Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters) | Link to this | Hansard source

Yet again, we find ourselves in this place debating a bill that's got a title that's pretty hard to disagree with. Labor want to pretend that this bill, the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026, is about funding and student places. They want to pretend that it's about increasing university funding to help poor kids, Indigenous kids and kids from the bush—kids from regional electorates—to get a go. If that's all this bill did, then the coalition would be in full support of it.

However, we have to reserve our position at this stage because this bill needs to go through a Senate inquiry so Australians can have their say. The reality is that, time and time again, through these inquiries, we see the sort of feedback that points out glaring holes in the government's legislation. We saw that just in the winter break, with the Senate gambling inquiry, which was fought tooth and nail by the government but exposed clear holes in the bill. And so it is with the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill that we're here to debate today.

Once we've received that evidence and the Australian people have had their say, we will consider what our position ultimately is in the Senate and what amendments are necessary, because this bill is worthy of close scrutiny. It makes significant structural changes to the higher education system. We note concerns that have already emerged from the tertiary education sector about the consultation process the government has run, and that includes the fact that universities hadn't seen this bill before it was tabled in the parliament, that there are elements of the bill's drafting that surprise the tertiary education sector, that no exposure draft has been released and that stakeholders have been shown limited material under strict confidentiality arrangements. If the government had nothing to hide and this bill did all that it is purported to do and nothing else, one wonders why such poor consultation was conducted under such secrecy.

If the bill ultimately comes to a vote in the House before that Senate committee reports, we will find ourselves in uncertain territory. But it is appropriate that, as a party of alternative government, we take the time, we consult and we get our position right.

Let's consider what the problems are with our universities today. Unfortunately, they either have lost or are losing their social licence in Australia, and I believe it's because, for too many years now, universities in Australia have pursued indoctrination over education time and time again. What should be institutions that are homes of freedom of speech and freedom of academic integrity are, in fact, places of censorship, academic pile-ons and ideological confrontation.

Universities Australia held a summit this year, and the whole sector focused on their social licence. They did so because it's reflected in the data that domestic enrolments in universities are falling. In 2022, there were some 1.1 million domestic students studying at university in Australia. According to the most recent data, that number has fallen since the Albanese government came to office. It is now the lowest number of enrolments since 2019, and it is getting lower. That sends a very stark message from both the boots and the wallets of Australian students: their confidence in the Australian tertiary sector is declining.

According to the Department of Education, since 2022, when the Albanese government came to power, the ratio of students to teaching staff has increased, and the number of administrative, technical and operational staff is growing twice as fast as that of frontline teaching and research staff. That's on the department's own numbers.

The 2025 Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching Graduate Outcomes Survey recorded a record-low graduate satisfaction of 74.9 per cent. I'll say that again. This year's survey recorded record-low graduate satisfaction among young Australians who are taking the time and incurring the cost of pursuing a degree at an Australian university. That's an appalling outcome. Undergraduate ratings for student support and services were even lower—71.2 per cent in 2023 and 2024, the lowest since 2015. Polling from the universities themselves reveals that the proportion of Australians with either 'quite a lot' or 'a great deal' of confidence in Australian universities has fallen. This reflects that loss of licence to operate in Australia that we see from institutions that pursue indoctrination over education.

Additionally, we've seen the government rip the guts out of research in this country—the same research that should drive productivity in our economy. It is one of the many reasons that productivity is absolutely flatlining in Australia, and we see a real loss of incomes as real GDP per capita sees the largest fall in living standards in the developed world. This has included cutting more than $2.3 billion out of university research through cuts to the Australia's Economic Accelerator program and abolishing the Trailblazer Universities Program, which saw co-investment by government and industry into research totalling more than $1.02 billion. We've seen the government slash our research capacity program by more than $920 million since the coalition was last in office. It is a cut which is significantly magnified in its effects because of the runaway inflation that we see in the economy today. On the government's own numbers, research spending in this country is projected to reach a decade low in 2029.

We haven't been the only ones to notice. Complaints by students and staff to TEQSA, the regulator, have almost quadrupled, from 237 complaints in 2022 to 942 last year. There is a serious problem in our university sector, and this bill, unfortunately, addresses none of those concerns. Safety data is particularly bad when you dive into the detail of those TEQSA complaints, because, in 2022, there were 16 TEQSA complaints in relation to gender based violence and other wellbeing and safety. It is now 76. Those figures don't include new data from the National Student Ombudsman, which received 1,711 complaints in its first six months.

