Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to have some time, in continuation, to speak on the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. This bill proposes two major reforms. The first is a managed growth funding system that better aligns university places with Australia's future workforce needs. The second is a new, demand-driven, needs based funding model that recognises some students need additional support if we are serious about improving participation and completion at university.

The recommendation of adopting a new funding model for higher education that is planned, sustainable and focused on the skills we'll need in the future is exactly what the managed growth funding model seeks to achieve. Around 80 per cent of Australia's workforce will need a certificate, diploma or degree by 2050, so we cannot afford to leave capable Australians behind simply because of where they live or the circumstances they face. We know the areas where we can find the most students to increase those numbers are regional areas and those in the outer suburbs. This reform will effectively remove the cap on Commonwealth supported places for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and students from regional Australia, because talent should never be limited by family income or postcode and the students that we need to do these courses can be found in the outer suburbs and in the regions.

The bill also establishes the framework for the commission to exercise its existing function in allocating international student places. This is about creating certainty—certainty for universities, certainty for students and certainty that Australia's higher education system is growing in a planned, strategic and sustainable way with, I would suggest, a clear sight on domestic students, their capacity and the support they need to get us to those targets.

This bill will also formalise the role of the ATEC in allocating Commonwealth supported places. Under this legislation, an extra 230,000 Commonwealth supported places are expected to be delivered over the next decade. Next year alone, 16,000 additional CSPs will be available. That means 16,000 more Australians will have the opportunity to become nurses, teachers, allied health professionals and social workers—ultimately opportunities for Australia to build the highly skilled workforce it will need in the decades ahead.

The second major reform in this bill is the introduction of the needs based funding model. Essentially, this model will provide extra funding to support students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, First Nations students and students studying at regional campuses. These students are no less capable than anyone else. If we believe that talent is spread across every community in Australia, then we must also recognise that opportunity is not. Students who face greater barriers often require greater support if they are to achieve the same outcomes. That is the principle underpinning this reform. In many respects it reflects the same philosophy that underpins needs based school funding.

As a former teacher and principal, I know all too well that different students require different levels of support to achieve their full potential. That principle transformed the conversation around school funding, and this bill applies that same principle to higher education. This has been my experience over decades in secondary education witnessing and knowing the support that some high school students will need if they are going to be successful at tertiary education. And some of that is just about building their confidence and creating a space where they feel comfortable and supported, that the system has faith that they can achieve, rather than them having to stride out and be that aspirational in their own progression.

The legislation sets a new base equity amount of $1,535 per eligible student and a base regional amount of $1,398. To put that into perspective: under previous similar programs, funding averaged around $600 per student. This is more than double the support available and will support universities to support those students to complete their studies. What it means in practice is that universities will be able to use this money where it matters most, from tutoring and mentoring to academic and transition support. It means more scholarships and emergency financial assistance. It means greater access to counselling, wellbeing services and peer support. The bill also recognises the additional costs associated with delivering education at regional campuses, ensuring students studying in regional areas are not disadvantaged because of where they live. If the first half of this bill is about opening the door to university, the second half is about helping students walk through that door, supporting them along the way and helping them graduate. This is how we're building a stronger workforce and this is how we ensure Australia's higher education system reflects the aspirations of the people it serves.

These reforms will matter enormously to communities like the one I represent in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Lalor is one of the youngest and fastest-growing communities in Australia. Wyndham City is now home to more than 330,000 people, and over the next two decades it is expected to grow by almost another 200,000 residents. This growth presents enormous opportunities, but it also presents enormous demand—demand for more teachers in our classrooms, nurses and allied health professionals in our hospitals and more skilled workers across every sector of our community. The people who will fill those roles are sitting in classrooms across my electorate today, and this legislation is designed to support them into tertiary education.

When I visit schools in my electorate, I meet students who are eager to become doctors, engineers, teachers and scientists. I meet parents who work incredibly hard to ensure their children have opportunities they themselves may not have had. I meet adults returning to study because they know new skills will create new opportunities for their families. And one thing I have never questioned about Lalor is its ambition. The challenge has always been ensuring that opportunity keeps pace with that ambition. That's why this legislation is so important. Through these reforms, more people in my community will have the opportunity to access university and to see it through to graduation.

