringing together governments, TAFEs, universities, industry and other stakeholders to develop specialised courses and skills in areas of priority for our country: modern forms of housing construction, electric vehicles, cybersecurity, health care and support, and net zero manufacturing. We're already seeing the work of these centres of excellence in action and making a difference, like the TAFE centre of excellence for the future of housing construction, which last year welcomed its first group of students participating in a pilot program to learn how to apply modern methods of construction. The short course introduces students to prefabrication, modular construction and volumetric construction.

Learning isn't here only for those on site who are benefiting from newly refurbished spaces. What sets the centres of excellence apart is how they are equipped to share their specialisations with students and teachers across the country, as the national TAFE network will also help us do—a network now including all Australian jurisdictions. Even if you're a student in Perth, you can readily benefit from the incredible courses and training and the knowledge that's been on offer in suburban Melbourne—and the other way around, too. It's a more joined-up and a more practically-oriented tertiary system in action, bringing together the extraordinary capacity of our TAFEs with a closer and more structured connection to higher education as well as industry. In Queensland, the TAFE Centre of Excellence Clean Energy Batteries and the Centre of Excellence Health Care and Support have launched the first round of applied research grants, bringing together TAFEs with universities, industry and community orgs to develop innovative new training in these critical fields. This is a big part of the future of tertiary education.

The interim ATEC has been operating for just over seven months now, and, subject to the passage of the legislation we are debating right now, its early work will soon be scaled up as it approaches full operations. With that in mind, I pay tribute to the extraordinary efforts of the interim commission over this early foundational period. In the first six months of its time, the interim ATEC was led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC as interim chief commissioner and Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO as interim First Nations commissioner, supported by Professor Barney Glover AO as the jobs and skills commissioner.

I'm very pleased that Professor Glover will be able to continue his contribution, having stepped into the interim chief commissioner role. As jobs and skills commissioner, Professor Glover brought his decades of experience and leadership to the work of Jobs and Skills Australia—a critically important body that's not only conducting research and bringing together data but also helping us all to understand how it informs the future need of our workforce and the skilling needs of Australians. As I've spoken about previously, JSA research has highlighted how a more connected tertiary education system can lift productivity and the skill level of our workforce, and that better connections also help improve access to tertiary education, ensuring we grow the pipeline of Australians stepping into a certificate, a diploma or a degree. This work crosses over with the work of the interim ATEC, and I look forward to continuing to work with Professor Glover in these areas.

Alongside him are two new interim commissioners: the Hon. Fiona Nash, someone well known to this place and someone who is continuing to contribute to public life in the education sector, doing valuable work that is widely acknowledged as regional education commissioner; and, of course, Professor Tom Calma, who is the acting First Nations commissioner and someone who brings decades of experience in higher education, amongst other fields—a genuinely eminent Australian.

The future success of this great country in large part rests on the success of our education and training system, and its ability to meet the needs of Australians and of Australia. This isn't and cannot be a set-and-forget proposition because we can't anticipate all the changes we will see in 10 or 20 years' time. But we can act now to enable the system to work better for students today and into the future, so that their learning journeys can reveal their full potential and that our national potential can be unleashed. For those reasons, I commend these bills to the House.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think about the thousands of Australian university students who have committed themselves to three-year, four-year and five-year programs, wanting to build out the potential for their participation not just in the workforce but in contributing to human progress and human achievement. They go to tertiary institutions—in particular, universities, as I did—because they want to be embodied with knowledge, skills and purpose to be a much more significant contributor not just to themselves but to the wellbeing of the entire Australian community. When you talk to those students, so often they're looking for improvement in student outcomes and minimising the size of classrooms—which are chockers, because the universities have geared themselves towards the number of students they have who are full fee paying. There is an increasing number of students who go to university with low contact hours.

Even worse than that—Deputy Speaker, you're one of the people who have gone through life, let's say, learning from street cred—is that so much of our system is geared towards qualification inflation. I know the government is addicted to inflationary forces. Well, qualification inflation is no different. We have seen over many years because of the efforts of Labor governments the diminishing value of a tertiary qualification which means that people need to get more in order to distinguish themselves, to demarcate themselves and to be able to get ahead. Look at all the problems that university students have right now. Look at the problems of what they want from their education, not only if they're going on a pathway of research and through the academic pathway but also if it's industrial or commercial or simply for their own satisfaction or achievement. What we are not seeing is vision from this government to unleash universities and their potential because their focus is squarely on how they feed those at the top.

The Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 and the associated bill are no different. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission is a bureaucratic solution about how more people are employed to sit over the top of policy when one of the biggest problems with universities right now is that they are completely top heavy. If we add bureaucracies on top of university administrations, where we have vice-chancellors earning in excess of the Prime Minister and everyone in this chamber, we won't be getting the focus and the resources to where we need them—learning, teaching and research. In fact, this bill does so little to advance learning, teaching and research it doesn't even mention them in the legislation. I'd say that's disappointing but, truthfully, it's an embarrassment.

Universities need a vision. Universities need reform. They have forgotten their core purpose which is to make sure that they are there to advance the educational improvement, wellbeing and transfer of knowledge between generations. Instead, the incentives that have been put in place since the Hawke government have re-engineered them towards focusing their energies on their own self-sustainability rather than the outcomes.