Juxtaposed against that appalling deterioration in the safety of university campuses we've seen a spectacle, week after week, of encampments preaching hate against our country, against democracy and particularly against Jewish Australians. It is a shameful spectacle that sees ordinary Australian students, who have every right to get to the classes they're paying for, denied easy access and freedom of movement on their own university campuses by these extremists.

That has led to extraordinary levels of racist abuse and hatred on university campuses, as measured by the Racism@Uni survey. Above all, Jewish Australian students came out at the pointy end of that abuse and that hatred. But we believe that ultimately it stems from the basic failure of university leadership across the country to respond properly to the antisemitic hatred that we saw explode in Australia in October 2023. When you don't step in to stop encampments on campuses targeting one group of Australians, you send a message that it's actually okey. That's how university leadership has failed young Australians and indeed our country. With more than half of Australia's universities dropping in the world rankings in June this year, it comes as little wonder to us on the coalition side.

The universities themselves are complaining about having to comply with more than 300 pieces of legislation and regulation—which, admittedly, would have occurred under the watch of previous governments as well. But, based on a submission by TEQSA itself, there are now 15 different regulators and oversight bodies that universities report to. You might think that the 'opening the doors of opportunity' bill would be doing Australian universities a service by slashing the red tape and regulation that the university sector confronts. But, alas, we move on.

We've got repeated scandals in Australia about overseas cheating factories being used as a way to a degree. That diminishes the value of the Australian degrees that young people are paying good money for in this country. And over it all, of course, we've got the sector-wide challenge of confronting AI and the challenges it poses in a university setting. If AI is being used to mark work done by students, it makes humans redundant and the degree they receive pretty worthless. It's a massive challenge, and it's not being adequately addressed by the sector or by this bill.

So the message is pretty simple. Under Labor, our universities have become demonstrably, measurably worse as they have pursued a policy of indoctrination, not education. This bill, in centralising significant power over universities and higher education providers in the hands of the minister, is a central concern. It is absolutely beyond doubt that the minister has the best baritone in the building, but that doesn't make him the savant of all things when it comes to education and tertiary education. So we need to consider this very carefully as a bill that moves towards a centrally managed higher education system in our country, because the minister and indeed future ministers would gain extensive powers over domestic Commonwealth supported places, international student allocations, demand-driven higher education course places, the conditions placed on tertiary providers, needs based funding, and the priorities and directions given to ATEC.

That's a pretty startling sort of remit to give to one minister of any political stripe, because while these powers could be used for good—to address future serious policy problems within the sector—they also raise significant concern about competition, institutional autonomy, efficiency, parliamentary oversight and the degree of latitude afforded by ministerial discretion.

We do concede, though, in light of the foregoing, that the university sector itself faces some real problems. We've got quality concerns leading to that deterioration in the rankings of Australian universities. We've got the undeniable challenge and opportunity that AI presents to the university sector. We've seen that terrible rise in the scourge of antisemitism and the social cohesion challenges it presents, not only on our university campuses but, indeed, across society more broadly. We've got the situation with international student pressures in the context of managing Australia's migration system, which undeniably has seen the numbers too high and the standards too low overall. On the coalition side, we're honest about what we will do when it comes to tackling migration and getting the numbers down. We need the government to do the same. I look forward to Minister Burke finally making it to the Press Club to give that speech, which he was gagged from only last week.

We see a bill before the House that gives a future government powerful tools to respond to those problems, but there are legitimate concerns. Again, that's where our call for a Senate inquiry into this legislation is so important. It is important because these powers could be used by a minister in the national interest if they were applied carefully and transparently. There may well be a compelling case for additional safeguards to ensure that a future minister would make decisions that would benefit not only the university sector but every Australian student who forks out for a degree and, indeed, our nation overall. They could tackle some of the issues we saw, like our flatlining productivity, by enlivening research in Australia once more and seeing greater cooperation between the commercial and tertiary sectors—perhaps supercharged with the effective adoption of AI across the sector. We could see those very significant social cohesion concerns challenged and then corrected over time, if this legislation gets that balance right. It could see the freedom of speech and academic integrity restored to our university campuses, as it ought to be, and leave the nation a more prosperous place.

Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Every child begins life with abilities that deserve a chance to grow. But, in Australia today, where a child grows up still has too much influence over where their education can take them. Family income, distance and whether their parents went to university can shape their choices long before they submit an application to a tertiary provider. The Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 is about changing that. It's about opening the doors of opportunity. For Labor, those words carry a clear promise: no child's postcode, family income or parents' education should set the limits of their future.