There's a clear difference in philosophy between this government and those opposite, this government and the previous government. This Labor government believes education is an investment in Australia's future. Those opposite have too often treated it as a budget line to be managed. The other side of this House may ask whether Australia can afford this investment. I would ask a different question. The question is: do you perceive it as an investment, or do you only see it as a cost? Educating young Australians, to me, is an absolute investment in the future and one that Australia can't afford not to do. We can't afford to ignore the accord's finding that, by 2050, 80 per cent of jobs will require a certificate, diploma or degree. That means education beyond secondary education. Can we afford to continue leaving talented Australians behind while our economy changes? I do not believe we can, and I believe the biggest danger to social cohesion is people who are frustrated because they haven't reached their potential and who have given up on reaching that potential. That's why these initiatives are so important.

The Universities Accord makes it clear that the skills our country will need over the coming decades cannot be delivered by a higher education system designed for the challenges of the past. We need a system that plans ahead and ensures that every capable Australian has the opportunity to contribute. This is exactly what this proposed legislation sets out to achieve. This legislation is not simply a higher education reform but also an economic reform, a workplace reform and, importantly, an opportunity reform. That is why I support this bill. For communities like the one I represent, where families have worked hard, sacrificed and placed their faith in the power of education, this bill sends an important message: your ambition matters, your contribution matters and your future matters. I commend this bill to the House.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Higher education should open doors of opportunity for every Australian, no matter their postcode, background or bank balance. For people in regional Australia, access to education matters deeply and has long-lasting consequences. The landmark universities accord review, released in early 2024 and led by Professor Mary O'Kane, argued that Australia must increase the share of the workforce with tertiary qualifications from around 60 per cent today to at least 80 per cent by 2050. That's a nation-building task and one on which our productivity nationally depends, but we will miss that target if higher education remains harder to reach for people from low-income backgrounds, First Nations people or people with disability, and it will not be achieved if regional Australia is left behind.

The Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 seeks to make the higher education funding system more responsive to student demand and provide additional support for students who face the greatest barriers to participation. I support this ambition and I will support the passage of this bill through the House, but not before I table what are some significant concerns, including overly broad ministerial powers in this bill, the allocation of international student places and the removal of equity funding for regional and rural students. It is a fact that people from regional areas are less likely to attend university than their metropolitan peers, and we really need to close this gap. In my electorate of Indi, just 17 per cent of adults have a bachelor's degree or higher—well below the national average of 26 per cent. Higher levels of educational attainment are clearly associated with better health, higher incomes, stronger workforce participation and overall improved wellbeing. In a nutshell, higher education means greater prosperity.

But educational attainment shapes more than a person's individual outcomes; it shapes an entire community. We need people with all kinds of skills and talents to build strong communities. We need higher levels of tertiary attainment rates because that means regional communities can attract and retain the skilled workforce that we need. Research from the Grattan Institute shows that when a school leaver moves to a major city for university, only one in five return to the regions within a decade. By contrast, when regional students study at a regional campus close to home, three-quarters of them stay local for the long term. Strong tertiary options close to home mean more young people can build a future for themselves in the community that raised them, and the community sees the benefit of nurturing their young. It means more teachers in our schools, more nurses in our hospitals, more engineers shaping our infrastructure—more skilled workers helping regional Australia truly prosper for generations to come. It also means more opportunity for people at every stage of life to pursue further study—mid-career people, people changing their careers and people undertaking higher research degrees.

Beyond supporting our workforce pipelines, regional universities play a central role in research and help communities seize new economic opportunities and innovation. Some of the most fantastic ideas and innovative solutions come from the regional universities. That's why regional universities like La Trobe and Charles Sturt University are so important to the electorate of Indi and so important across rural and regional areas. They don't just provide education; they are an investment in the long-term productivity and prosperity of our regions. The role that they play in the electorate of Indi is truly transformative.

This bill amends several acts relating to higher education. First, it establishes a managed growth funding system. Instead of the current system, where funding is measured not by student places but by a total dollar amount given to each university, the new system will revolve around a national allocation pool. This pool, measured in total student places, will be set by the minister and allocated by the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, or ATEC. That pool could grow on the commission's advice, particularly to meet demand from students from low-socioeconomic, regional and remote backgrounds.

The bill also introduces needs based funding supplements. Universities will receive additional funding for every student they enrol from a low-socioeconomic background, every First Nation student and every student studying at a regional campus. However, it won't provide a supplement for students from a regional area, and I'll return to this soon. The bill also creates a new system for allocating international student places, with the minister setting an overall international allocation pool. It also authorises the commission to allocate commencing overseas student places to providers.