This is a perennial problem of so much of the legislation that this Labor government brings into this House. It is built from the proposition of intent. It is not focused on the outcome, particularly improving outcomes for young Australians to get the best standard of education that they so desperately need and, in addition to that, are paying for.

What do we need? We don't need a plan for another bureaucracy. They can sell it under any banner they like. What we need is a plan and a vision for how we are going to improve our universities, unleash their potential and focus their efforts towards turning their primary research into something that is innovative, commercialisable for the human improvement of everybody and, more importantly, underpins the economic progress of what our country needs in the future, not more bureaucracy that gets in the way, that tries to impose solutions of Canberra's way. What we need is something that empowers universities to be part of and integrate into full component of the Australian economy.

I hear this all the time. I was at a lunch recently for people who had just been elected to parliament recently—in my case, it was my second time round—with many Labor members of parliament with the Vice-Chancellor and various deputy vice-chancellors from Monash University. Their one message from that lunch was, 'Can the federal government and state government get out of our way and provide clarity and certainty so that we can attract the research funding and go on and do things like invest in the research potential around things like power, particularly nuclear power?' They have major international corporations like Rolls-Royce that are desperate to be able to invest in their research capacity, which could not only be a pathway for economic opportunities but also create jobs, and they are not getting it from Canberra nor Spring Street.

In the face of that desperation for a pathway and for a point of clarity about how universities can build themselves to be able to be part of building Australia's next round of economic progress and growth and to be able to provide the research foundation to support students to be able to achieve they can do and to drive the process of scientific progress and human improvement, the answer from this federal government is silence and another bureaucracy to sit over the top of you, to impose the government's agenda and, when they're out of office, to front run the arguments about why they should be given more power. This comes to the fundamental proposition of some of the divide between those who sit on this side of the House and those who sit on that side of the House. We understand that the strength of our country does not come from Canberra and central authorities down or from organised capital. It comes from families and communities coming together to build the foundations and success of our great nation. One of the starting points of that is we desperately, desperately want students to be able to get good value and return on investment for their energy and, more importantly, not just their money but their time. Three years or four years of young Australians' time at university is a huge investment and risk for their future, and we want them to get maximum value for that, not simply be set up to feed the interests of the select few—the vice-chancellors on their big salaries and, of course, the academics that go on to become members of the National Tertiary Education Union, which is the constituency of this government.

Bureaucracy is not an answer to human improvement. Success for us looks very clearly at how we are going to empower and enable and liberate Australia's students to be able to have a tertiary education that delivers for them, because the failure—and this is what we're going to get from this process—is more of the same, and that is currently failing Australian students under the Albanese Labor government.

Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein talks about the divide between this side of the chamber and that side of the chamber. Can I tell you that, when it comes to higher education, whether you are going to university to get a degree or whether you are going to TAFE to get a trade, that divide is very, very clear. Labor invests in higher education, and all the opposition has ever done is cut.

We know right now that there's a further divide, and that's a divide over on the other side of the chamber. Everyone has been talking about the division in the coalition, but it's clear that, whether you're in the Liberals or whether you're in the Nationals, there is no divide when it comes to higher education. The track record is clear. With free TAFE, it doesn't matter whether you're in the Liberals and doesn't matter whether you're in the Nationals. You didn't want it to happen. When it comes to 20 per cent off student debt, it doesn't matter whether you're in the Liberals and doesn't matter whether you're in the Nationals. They didn't want it to happen. So, when the member for Goldstein talks about 'street cred' on higher education, they don't have one iota of it.

Last week I had the great pleasure of visiting Sunnybank State High School with the Minister for Education. The small but mighty Sunnybank state high is one of the 50 schools in Moreton, and it really reflects our local community. Its 700 students come from 60 different cultures, and they're doing great work there. It was the first time that I got to see equations being written up on the glass wall, with students gathered around to look; it was the first time I understood that BOMDAS could also be BIMDAS; and it was the first time that I've been able to throw paper in a classroom.

The minister and I met with Principal Carmen Anderson and her team of dedicated teachers. They're focused on strengthening literacy and numeracy outcomes and on improving engagement for students who are at risk from disengaging. It's always inspiring to hear about such work, and it was equally as inspiring to talk to the student leaders of 2026. Those students spoke about their future ambitions. We met a future fashion designer, a future lawyer, a future firefighter, a future Australia Zoo animal handler and, yes, even someone who wants to be a politician. These students are motivated and excited about their futures, and I know I left the school feeling buoyed by their enthusiasm.

Today I am speaking about the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025. Labor has brought this important piece of legislation to the House for the students we met last Thursday and for the hundreds of thousands of current and future higher education students who are working towards their future ambitions.

I first joined the Labor Party when I was in high school, when I was 17 years old. The reason I joined was that at the time the coalition government was making deep, deep cuts into tertiary education. I went to my mum and I said, 'I want to do something about this,' and she drove me to the local branch. She drove me to the local branch of the Labor Party because it is Labor who has always been the party of higher education. As I said before, the contrast between the two sides of this parliament could not be starker.

The establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, is in direct response to the Australian Universities Accord. This was a first-term Albanese Labor government initiative which acknowledged that, while Australia had a strong education system, there were clear opportunities to improve it and to make it more equitable, and that is what we are striving for here. That's what we're driving for—to look beyond the horizon and to make the system even better.