Education gives people choices. It gives them knowledge, confidence and the skills to build a secure life. It gives our communities the teachers, nurses, builders, engineers, artists and carers that we rely on. But opportunity is never created simply by declaring that a door is open. A student needs a place at a tertiary institution. They need the means to accept it. They need support to keep studying through financial pressure, family crisis or a difficult first year. Then they need a fair chance to finish. This bill responds to each part of that task. It establishes a managed growth funding system to provide more Commonwealth supported university places. It creates demand driven, needs based funding for students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students at regional campuses. Across the next decade, these reforms will invest another $3.6 billion in higher education and fund an estimated 230,000 additional commencing students. This is how we open the door wider and help more students reach the other side.

This is an issue that has shaped much of my working life. Before entering this place, I had the great honour of working alongside and supporting remarkable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people from across Australia, including many from remote and regional communities. For 13 years I worked with the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, most recently as its deputy CEO. During that time, AIEF provided transformational scholarships to more than 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people. As I said, many of these young people were from regional and remote communities. Many of those young people I now count among my friends. They have brought me enormous joy and inspiration. It has been a great honour to watch them thrive in their careers, their families and their communities.

Working alongside those students and their families for so many years shaped how I think about access to quality education. I saw young people travel vast distances to study and families place enormous trust in schools and support staff. I saw year 12 graduations become family celebrations and young people move into further study, apprenticeships and first jobs. I also saw how much work sits behind every successful transition.

One of those students was Injarra Harbour, who grew up in Winton in Queensland's central west. He was a student that I was able to go visit, along with his family, in their home in Winton. Injarra is academically minded and strongly supported by his family. I give a shout-out to his parents, Travis and Tracey, both absolutely remarkable individuals. A scholarship gave Injarra the chance to move about 1,300 kilometres to attend boarding school in Brisbane. Injarra later became only the second Indigenous student to captain his school. He went on to study law at QUT and he completed an internship in Sydney. Injarra knew his experience was exceptional though. He spoke about young people facing financial and social pressures that can narrow their choices before they reach university. He said, 'Many do not know their worth.' As Injarra put it, every kid has the potential to do wonderful things, but they need to have the stability to do so. That simple insight sits at the heart of this bill. Talent exists in every community. Our task is to provide the stability, support and opportunity to allow it to grow. Injarra's success belongs to him. It rests on his ability, hard work and the support of his family. But financial help brought an opportunity within reach, and ongoing guidance helped him make the most of it.

That experience taught me a lesson I have carried into this place. Access and success cannot be separated. An offer letter is important, but it can't pay the rent. A university place cannot help a student who cannot afford to leave home. Enrolment alone will not carry someone through a family crisis or a difficult first semester. We need to open the door and give students a fair chance to succeed.

The Universities Accord looked across the whole tertiary education system. By 2050, at least 80 per cent of working-age Australians will need a TAFE qualification, a university degree or another tertiary qualification. This bill reforms university funding, but it forms part of a much wider national task. Australia needs strong universities and a strong public TAFE system. We need clear pathways between them, and we need those pathways to work for school leavers, mature-age students and people changing careers.

We see both parts of that system at work across Brisbane's southside in my community. TAFE Queensland's South Bank campus sits in the heart of Griffith, surrounded by our galleries, theatres, museums and the state library. Students there train in nursing, early childhood education, community services, engineering, hospitality, information technology, business, justice and the creative arts. A nursing student can practice in a simulated hospital ward, while hospitality, music and game students learn with industry-standard facilities and technology.

In the south of my electorate, the Mount Gravatt campus gives southside students another local option. It offers courses in accounting, business, hospitality, education support, English language studies, justice and screen media. Mount Gravatt is also TAFE Queensland's fashion studies hub. Students use industry equipment and digital design software before showing their work at the annual Brisbane fashion parade.

I have loved visiting our local TAFE campuses several times with the assistant minister for skills and training. Each visit has reinforced the same point: TAFE gives practical skills, confidence and a direct path into secure work. These campuses open different doors for different people. A school leaver can train for a first job. A worker can gain a new qualification. A student can use a diploma as a pathway into university. At Griffith University's South Bank campus, the Queensland Conservatorium, the Queensland College of Art and Design and Griffith Film School educate the next generation of musicians, filmmakers, performers, artists and designers. Local students also study at QUT, UQ and campuses across Brisbane. Many combine classes with paid shifts while they have rising rent. Some care for children or relatives. Some are the first person in their family to enter tertiary education. Opportunity must meet those students where they are.

Close to half of Australians in their thirties hold a university degree. Among people from low-income families and regional communities the rate is about half that. Students from these backgrounds have a lower chance of entering university.

Debate interrupted.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 4.30 pm, the House stands adjourned until 12 noon tomorrow in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 12 August 2026.

House adjourned at 16:30