Overall, the higher education sector has welcomed the intent of the bill. Most universities and stakeholders support its passage, but they have cautioned against rushing this bill through the parliament. The CEO of Universities Australia, Luke Sheehy, has said:

The ambition is right, but the detail matters.

He also said:

Changes of this scale need to be scrutinised closely to make sure we get them right for students, universities and the nation.

I agree. The government should not move this bill through either house before the Senate inquiry has reported. If the ambition is right, then the parliament must take the time to get the detail right and prevent any perverse outcomes that shut the door.

I want to focus on the managed growth system that this bill creates. Some stakeholders, particularly those with a metropolitan focus, have warned that the introduction of a managed growth system could reduce student choice. This argument is linked to new penalties if a university enrols above its allocation, something known as overenrolment. Some universities argue the penalties will make them more cautious about offering places, and the aggregate drop could disproportionately affect access for rural, First Nations and low-socioeconomic students. However, I've listened to universities in my electorate who believe the concerns around managed growth impacting access are overblown and misguided. These regional universities argue that, when a metropolitan university over enrols students, it disproportionately pulls students away from smaller universities and those in rural areas. A core focus of smaller and regional universities is to expand higher education for underrepresented students, and they do an outstanding job supporting equity and regional enrolments. La Trobe University, for example, has 7,388 students from a regional area, and, of that, 4,991 are studying at a regional campus. In 2025-26, their regional campus retention rate was an astonishing 89 per cent. These are strong outcomes that demonstrate the value of well-supported regional institutions, so measures that support their viability, like controlling the risk of over enrolments, are actually welcome to regional universities.

An area of this bill warranting closer examination is the treatment of regional students under the new needs based funding model. Until now, being from a regional area has been recognised as a form of educational disadvantage in its own right and attracted supplementary funding. This reflects that regional students face unique barriers and ensures providers are funded to support them. Under the new arrangements, concerningly regional students are no longer recognised as a separate equity cohort. Regional campuses will continue to receive some funding to reflect the higher costs of delivering education in regional Australia, but universities who make efforts to enrol regional students won't receive any extra support for those efforts. La Trobe University has warned that, compared to the previous arrangements, the new model will make it harder to fund support programs targeted at regional students unless they qualify on other equity grounds. This is because any additional supports would have to be covered by universities' own budgets. If increasing higher education participation for regional Australians is a goal of the accord—and I know that it is a goal—it's difficult to understand why regionality in and of itself will cease to be a basis for additional support.

I'm also concerned about the breadth of powers that will allow the minister to impose funding conditions in writing on any individual university. Unlike the funding agreements the new system replaces, which were required to be published on the department's website within 28 days, these determinations do not have to be published at all. This is a departure from existing transparency arrangements and weakens public accountability and parliamentary oversight of higher education funding. Universities Australia wants these powers removed, and Monash University wants the power to sit with ATEC instead. The Regional Universities Network describes the powers in this bill as 'excessive and unnecessary' overreach, warning that they raise serious questions about university autonomy. The Australian Technology Network of Universities makes an important point that these powers are not just for today but will be inherited by governments of the future. The questions for this parliament are whether these powers are appropriate and what risks they might pose for the higher education sector into the future.

I am also concerned about the proposed power for the commission to allocate international student places. While moving this power from the minister to the commissioner is absolutely an improvement, I am yet to be convinced that powers of this kind will benefit domestic students, universities or the Australian economy. The universities accord did not recommend enrolment caps and warned restrictions of this kind would largely benefit metropolitan institutions. I remain concerned that this proposal could damage Australia's international reputation, suppress a significant driver of our economy and undermine the viability of regional universities.

Let's not forget that international education is Australia's fourth-largest export, bringing in $54 billion nationally and $18 billion into Victoria alone. International education as a revenue raiser should never become an end in and of itself though, so the challenge is to get the balance right. For regional universities, revenue from international enrolments helps underwrite delivery of regional campuses, courses and services. Strong and sensible regulation is, of course, necessary without scapegoating international students. Without doubt, we should stamp out unscrupulous actors and ensure the sector is sustainable and operates with complete integrity, but we should also be careful that allocation powers are not self-defeating and don't ultimately undermine the sector's ability to deliver quality education to Australian students.