Professor Mary O'Kane led the comprehensive year-long review of the nation's higher education sector and was tasked with focusing on the nation's knowledge and skills needs, both now and in the decades ahead. The review had to take into account access to tertiary education, affordability, governance and accountability. It had to examine pathways and connections between vocational education and training and higher education. Finally, the review had to sit within a wider framework of fostering the research, the innovation and the national capabilities that will drive Australia's growth. The final report was released by the government in February 2024, and it sets out 47 recommendations that this government has already implemented—31 of those in full or in part.

This bill implements the recommendation to establish the ATEC. It's supported by $54 million of funding for a decade. An interim ATEC has been in operation since July 2025 and was initially led by Professor Mary O'Kane, Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt and Professor Barney Glover. Professor Tom Calma and the Hon. Fiona Nash have recently been appointed as commissioners, and they join Professor Barney Glover, who has been appointed acting chief commissioner alongside his role as the Commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia. Together, they have established the foundations for the permanent commission, and this legislation reflects their work.

This bill establishes ATEC as an independent statutory authority. ATEC's overarching objective is to be a steward for Australia's higher education system. It will guide ongoing collaborative conversations about the future direction of tertiary education in this nation. ATEC will strengthen the development of a strong, cohesive system that encourages diversity and genuine choice for students, no matter their background and no matter their ambitions. The commission will also be tasked with monitoring progress towards goals around skills development and equity, while ensuring the regulatory load across the sector doesn't impede good teaching, good learning and innovation. Specifically, ATEC will shape policy across higher education and university research and work closely with the Skills and Workforce Ministerial Council to develop joint initiatives that strengthen the whole of the tertiary education system. A big part of ATEC's role will be to plan the system's long-term direction, with additional responsibilities around setting pricing approaches and distributing funding across the higher education sector, making sure that resources are aligned with student needs and, importantly, with future workforce demands.

Crucially, ATEC will also focus on supporting and strengthening First Nations representation and creating opportunities for broad engagement across the tertiary education system. This is necessary because the Australian Universities Accord outlined the qualifications targets we need to achieve, and the report recommends that, to meet Australia's future skills needs and drive improvements to national workforce participation and, indeed, productivity, the Australian government adopt attainment targets to set the ambition for the tertiary education system to deliver the recommended tertiary education attainment target of at least 80 per cent of the working-age population having at least one tertiary education qualification—that is, a certificate III or above—by 2050. This is 20 per cent more than in 2023, and the establishment of ATEC is the bedrock which we need to drive that ambition.

ATEC will guide the future of Australia's tertiary education system, focusing on policy direction, the real cost of delivering high-quality teaching, the kinds of courses students are demanding here and now and how Australia can build the skills and knowledge that we need in those years ahead.

ATEC will also examine the barriers that are still holding some Australians back from accessing and succeeding in higher education and offer practical advice on how to improve participation and outcomes. On top of that, it will play a key role in helping government figure out how to bring higher education and VET closer together so that students can move more easily between the two.

Another major responsibility for ATEC will be introducing a redesigned funding model. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, the system will include demand driven places for equity students right across the sector, as well as needs based funding that reflects the number of students from low-SES backgrounds, First Nations leaders and those studying at regional campuses. If more students from underrepresented groups can access and stay at university, they are more likely to thrive. They're more likely to complete their studies. They're more likely to have a pathway to a good, secure job. Higher education isn't just about opening the door; it's also about making sure students are supported along that journey.

Finally, ATEC will be rolling out new mission based compacts with universities. These agreements allow universities to focus on their own specialities and to focus on their own strengths, such as research, strong industry partnerships or serving a particular region. At the same time, the compacts mean that universities are aligned with national higher education priorities and, indeed, are responsive to the needs of the students and the communities that they serve day in and day out.

ATEC will produce an annual state of the tertiary education system report, signposting emerging trends and challenges across the entirety of the system. It will also track headway on tertiary participation and attainment goals and outline progress towards the more connected and coordinated tertiary system. The annual review will also assess whether the system is keeping up with Australia's skills and knowledge needs as industries evolve and new technologies reshape the workforce. We know the workforce is changing. We know that, each and every year, new technology emerges. We know that, to be able to use that, we need a productive workforce that is well trained and has the skills to drive the economic outputs of this country to make us better. That's what this bill contributes to.

Finally, the report will monitor equity and inclusion, supporting the system to move towards genuine fairness and opportunity for all. ATEC will collaborate with other key agencies across the education and skills landscape, including Jobs and Skills Australia, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, the Australian Research Council, the National Centre for Vocational Educational Research and state and territory governments. Limits are placed on the Minister for Education to safeguard ATEC's independence and integrity. The minister cannot direct ATEC's findings, influence the advice it provides or intervene in the decisions about individual providers.

The establishment of ATEC follows on from the substantial investments that the Albanese Labor government has made in education since May 2022. We're making higher education more accessible and more supportive by expanding practical opportunities and strengthening student services. This includes doubling the number of university study hubs, with 20 new regional and 14 new suburban hubs, so more students can study close to home. At a time when we know that Australians are feeling the pressure of cost of living, this has never been more important.