I support further reform of the sector, including reform of the Job-ready Graduates Package. I voted for the bill that implemented Job-ready Graduates at the time because it also delivered important reforms for regional communities, including the tertiary access payment and regional university study hubs, but I criticised the Job-ready Graduates fee structure at the time for its sheer lack of evidence. We know now that these concerns were indeed very well founded. The package has not meaningfully shifted students into so-called priority courses. Instead, it's simply left this cohort of students in more debt. It's overdue for reform, and the government has had more than four years to respond to the evidence. If the purpose of the universities accord is to 'open doors of opportunity', then we must fix the policies that have proven to place unnecessary barriers in front of some students.

The parliament must act to make higher education affordable, available and accessible for all Australians, whether they live in a regional area, come from a low-income background, are the first in their family to study or face other barriers to participation. Studying at a university or TAFE should not send you broke. It should not force you to leave your community, and it should not depend on whether a regional institution has been weakened by policy decisions made without proper regard for regional consequences. The government's ambition is right. More Australians should be able to access tertiary education, and the system should better support the students who face the greatest barriers. But with that ambition we must not disregard detail. Detail matters. Our task as a parliament is to open doors of opportunities for students. That's the standard by which this reform must be judged.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Neither of my parents finished high school, and my nana-in-law, Nana Dawn, never got to start high school. What's interesting is that sometimes you might think that these people do not value education, but I'd say that it is exactly the opposite. These people did not have access to education, and they wanted their children to make sure that they had access to good-quality education.

I was born in Kalgoorlie and grew up in a nickel-mining town called Kambalda in regional Western Australia. My dad was a metal worker. My mum was the lollipop lady and a kindergarten cleaner. My parents migrated from Kenya to Kalgoorlie, and they did that because they fundamentally wanted their children to have access to something that they did not have, which was a better education. Education has always been important in my family, and I know that for many families across Australia it is exactly the same. One of the proudest things for my parents was seeing both of their daughters finish high school but also go to university.

When I was 15 years old, my old man was made redundant. He had worked for Western Mines for 19 years and he was really distraught that that had happened. He had worked for four decades. But he wanted to make sure that that did not distract from my goals and what my future would be. Money was really tight. As a high school student, I worked at Woolworths. I never asked Mum and Dad for money. I paid for my own ball dress. For me, going to university, I was really worried about the cost and so I applied for as many scholarships as I could. I applied for scholarships where you talk yourself up. So I talked about my academic record, my volunteer work in the community and my academic achievements. They're not the scholarships that I was offered. I also applied for some HECS exemption merit scholarships where I talked about all the things that weren't in my favour. That included being from a regional town. It included being the child of migrants. It included studying in a male-dominated area and also the fact that my old man had been made redundant. So I ended up getting offered a HECS exemption scholarship, and I have to say that that was life changing. I'm really grateful that that happened.

But I know that not all students have access to that. Sometimes there are these barriers that get in the way. So the thing that excites me about this particular bill is that, if I was finishing school in the goldfields, the odds of going to university would be significantly increased. Under this bill, a student from the country is not left hoping to win a scholarship. A funded place built in the system for them will now be law. Some regional kids want to study in the regions. Then there are some that don't. That was me. In the town where I grew up, it sometimes felt like the options were to get stoned, get pregnant or work on the mines. For me, I wanted to get out. I still had a career that was on the mines, but I absolutely wanted to move to the big smoke and go to university. I have to say that my first year of university in particular was amazing. I got to meet students from all across WA—from regional places but also the city, from private schools and public schools. The double degree of chemistry and chemical engineering at Curtin University was phenomenal. I made lifelong friendships, including with some amazing women: Pippa, Yong, Vanessa and Joelle. They were amazing girlfriends who I'm still friends with today.

I want to make sure that more people have access to the opportunity of going to university. The Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 builds on the work of the Australian Universities Accord: final report, which is one of the most significant reviews of higher education this country has undertaken in a generation. That review set out a blueprint for reform not just for the recent budget or for this term but for the next decade and the decades that will come after. The Albanese Labor government has already implemented a majority of the accord's 47 recommendations. This is the seventh bill to come out of that work.

This bill changes how university places are funded and allocated in the first place. It puts new funding behind students who need extra support once they get there. At the centre of that first change is something called the Commonwealth supported place, a university place where the government covers part of the cost of the student's degree so that a student pays a subsidised fee instead of the full cost upfront.

My electorate of Swan is home to Curtin University, one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse electorates in Western Australia. The students who walk onto that campus every day come from all across Perth, all across WA and sometimes all across the continent. But there are many students that come from Cannington, Belmont, Vic Park, Rivervale and Como. Some are the first in their family to study at university. Some are new to this country. Some are balancing study with work and family responsibilities that their peers just don't have to think about. There are often invisible stresses that push more and more young people away from attending university because, when signing up to further their education, they're also signing up to debt, which sometimes can follow Australians for a large part of their lives. For years, the number of these places a university could offer was based largely on how it had enrolled in the past, not on what students actually needed in the present. That meant that a student's chance often came down to timing and luck as much as ability. This bill is changing that.

It hands the job of planning growth in our university system to the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, the independent body this parliament established to steward the system as a whole. Under the new system, the government sets out a total number of funded places available each year. The commission then allocates them to universities in two parts. The first is its core allocation. It locks in the number of places a university already has so that no university sees its funding cut or its student numbers shrink because of this change. A growth allocation is then applied on top, directed to where it's needed most, including to students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and from regional and remote Australia. If the commission decides that it isn't enough to meet demand, it can ask the government to lift the pool. In practice, for these students, the cap comes off. If you have the marks, if you have what it takes, you get a place.

Over the next decade, this reform is expected to fund an extra 230,000 commencing domestic students backed by $3.6 billion. That's 230,000 more students walking onto university campuses all around Australia. That's 230,000 chances for a young person from Rivervale, Cannington or a mining town like Kambalda, where I grew up, to do exactly what I was able to do. This bill also cleans up a system where some universities have been enrolling students they cannot be fully funded to teach. It gives underenrolled universities a temporary funding floor while they transition, and it hands the allocation of international student places to the commission as well within an overall pool set by the government.

The part of the bill that I want to return to is the part that speaks most directly to students like the one I once was. Getting in the door is only half the job; staying there is the other half. This bill legislates needs based funding for students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students studying at regional campuses. The more support a student needs, the more funding follows them. Universities can put this funding towards tutoring, mentoring, scholarships and emergency grants. It's the kind of support that helps a student not just start a degree but also finish it. The bill sets the base equity amount at $1,535 and the regional base amount at $1,398, both indexed every year. Under the old scheme, the universities received as little as $600 per student. This more than doubles it, and it's demand driven. The more students a university enrols who meet the criteria, the more funding it receives. A student's background should never decide their future.

It's interesting when I think of my time at Curtin University. Often the first year was the year when you would see the most people drop out of university. Often it was because of these barriers that related to financial circumstances at home or to moving from one town to another or, alternatively, to just not having the right supports in place. I think, if you are lucky enough to get a place at university, we should be doing everything that we can to make sure that we help you actually finish your study. That principle doesn't just stop on university campuses. It should follow students to their learning within the workforce.

That is why the government has also acted on paid prac, a complementary accord reform sitting alongside the changes in this bill. A few months ago, a young woman who was studying physiotherapy called Gabby came to see me in my office to raise her concerns about the hardships allied health students face in being able to afford to live, study and complete unpaid clinical prac placements. Gabby's in her second year at Curtin University. She moved from down south to Perth, and she's passionate about her physiotherapy career. Like every physiotherapy student, she must complete 1,000 hours of unpaid clinical prac placement before she can graduate. For a long time, that meant weighing up her degree against her ability to pay rent or pay for groceries.

This is where we have said that we want to make sure that we fix this system. Paid prac was already supporting teachers, students, midwives and social workers. As we announced last month, the Albanese government is now extending Commonwealth prac payment to 10 more frontline health professions, including physiotherapy. This is a huge testament to Gabby and the other advocates who had the courage to step up and speak out for their peers, who now have access to paid prac. For students relocating to complete placements in regional and remote Australia, where health workforce shortages are most often more acute, the support can be the difference between undertaking the placement at all or turning it down. As Education Minister Jason Clare said, students on placement deserve to be able to afford something that's more nutritious than two-minute noodles.

For Gabby, this announcement has lifted a huge weight off her shoulders. In her words, she feels relief. This announcement means that she can finally focus more on now, rather than fearing homelessness and hunger while she trains to help others. Gabby also asked me to pass on her gratitude to everyone who's fought for paid prac over many years so that she can graduate without burnout before her professional career even begins. I want to add my thanks, too, to Gabby, for having the courage to come speak to me and to speak to her local member of parliament, and to every physiotherapy, nursing, psychology or allied health student across Australia who's training to look after the rest of us. Gabby's story is one of a thousand students' across this country who have benefited from this government chipping away at the barriers to higher education.