We've also increased the number of free university bridging courses to help people prepare for tertiary study and, for the first time, introduced paid prac for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students so that they are not financially disadvantaged while completing mandatory placements—mandatory placements that are so important to our education system and to our care system—making sure that, from our youngest Australians all the way up, every Australian is educated, is given support and is safe and healthy.

To strengthen student life, higher education providers will now be required to direct at least 40 per cent of student services and amenities fees to student led organisations, ensuring funding goes where students need it the most. We've also expanded access by making demand driven Commonwealth supported places available for all First Nations students who meet entry requirements. Student safety and fairness are also priorities. A new national student ombudsman and a national code to prevent and respond to gender based violence will provide stronger protections and clearer standards.

At its core, the establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission is about acting now to set our tertiary education up to deliver what Australia needs in the future. It's a future focused step—like Labor's funding for more university places—and it is an example of our prioritisation of higher education.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 1974, Gough Whitlam made university in Australia free. In 1989, when Bob Hawke introduced our HECS-HELP system, Australia's higher education sector remained, even then, among the most accessible in the world. It produced generations of Australians with the skills to strengthen our economy, to enrich our communities and to deepen our democracy. Effectively, those who aspired to go to university to study tertiary education could do so affordably. Today, the promise of fair and accessible higher education in Australia has become a mirage. Australians are being priced out of opportunity. Our higher education system that once opened doors is closing them.

The bill before us today takes some commendable steps towards reforming our higher education sector and implementing recommendations of the 2024 universities accord. Establishing an Australian Tertiary Education Commission is a welcome reform and a step towards coherence and independent stewardship. Setting a national tertiary education objective will provide much needed clarity for our universities. Those reforms hold a promise, a promise to improve our higher education sector, and I support them.

But I'm disappointed that this legislation fails to recognise and act on the structural failures that have created the current HECS crisis. Right now, three million Australians carry, on average, more than $27,000 in HECS debts. Student contributions for courses like commerce and law are nine times higher than they were when Hawke introduced the HECS system in 1989—a time when many members of this parliament were graduating. Graduate salaries have increased by about 2½ times since 1996. In that time, student contributions have increased sixfold. The average HECS debt for someone in their 20s is more than double what it was in 2006.

How did this happen? Well, much of it can be traced back to the disastrous job-ready graduates scheme, which the Morrison government introduced in 2021. What was sold then as a way to channel students into priority fields instead delivered a HECS debt crisis—a crisis for a generation of many young Australians. Under the job-ready graduates scheme, students in disciplines like law, accounting, business, banking, finance, economics, communications and politics are contributing up to $17,000 a year in 2026. That means that those young Australians are graduating with $50,000 of debt for basic three-year degree and more than $80,000 if they undertake postgraduate study. They're then taking at least 10 years to pay it off. In popular disciplines like communications, humanities, society and culture, and human movement, student fees have more than doubled as a result of the job-ready graduates scheme.

Two in three MPs in this parliament hold degrees in arts, humanities, law or business. These are not fringe pursuits. They're foundational pursuits, disciplines that we need for our economy, our public institutions and our civil life. In a world as fragile as today's, skills from those degrees matter more than ever. But the students who pursue those disciplines are being punished with often insurmountable student loan debts. The number of students affected is enormous. As of 2024, management, commerce, society and culture degrees accounted for nearly half of all enrolments at Australian universities. Right now, there are nearly 700,000 students enrolled in those courses, Nearly half of all university students in Australia, and a large proportion of them are women, First Nations students and students living with a disability. These are the Australians who are being unfairly and disproportionately penalised by the job-ready graduates scheme and who are bearing the burden of serial government policy failures, like those from my friend from the Right.

Unfortunately, the effect of the job-ready graduates scheme has been magnified by the means of indexation of HECS. Repayments on HECS aren't deducted until after the loan has been indexed for the financial year, which means that the debt on already expensive degrees can grow further, while people are waiting for the impact of those payments to be reflected in their HECS accounts.

Increasing student debt is a drag. It's a drag on the lives of graduates. It's contributing to our record-low birth rate and to the 20 per cent fall in rates of homeownership in 20- to 35-year-old Australians over the last 30 years. Young Australians who are struggling already with their increasing cost of rent and of groceries are finding themselves unable to buy a home, unable to start a family. In a country with an ageing population and a decreasing tax base, this is a demographic time bomb. It's not just an educational equity issue, it's a cost-of-living and a societal wellbeing issue.

The universities accord report, which was received by this government two years ago, found that the job-ready graduates scheme and the expensive degrees it creates does not work. The accord recommended 'urgent remediation'—that's its words—to ease the rising and punitive student contributions. The government has publicly, on many occasions, conceded these issues with the job-ready graduates scheme. In 2023, the education minister said that job-ready graduates scheme needs to be redesigned before it causes long-term and entrenched damage to the Australian higher education system. I couldn't agree more. Professor Bruce Chapman, the architect of HECS, has said on many occasions that the job-ready graduates scheme is the No. 1 issue with our HECS system. But, two years on from the accord, students are paying more than ever before.