Since we've come into office, we've cut student debt by 20 per cent for 3.2 million Australians, wiping off more than $16 billion in the process. We've capped indexation to lower the CPI and wages so that debt can never again grow faster than what people earn. We've doubled the number of university study hubs, with 20 new regional hubs and 14 in the suburbs. We've made bridging courses free. We've also established the National Student Ombudsman and a national code to prevent and respond to gender-based violence so that a young woman's degree does not end because of what someone did to her on campus. We've made the Commonwealth supported places demand driven for First Nations students who get the marks. And we've established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission so that somebody is finally stewarding this whole system, rather than each piece working in isolation. Every one of these changes was a door opened a little wider, and this bill is the next step.

For me, my path went from Kalgoorlie to Curtin to Canberra, and I now represent the electorate of Swan, where I live, where I studied and where I met my husband on campus. What I would say is that there is more work to do, but a substantial next step is the chance for a student like Gabby to stay and finish her studies. It's a chance for a student like I once was to actually start university. I commend this bill to the House.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) | Link to this | Hansard source

I went from Dookie to Shepparton. That was my university pathway. I, too, rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. We have a bill before us that I think requires greater scrutiny and we haven't finalised our position on this. We will refer this bill to a Senate committee for inquiry and report, and we will make our decision based on the evidence that comes through that process. If the bill comes to a vote in this House before the committee reports, we won't oppose it here, but we're not ready to endorse it yet. This does make significant structural changes to the higher education system, and it does deserve to be examined closely.

On the process of this bill: the sector has raised concerns with us about how this bill was developed. The universities did not see the bill before it was tabled, there was no exposure draft, the stakeholders were shown limited material under confidentiality arrangements, and elements of the drafting have actually surprised the sector. When you're rewriting the architecture of higher education in this country, it shouldn't be done in a surprised way; it should be a collaborative approach with the sector and people affected by these changes.

When you take away the title's 'opening the doors of opportunity'—it sounds great; 'opportunity' was the key word in my maiden speech—what the bill actually does is, one: let the minister determine the total pool of Commonwealth supported places distributed through ATEC, the Australian Tertiary Education Commission; two: let the minister determine the pool of international student places, again distributed through ATEC; three: give the minister the power to allocate places directly, give binding directions to ATEC and impose conditions on providers; and four: establish needs based funding, with the key details set out in ministerial guidelines rather than legislation. The common thread in all four things that this bill does is expanded ministerial control, and that is a major transfer of control from institutions to executive government. That is a central issue—not the funding and not the places but the power and where that power resides. I think that's something that needs to be examined further.

In relation to the money, the minister's public sales pitch talks of $3.6 billion over the decade and 230,000 extra university places. In the explanatory memorandum, it says something different. It refers to $2.5 billion in additional net funding over 11 years from 2020-25 and 200,000 additional commencing domestic students over the next decade. Those two documents were tabled on the same day, and they're $1.1 billion apart, so I've got some questions in good faith for the minister: Where does that extra $1.1 billion come from? Where did the additional 30,000 places come from? And why do MYEFO papers show $2.5 billion over 11 years, when the minister is out announcing $3.6 billion over a decade? If the numbers changed, why wasn't there an update in the budget? Was it offset by this government's cuts to research, or is it more debt? And are Australians able to trust that the $3.6 billion that the minister is talking about does not become a higher number in the future? These are matters for the minister to come in and straighten out and explain.

Under this bill, the minister will control the size of domestic student loans, and the minister will control how these domestic places are allocated. The minister sets the international student pool and influences where those places land. He controls the key settings of needs based funding through the guidelines—and student fees and Commonwealth contributions are the lifeblood of a university's finances. What we're talking about here is basically ministerial leverage over the financial viability of every single provider in the country.

In relation to the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, it was sold to us on the basis that ATEC sits at the centre of the system as an independent body. But let's look at what ATEC actually is. The ATEC commissioners can be terminated by the minister where the minister is satisfied performance has been unsatisfactory for a significant period, but those terms aren't defined. ATEC cannot employ its own staff or people assisting it; departmental employees are made available by the secretary. ATEC cannot engage its own contractors or consultants. The secretary does that on behalf of the Commonwealth. ATEC must take account of the minister's short-term and long-term priorities, and that's subject to ministerial direction. And ATEC should have but does not have a regional commissioner. ATEC is independent of the universities, but it's not independent of the government, and that is something of concern, needing clarification and possibly some changes.