This is no longer just a Morrison era issue. This bad policy was introduced under the previous government, but the job-ready graduate scheme has now been in place for longer under Labor than it was under the coalition. The government could have fixed this problem at any time in the last four years. Instead, it has delayed. It tasked the universities accord with looking into student contributions back in 2022. By February 2024 the accord's final report called for urgent action, and the minister said then that ATEC would look at the scheme and what change can happen. Now, we have legislation for the ATEC before us, but there is nothing in this bill that recognises the urgent need to ease student fees. Student contributions are not mentioned in this bill, not once.

In 2025, I was pleased to successfully advocate for a 20 per cent reduction in existing student HECS debts, and I also supported the government's measures to reduce indexation and to increase the payment thresholds on student loans. Those measures have helped to decrease student debt, but they've only reduced debts back to pre-COVID levels, which, following an unprecedented inflationary surge, has done nothing to help those students who are now at university.

The legislation does grant the Tertiary Education Commission the function of advising on Commonwealth contributions to the cost of degrees, but Commonwealth contributions represent only a part of the higher education pricing equation. It's alarming that the Commission has not been tasked with considering student contributions or even just considering the impacts of HECS debts on young Australians. It's important that the commission has the power to provide the government with independent and impartial advice on whether the current maximum student contributions are too high. A note to the commission: they are! This function, which is absent in the legislation, is important. It will help begin to reverse the damage that the job-ready graduates scheme has inflicted. The reality is that the government could act today. It could reduce the maximum student contribution amount under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 today, but the government has not put that legislation on the table in Canberra this week.

What we can do is ensure that the independent statutory commission can give and will give impartial advice on the biggest cost-of-living factor affecting young Australians. The final report of the Universities Accord called for the ATEC to be an independent statutory authority 'to enable it to provide robust advice and support evidence based decision-making and planning'. It said the ATEC 'needs to be agile and responsive to immediate issues, while remaining future focused overall'. This was echoed in the minister's explanatory memorandum, which states that formal independence is a foundational element of the ATEC's design. However, there have been concerns from stakeholders and from experts about the ATEC's proximity to the minister. Many of the commission's advisory functions can only be performed at the request of the minister. This limits any policy agenda that the commission might want to promote independently of the minister's wishes, including, for example, escalating the question of the job-ready graduates scheme. So, while I support the establishment of an independent higher education commission to steward the sector, I would suggest very strongly that we need to ensure that the commission is sufficiently independent to be able to promote meaningful reform of our higher education sector.

If we are serious about securing the future of Australian tertiary education, then we have to ensure that the systems that we build are coherent, transparent and generally capable of restoring public trust. Establishing an Australian Tertiary Education Commission is a step towards that goal. It offers the possibility of a sector guided by evidence rather than short-term policies by careful long-term planning, not piecemeal fixes. This bill will move us towards the implementation of the Universities Accord, but I urge the House and the minister to ensure that the commission is fully equipped to reform the higher education sector and to better tackle the cost-of-education crisis which faces Australian students.

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

In my first speech in this place, I shared how I am forever grateful for the education, the keys to the kingdom, that I received and acknowledged that education changes lives. It changed mine, and it does so for many Australians in our communities. The words I shared in 2022—that I'm passionate about ensuring we have a robust higher education system that values intellectual curiosity and supports people to think, to experiment and to create new ideas, systems and solutions—are beliefs that I still hold, and I'm very pleased to support the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025. The Labor Party is the party of education, and the Albanese Labor government has invested in education ever since it was first elected. Whether that be through cutting student debt by 20 per cent while making the indexation system fairer, establishing a Commonwealth-paid prac system so students can get paid on placements, establishing a student ombudsman or making free TAFE permanent, we are absolutely committed to making sure that every Australian has the opportunity to pursue a great education in this country.

This bill to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, was a key recommendation of the Australian Universities Accord, and this furthers our pursuit of opening the doors of opportunity to every Australian so that their lives can be changed for the better via education. Harnessing the potential of education while creating a better and fairer tertiary education system that delivers for students and on Australia's skills needs now and into the future is absolutely one of our government's priorities, and I know how important the higher education system is to my electorate.

When the accord process was first implemented, I undertook a survey in my electorate and received hundreds and hundreds of responses about the kinds of changes people wanted to see. I made a submission to the accord on behalf of my electorate of Chisholm. I'm really pleased to see that we are continuing our work as a government to implement the recommendations from the accord reports. It is really critical that we have an education system that works for everyone. This is no matter where their postcode or income are set, because not only are we the land of the fair go but that's what the accord told us we will need to do to make sure that our country is set up for the years ahead.

We know that more jobs are going to require more skills. At the moment, 60 per cent of Australians working today have a certificate or a diploma or degree. We know—the data tells us—that by 2050 that level will need to increase to about 80 per cent, so there is some work to do. That is a significant increase. Governments must prepare and be ready to capitalise on this endeavour. It means we need to have more people at TAFE, more people at universities, like Deakin and Monash in my electorate and local area, and more opportunities for Australians to harness the potential of higher education through a fairer system.

It will be the job of the ATEC to help drive and steer this growth so that it is grounded both on fairness and to harness the skills our nation needs. This is all building on our government's mission—no-one held back, no-one left behind. It will draft compacts with individual universities. The ATEC will help improve policy, administration and coordination of the sector, and get the sector to work more like a system and will get the vocational education system and higher education system to work more closely together. When I speak to academics, vice-chancellors and students, I know that what they really want to see is a closer engagement between the vocational education system and the higher education university system.