The issues here are where this parliament sits and the way a democracy should work. In relation to this bill, ministerial decisions on the domestic and international student pools are not disallowable. Direct ministerial allocations of demand-driven places are not legislative instruments and so are not disallowable. And conditions imposed on a specific provider are not legislative instruments, so they're not disallowable and not subject to a merits review. So a provider who is on the wrong end of one of these decisions has very little to fall back on beyond judicial review. And there's a real question about accountability, transparency and procedural fairness and what role this parliament has in this decision-making process. That's the sort of question we want a Senate committee to look at.

This bill doesn't seem to be built on competition, deregulation or institutional autonomy. It's not built on central allocation and ministerial control. That's a philosophical shift, and it should be named as one. The bill treats competition between universities as a problem to be managed. But competition between universities can benefit students. It can drive institutions to compete on quality, on student experience, on career outcomes, on reputation and on what they actually offer.

I acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns about the market power of very large universities; of course there are. But a concern about the misuse of market power is not necessarily a reason to switch the competition off altogether. Under the current system, universities are permitted to enrol more students than they are funded for; they educate more students for the same taxpayer dollars. This bill calls that overenrolment and creates a financial penalty for it. But why would you penalise a university for doing more with the same amount of money? And some can. So this bill shifts from a capped funding model to a capped places model, and different courses attract different Commonwealth contributions. If you change the course mix, you change the cost. The committee should examine whether this bill carries that unquantified fiscal risk.

This bill also establishes needs based funding grants with an equity component and a regional component. And I want to be really constructive, particularly on this issue, because regional components of how this bill operates really matter. The equity component covers Indigenous students. But, beyond that, eligibility depends on the needs based funding grant guidelines, and that's determined by the minister. The amount paid depends on the base amounts and modifier amounts, which are also determined by the minister through guidelines. So, how generous this scheme really is and who qualifies is not settled by this parliament; it's settled by the minister. Regional students deserve more certainty than that.

I don't want to leave the House with the impression, after this contribution, that there's nothing here. The sector does have real problems. There are quality concerns as well as challenges of AI, which are coming down the line on all of us. There's pressure on rankings and access that is uneven and can be uneven across regions and across outer suburbs. This bill does hand government some very powerful tools, and, used powerfully and transparently, those tools could I think be used quite well, particularly when it comes to regional universities. Directions to ATEC, direct allocation to demand-driven places and prioritisation of courses tied to regional workforce could be turned into a supporting economic opportunity in places like the Goulburn Valley and Bendigo and right across those regional cities where there are good-quality regional standalone universities or where the city universities have campuses.

My own example is a bachelor of applied science degree at the University of Melbourne—the Dookie campus, which is the old ag college. What a wonderful degree that was. Then I had the opportunity, a bit later in life, to do an MBA. I couldn't go to Melbourne to do an MBA, and online is not really for me. But La Trobe University offers a regional MBA—in your seat of Bendigo, Deputy Speaker Chesters, and in Albury-Wodonga, in Mildura and in Collins Street. That MBA regional delivery through teleconference and facilitators was really a wonderful educational opportunity. This bill also opens Commonwealth supported places to non-table-A providers for priority classes of courses, replacing the narrower national priority concept. That's a simpler pathway for private providers to deliver in areas where there is genuine workforce need.

This contribution about the bill is a bit 'I want to know more and I want a Senate committee to examine it more'. I think there are some real opportunities in this. We are going to examine this bill very closely. It's always difficult. Handing many powers to the minister can create some opportunity, it can create some risk, and I think we need to have a further conversation about that.

There are major concerns about centralisation, accountability, competition and institutional autonomy. The Senate committee process—and I hope this does get referred to a Senate committee—should test the practical effects, the fiscal risks and the safeguards: what potentially could happen and how we could constructively put some safeguards around that. Our final position will be based on the evidence and on the national interest. I hope this bill receives that level of scrutiny.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

This government knows that for this country to prosper we need to harness the skills and talents of all Australians. Educational opportunities are an important part of that, ranging from an early childhood education with our three-day guarantee to fully funding public schools, fee-free TAFE and the Universities Accord. All stages and pathways of education are important to the future prosperity of the country and to the opportunities and lives that all Australians can live. A country can only be as good as the educational opportunities it affords all of its citizens, including its most disadvantaged communities, because, as we all know, education can mean the difference between getting a leg up in life and falling behind.

In this place many of us, including myself, are the first in our families to have gone to university. Some are the first to complete a trade qualification or even high school, and each one of us carries with us the knowledge of what that education has meant to our lives, and the opportunities that we've been afforded. It is the pathway that brought us here to this place to debate the best possible future for Australia and for all Australians.

We're confronted with the following challenge: Australians from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or from rural or regional Australia are less likely to get a degree. If they start, they are less likely to complete it. Educational justice—the pursuit of fairness and equity within our education systems—should be available to all Australians. We often say education changes lives, because it's true. It changes our lives, and it changes the lives of our families. In my previous career in public health, it was known that the best way to reduce infant mortality and improve child health was to educate mothers. The answers have always been clear, but the execution has often fallen short.

The Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 will ensure that higher education can be accessible to more Australians. As the Prime Minister has stated, 'in Australia the doors of opportunity are open to all of us', a sentiment that has echoed down the decades since Gough Whitlam first declared in 1972 that 'education is the key to equality of opportunity'.

This bill comes in the wake of the government's Australian Universities Accord final report that was handed down two years ago—the biggest review into our higher education sector in nearly two decades, which sets in motion plans for higher education reform for the next two decades. The Albanese Labor government has already taken up 30 of the 47 recommendations. We have cut HECS debt by 20 per cent, indexed HECS to the lower of the CPI or the WPI, implemented a marginal repayment system based on income and raised the minimum repayment threshold. We've introduced paid prac for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students. During the winter break, we announced a further 10 types of health degrees where paid prac will now apply.

We have doubled university study hubs, with 20 new regional study hubs and 24 suburban. We've increased the number of free bridging courses, helping students build the foundation skills necessary to enter university. We've introduced the National Student Ombudsman and a national code to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. We have made demand-driven Commonwealth supported places available to all eligible First Nations students, and we've established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, with responsibility for independent stewardship of the higher education system.

The report also recommends a new funding model for higher education that is planned and managed by the ATEC through mission based compacts. It recommends increasing the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds and establishing mechanisms to facilitate their success, because Australia will need to increase its accredited workforce—those with a certificate, diploma or degree—to 80 per cent by 2050 in order to meet the demands of the future.

With an investment of $3.6 billion over the next decade, the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill will equip more Australians with future skills while entrenching educational justice in our higher education system. It will do this in three ways: by introducing a managed-growth funding system, by introducing demand-driven needs based funding and by formalising the ATEC's ability to allocate Commonwealth supported places.

Firstly, the managed-growth funding system will uncap the number of places for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and regional and rural areas. The Minister for Education will have the power to set the total allocation pool or the total number of Commonwealth supported places each year, while the ATEC will have responsibility for allocating these places to universities and other providers. This will make the system fairer and better for all. It will mean 16,000 more university students year on year—19,000 from 2030 and, in total, 230,000 commencing domestic students over the next decade.

The demand-driven needs based funding model will provide extra funding to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students based at regional campuses. Funding will be proportionate; if universities have more students that meet these criteria, they will accordingly receive more funding. The equity amount will be set at $1,535 and the base regional amount at $1,398, and these amounts will be subject to indexation every year. This uncapped model is a significant change from the uncapped model that was part of the previous Higher Education Participation and Partnership Program. The needs based funding will now mean that the amount of funding will more than double per head in certain instances, from what was as little as $600 under the previous HEPPP.

Universities can invest the additional funds in much-needed programs and supports, including mentoring and tutoring, remedial writing programs and writing centres, scholarships and grants allowing students to focus on their studies rather than take on multiple jobs, and covering the higher costs of operating regional campuses. This change is not only about making education accessible to a wider group of Australians; it's also about making the education experience for those students sustainable in the long term, especially for those who come from communities with generally lower attainment and attendance rates.

In my electorate of Boothby, the Albanese Labor government's commitment to equitable access to higher education and investment in growing the accredited workforce is one of the strategies I'm most excited about. The government and Flinders University have jointly committed to a $300 million new healthcare centre, a 10-storey health education facility that will produce 1,300 health professionals: nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, paramedics, physios, psychologists and other allied health workers every year—a fantastic contribution to our growing health workforce.

Through its Health2GO student-led allied health clinic, it will provide more than 10,000 additional free or low-cost appointments for members of the public to access allied health services. The clinic provides valuable clinical placements that are part of allied health training. They will also work with the adjacent Flinders Medical Centre to assist with triaging waiting lists, as they have with ophthalmology waiting lists, reducing a four-year waiting list to four months and fast-tracking those with active disease to a rapid specialist review.

Flinders uni was started 60 years ago, and one of its main aims was to establish an alternative university for the southern suburbs. Flinders is now a global leader in educational justice. At the university's city campus, which was established to provide—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

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