The ATEC will provide expert, independent advice, which will help drive real and lasting reform. Like Jobs and Skills Australia, it will be independent and report directly to ministers. The ATEC will be guided by a ministerial statement of expectations. The key performance indicators for the ATEC will be established in consultation with the minister. It will publish its work plan, so that will be transparent. It will provide advice to government and publish reports. It will be able to undertake its own research. Staff will be directed by the ATEC commissioners, governed by a service-level agreement with the Department of Education. Its operations, really importantly, and as I've just mentioned, will be transparent. It will be required to consult.

Before entering this place, I worked as an academic, so I can see the absolute benefits that will come about through establishing the ATEC. An independent review of the ATEC—its role, its functions and its operations—critically, is also built in after two years and after five years, again to aid transparency. These reviews will be tabled in the House and the Senate to ensure the foundation of our higher education system is continually built on the principles of equity and participation. There will be real accountability there. It will be led by three commissioners: a full-time chief commissioner, a full-time First Nations commissioner and a part-time commissioner. Collectively, they will be required to have expertise in the university education sector and in vocational education and training. The First Nations commissioner must be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person with significant understanding of issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The ATEC will have its own decision-making powers and will take on responsibility for new mission based compacts with individual universities, setting out the number of domestic and international students in line with the government's strategic direction. It will take over responsibility for the higher education standards framework from the current Higher Education Standards Panel and provide advice on it to the Minister for Education and the sector regulator.

The Minister for Education and the Minister for Skills and Training will also be able to request advice from ATEC on a range of matters, so our future reforms and decisions take the sector with us. It will include the cost of teaching and learning in higher education and overall higher education funding amounts, including on a per student basis; student demand, skills demand and the capability of the system's ability to meet Australia's workforce needs; the strategic direction, governance, size and diversity of the higher education system; and the financial sustainability of higher education providers—and that includes not just universities but other non-university higher education providers. They'll be able to provide advice around ways to improve coordination and collaboration between the vocational and higher education university systems, and how to improve access, participation and outcomes for people facing systemic barriers to education, including Indigenous Australians, Australians with disability, Australians from a low socioeconomic background and Australians living in the regions and in the bush.

A key part of ATEC is that it will also be required to produce and publish a 'state of the tertiary education system' report every year, with the first report to cover the period starting from 1 January 2026. The report will set out current and emerging trends and issues, and system level changes needed to meet these challenges; progress on tertiary participation and attainment targets; the extent to which the higher education system is meeting Australia's current and future student skills and knowledge demands; and how well we are doing in breaking down the barriers between vocational education and university education, and breaking down the systemic barriers faced by Australians from disadvantaged backgrounds. ATEC will also publish a work plan and statement of its strategic priorities for the tertiary education system every two years, starting from 1 January 2027.

ATEC, together with this reporting mechanism, will ensure there are enough places at universities to allow more people to access the opportunities that we know higher education can deliver. That equitable approach has deep bipartisan roots in the parliament. The first Universities Commission was established in 1943 by the Curtin Labor government, and over the four following decades that commission and its successors oversaw significant reform of our higher education system. It is important to remember that John Curtin may have started this but Sir Robert Menzies continued it, and in 1959 his government introduced the Australian Universities Commission Act, which, for the first time, embedded the commission under its own standalone legislation. That was a key moment in the history of higher education, and Labor supported Menzies in this pursuit. We have a similar opportunity in front of us now to have genuine cross-parliamentary support for the bills before the House to build the foundations that set us up for the future, for a higher education system that works for everyone.

I acknowledge and thank the Minister for Education, Jason Clare; the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles; the Assistant Minister for International Education, Julian Hill; and the former Minister for Skills and Training, the Hon. Brendan O'Connor, for all their efforts. I also acknowledge and thank university vice-chancellors; peak bodies, including Universities Australia; state and territory ministers; the Department of Education; and the Accord Implementation Advisory Committee for this cohesive approach, and the National Tertiary Education Union for their engagement. I especially thank the interim commissioners of ATEC—Mary O'Kane, Larissa Behrendt and Barney Glover. The ATEC was a headline recommendation of the accord, and now we have the opportunity to turn those words into reality.

I'll end on this note: if we're not here to make life better and fairer for the next generation, and the generation after that, and the generation after that, then why are we even here at all? This is an opportunity to build something that our country can be really proud of and will set us up not just for now but for generations into the future. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the House knows, education is very important to my community in Fowler and, of course, across the country, but, for migrants and refugee communities that are in Fowler, I cannot emphasise enough how critical education is. People would recall I constantly speak about how, when we were in refugee camps when my mother chose Australia, my late mother told me the reason why we chose Australia was that it had the best education system in the world. We came here and settled here, and I have benefited from our education system.

I do want to start by acknowledging the government's efforts. It is a start, but I think we need to be honest. It should never have taken this long to recognise what students, families and educators in my community have been shouting from the rooftops for years. For decades, successive governments have lost their way. They have failed in their most basic duty to build the skills and provide the knowledge our young people need to thrive.

In my electorate of Fowler and across greater south-western Sydney, we see the consequences of this neglect every single day. For our community, university has not become a gateway; it has become a finish line that is moving further and further out of reach. We have allowed a system to take root where the path to a better life is increasingly determined by your bank balance rather than your potential. For too long, our priorities have shifted. It became about international rankings and protecting our balance sheets. Somewhere along the way, equity, access and opportunity were relegated to the fine print, and, in that process, a silent and cruel understanding was born that, if you are a disadvantaged student, you're simply condemned to a tougher road. Why is that the case? A student's postcode should never be their destiny. Whether a young person grows up in a leafy inner city suburb or in the heart of Western Sydney, quality education must be a right, not a privilege shaped by postcode.

I recognise the intention behind Australian Tertiary Education Commission. Long-term planning is good, but, in Fowler, we have seen commissions and taskforces come and go. Without real accountability, there is a risk this commission becomes just another layer of expensive Canberra based bureaucracy, well-intentioned on paper but disconnected from students' lived realities.

In the four years that I have been in this parliament, I've heard the government and the minister speak confidently about how well they understand the struggles of Western Sydney, and the minister should understand. He regularly talks about how he grew up there and went to Cabramatta Public School and Canley Vale High School. He knows Western Sydney, but understanding isn't the same as solving. Measures like the 20 per cent HECS debt reduction are held up as proof of action, but, for families in Fowler, that is a brief sugar hit. It hasn't changed the day-to-day grind. Students are trapped in a vicious cycle. They chip away at their debt only to watch it climb right back up through indexation. While the government talks about distribution, inflation and interest rates are moving faster than relief.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke about how the government distributed the benefits of stage 3 tax cuts. If distribution is the measure of fairness, I ask how exactly is equity being distributed to the communities that need it most? In Fowler, students aren't just studying; they're working long hours whilst trying to maintain a full-time load. Fowler is ranked in the top 12 per cent of the most disadvantaged areas in this country. For us, systematic barriers are not just an abstract concept.

I've told this House about the about young people in Fowler and their struggles and how they are contributing to their families. Take Kimberley, a constituent of mine. Kimberley hits her $25 weekly Opal cap just travelling from Cabramatta to campus. She spends $120 a week on food. She contributes $125 a week towards her family's electricity and water bills. She does all of this while working part time and keeping up with her studies. For Kimberley, the choice isn't between degrees. The choice is between education and survival.

If we are serious about equity, we must be honest about the policies that undermine it. I agree with the member for Kooyong that the job-ready graduates scheme must be reversed. As this House knows, I've introduced my fair study and opportunity bill twice to confront this injustice. Under the JRG scheme, the cost of humanities and social science degrees more than doubled. This isn't just a policy failure; it's a social one. It punishes students for their academic interests and creates a debt trap for those pursuing careers in teaching, social work or community services, roles that are really critical to the health of our society. If this commission is to be more than a bureaucratic exercise, it must confront the JRG legacy directly. It must set out concrete options to fix what is clearly broken.

The success of this bill won't be measured by reports or frameworks. It will be measured by whether a student in Fowler can realistically afford to finish their degree without being crushed by debt. That is the test of equity. Anything less is just more rhetoric.

Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025. In establishing the Australian Tertiary Education Commission as a steward of the higher education system, the bill implements a key recommendation from the Australian Universities Accord final report of 2024. The review that resulted in that final report was asked to examine Australia's higher education system and create a long-term plan for reform. The overarching theme can be simply stated. If Australia is to prosper in the years ahead, Australian participation, performance and investment in tertiary education needs to improve in order to generate the knowledge, skills and research our nation needs to meet our current and emerging social, economic and environmental challenges. It noted that there were chronic shortages of skilled professionals, including early childhood educators, teachers, aged-care workers, nurses and doctors. Increasingly, Australia is going to need greater numbers of engineers and others to transform our energy grid, advance our manufacturing sector, drive new discoveries and innovations, make our agriculture more sustainable and build new public infrastructure for our growing cities and regions.

The recommendations proposed in the final review were broad, and they were ambitious. In order to successfully implement them, stronger leadership, planning and collaboration than is possible under the current system arrangements will be required, with a far greater emphasis on understanding policy and reform priorities and understanding evidence about the state of the system. So, to implement this broad and ambitious change, the review recommended that the Australian government establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, which would be tasked with providing the leadership and stewardship necessary to transform the system. The breadth of the challenge and the breadth of the reform needed to meet the challenge must be coordinated, streamlined and efficient. Without this, reforms will run the risk of being fragmented, out of sync and not fit for purpose. The review delivered 46 other recommendations, but the key one relates to ATEC in that the Australian tertiary education sector needs a dynamic, collaborative and responsive system that serves the national interest. The ATEC, which this bill proposes as a statutory national body to plan and oversee the creation of a high-quality and cohesive tertiary education system to meet Australia's future needs, is what is required.

The recommendation is that ATEC be established under legislation to work collaboratively with tertiary education institutions supporting the tertiary system to meet the needs of students, the community, research users and employers. The review identified that the functions of the ATEC should centre on policy coordination and development, system planning, pricing authority, funding allocation and the negotiation of mission based compacts for universities. It will achieve this by doing a number of things, including delivering on this overarching objective; focusing the system on current and future skills needs; promoting access and opportunity; developing an improved understanding of the cost of delivery for providers and appropriate and fair levels of student contributions; promoting a diverse choice of institutional and study options by fostering a cohesive tertiary education system through the development of sound and sustainable policy; encouraging continuous improvement in tertiary education, research and research training; support for increasing the quality of the tertiary education workforce; and providing expert advice to the government and tertiary education system.

The review also recommended that the commission should be an independent statutory authority answering to the education and skills ministers to enable it to provide robust advice and support evidence-based decision-making and planning. As a system steward, it will work in close collaboration with a broad cross-section of stakeholders within the tertiary education system, including universities but also non-university higher education providers, private VET providers, TAFEs, students, academic and professional staff, employers, industry, unions, bodies representing the various professions, research end users, alumni and all levels of government. The commission will be guided by the national tertiary education objective and charged with responsibility to build and maintain a coalition of stakeholders in order to drive these sector reforms, to identify effective ways to leverage the collective resources of the tertiary education system so it delivers better outcomes and, finally, to ensure that the system itself is responding and agile to meet the needs of a changing society.

In my home state of South Australia, we have recently witnessed the product of the changing needs of higher education with the merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia to become Adelaide University, which will welcome its first students this year. Adelaide University's vision is to be a leading contemporary comprehensive university of global standing that is dedicated to ensuring the prosperity, wellbeing and cohesion of society by addressing educational inequality through both the actions of the university and the success and impact of its students, staff and alumni. By partnering with the community and partnering with industry, Adelaide University is well placed to realise its vision of conducting outstanding future-making research that has focus and scalability. In South Australia, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The new Adelaide University, under the leadership of Vice-Chancellor Professor Nicola Phillips, will be the largest educator of domestic students in Australia and will have the scale and resources to be sustainably positioned in the top 50 universities in the world.

Two significant investments by the South Australian Malinauskas Labor government mean that this new university will be accessible to everyone with the capacity to succeed, regardless of their background. Firstly, there is the state government's $100 million student support fund, and then its foundation as a pre-eminent and world-leading research institution will be cemented thanks to the $200 million research fund. By 2034, the university is forecast to contribute an estimated additional $500 million a year to the South Australian economy. It is forecasted to educate more than 70,000 students, about 13,000 more than both pre-existing universities do today, and it's also forecast to create an additional 1,200 jobs. A globally competitive university that is sustainably positioned to be in the top 50 universities in the world will not only be able to provide high-quality teaching to students of all economic backgrounds but, critically, will be able to secure a greater share of funding for high-quality, targeted research and to work actively and meaningfully with local businesses and industry.

Funding for targeted and meaningful research and development has never been so important. High-quality and targeted research and development, or R&D, that delivers for industry by providing outcomes that are measurable, practical and capable of meaningful execution and implementation are critical to Australia remaining productive and competitive. We know that productivity growth drives economic growth and gains in living standards. We also know that a widely accepted key driver of productivity is innovation and that R&D is a major contributor to innovation activity. R&D is indispensable in today's innovation-driven economy. It acts as the engine that propels technological breakthroughs, spurring the development of new products, services and processes. So when we prioritise R&D, we are better positioned to adapt to market changes, capitalise on emerging trends and drive long-term growth.

R&D is the catalyst for innovation. Investing in research means that new ideas can be explored and novel concepts can be worked on before they are introduced to the market. An exploration of this nature can lead to the discovery of new processes, technologies and materials that can improve and reshape industry. R&D is also a catalyst for economic growth because of the opportunities for new industries and job creation, increasing overall productivity and global competitiveness. It's a catalyst to address global challenges such as health, energy security and climate, with the ability to rapidly innovate and deploy new solutions so we can tackle these complex issues and then scale up commercial implementation and production. This is more important than ever but it's rarely a solitary endeavour.

As the new Adelaide University's vision has articulated so clearly, collaborative efforts between academia, industry and government are crucial for pushing the boundaries of research and development. Collaborative R&D initiatives enable the sharing of knowledge, resources and expertise, leading to more robust and innovative outcomes. Well funded and targeted R&D can lead to improvements in social welfare, quality of life, environmental sustainability, economic growth and job creation and, importantly, national security.

R&D must be a central pillar of national economic and innovation strategies, and these strategies must be prosecuted not only with vigour but with patience because R&D inherently involves risk. Not every research project leads to a breakthrough and many innovations may fail to reach commercialisation. We must be prepared to manage these risks and invest in diverse R&D portfolios to balance the potential for high returns with the likelihood of setbacks. When setbacks are experienced, we must learn from them and continue to invest. Because risk is not only about what could go wrong; it is about what could go right.

In order for these strategies to produce measurable and effective output, access to a skilled workforce is critical. Adelaide University recognises this and this bill, through the establishment of the ATEC, also recognises that. The ATEC will steward the tertiary education sector towards these strategic priorities to meet Australia's skills, knowledge and workforce demands. This can only be achieved with an educated workforce, which is why equity is at the core of the ATEC's work. This bill requires the ATEC to have regard to the objective of improving outcomes for persons facing systematic barriers to education, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, persons with a disability, persons from a low-socioeconomic background and persons living in regional Australia.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted. In accordance with standing order 43, the debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member for Sturt will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed if required.