Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to speak about something that goes to the heart of what Labor governments have always stood for: the idea that where you start in life does not determine where you finish—and few things have more power to change the course of a person's life than education. That's why the Albanese Labor government has introduced this bill, the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. It's not simply another piece of legislation about university administration or funding formulas. At its core, it's about opportunity, it's about fairness and it's about equality. Every person who wants to go to university should be able to do so, and every person should have the opportunity to set themselves up for the future and be what they want to be.

This bill is also about the future of our nation. It's about preparing Australia for the jobs and the challenges of the decades ahead. The Universities Accord identifies enormous challenges for our country. By 2050, Australia is expected to need a workforce where around 80 per cent of working-age Australians have a tertiary education, either through university or through vocational education and training. We can't simply achieve this by asking the same people who have traditionally gone to university to keep going. We have to widen the doors. We have to reach Australians who have historically been underrepresented in higher education—people from low-income families, people from regional and remote Australia, First Nations people, people with disabilities and Australians who might be the first person in their family to ever walk onto a university campus—because talent is not concentrated in wealthy suburbs, intelligence is not determined by postcodes and ambition does not disappear when you cross the Great Dividing Range. Talent exists everywhere; it's opportunity that does not, and this bill is about changing that.

Today, close to half of Australians in their 30s have a university degree. But, as Education Minister Jason Clare pointed out, university attainment of young people from poorer families or regional Australia is roughly half the rate we see across the broader population, and it falls even further in various parts of the bush. That should concern all of us, because, when a capable young Australian misses out on an education simply because of circumstances, that is not only a loss for that individual; it is a loss for Australia. That person could have become a nurse, a teacher, an engineer, a scientist, a social worker, an accountant, a doctor or perhaps the first person in their family to graduate from university and change the expectations of the generation that follows them. That is the extraordinary thing about education—the benefits don't stop with the person receiving it. Education changes families, education changes communities, and ultimately it changes countries.

One of the central reforms in this bill is the creation of a new managed growth funding system to not only support more university places but ensure those places are directed towards Australians and communities where they're needed the most. Under the legislation, the Minister for Education will establish a total allocation pool, effectively determining the overall number of fully funded Commonwealth supported places available each year, and the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, will then be responsible for the allocation of places.

From 2027—that's just next year—there are expected to be around 16,000 additional fully funded Commonwealth supported places each year, increasing to around 19,000 additional places in 2030. Over the next decade, the government expects the system to support approximately 230,000 additional commencing university students. Think about what that represents—230,000 Australians, 230,000 opportunities, 230,000 people who may become teachers, nurses, engineers, health professionals, researchers, innovators and the skilled workers Australia will depend on. That is nation-building.

This reform matters also enormously for regional Australia. For someone growing up in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne, university may be relatively accessible. There may even be several universities within commuting distance. You might live with your parents. You might keep your existing job. You might already know people who went to university or who will go with you. Imagine being 18 years old in a small regional community. The nearest university could be hundreds of kilometres away. University means leaving your family, finding somewhere to live, paying rent, finding work, paying transport costs and trying to study at the same time. When you think about it, for those students, the question is not only whether they are smart enough to go to university; it's also whether they can actually afford to do it? That's a fundamentally different problem. That's why we're expanding university participation and saying it cannot simply be about creating places. We also have to give students the support they need to succeed and thrive.

That brings me to the second major reform contained in this legislation, needs based funding. The principle is familiar to anyone who understands Labor's approach to education. Different students have different needs, and educating students facing greater barriers can require additional resources. The legislation therefore embeds needs based funding within the core university funding system, providing additional support associated with students from disadvantaged backgrounds, First Nation students and students studying at regional campuses. That matters because getting someone through university gates is really only half the job. We want them to graduate. A student who is the first person in their family to attend university may need different support from somebody whose parents and grandparents went to university. A student moving hundreds of kilometres from a regional community may face different pressures. A student juggling study with 20 or 30 hours of paid work because their family cannot financially support them faces different challenges again. Giving everybody exactly the same thing doesn't mean equity. Equity means recognising these differing needs and giving them the support they need.

These reforms also represent a significant investment in the future of our university system. The government estimates that the changes will deliver an additional $3.6 billion in university funding over the next decade, and that investment matters. What matters even more is what we receive in return—more Australians educated, more skills in our economy, more graduates entering essential professions, greater participation in regional communities, greater participation for disadvantaged Australians and First Nations people, and ultimately a stronger, more productive country. Education should never, ever be viewed as an expense. It's an investment. It's an investment in productivity. It's an investment in families and in social mobility. It's an investment in innovation and an investment in Australia's future. This is part of the bigger Labor reform agenda.

It's also important to recognise that this bill does not exist in isolation. It forms part of the Albanese government's broader response to the Australian Universities Accord, one of the most significant reviews of Australia's higher education sector in decades. In fact, this is the seventh piece of legislation introduced by the Albanese Labor government to implement the accord. The accord is attempting to answer a very big question: what sort of education system does Australia need for its future and for the next generation?

Our economy is changing and technology is changing. Artificial intelligence is changing workplaces, the energy transition is creating new industries, our population is ageing, demand for health care is increasing, and Australia needs more skilled workers across the vast parts of our economy. We need nurses. We need teachers, engineers, doctors and allied health professionals, scientists, technology specialists, construction workers and skilled vocational workers. Meeting these challenges requires both university and TAFE. Frankly, we should never have to have a debate about university versus vocational education. They're both equally important, and Australia needs both. Labor believes that both should provide genuine pathways to secure and meaningful work.

There is also something deeply Labor about these reforms, because widening access to education has been part of Labor's story for generations—since inception, basically. Labor understands that education is one of the most powerful forms of economic policy available to government. Give someone access to education and you give them something much more valuable than a temporary advantage—you give them skills, you give them knowledge, you give them choices, you give them independence, and you give them the ability to build their own future.

For generations of working Australians, university was where someone else's children went, but that changed a long time ago, and governments played a huge role in changing that. Our responsibility now is to make sure the next generation of Australians get the opportunity to do what they want to do. A child growing up in Logan, Ipswich, Townsville, Cairns, Rockhampton or even regional Queensland should be able to dream just as big as a child growing up in the wealthier parts of Sydney or Melbourne. Their parents' income should not determine the size of their ambition. Their postcode should not determine their potential, and whether their parents went to university should not determine whether they believe university is somewhere they belong.

There's another important element of these reforms. We should not judge success simply by how many students enrol. We should judge success by how many students succeed. There is little value in encouraging a disadvantaged student to begin a degree if we abandon them once they arrive. So universities have a responsibility, too. They need to provide academic support, and they need to provide appropriate services. They need to identify students who are struggling before those students disappear from the system. They need to create environments where students from different backgrounds can genuinely feel that they belong. That's why linking growth with needs based support is so important—so that we're not simply opening the door, we're helping people walk through it and reach the other side.

Lastly, this bill represents a shift to a more strategically managed university system, with better sharing of information to support outcomes and better inform the commission's work. There is a powerful economic argument for these reforms, as I said earlier. Australia's future prosperity increasingly depends on knowledge and skills. We cannot compete internationally simply by working longer hours. We need to work smarter. We need productivity growth. We need innovation. We need workers with the skills required by a modern economy. That means investing in people and investing in human capital.

When Australia educates another nurse, we strengthen our health system. When we educate another teacher, we strengthen our schools. When we educate an engineer, we increase our capacity to build infrastructure and develop new industries. When we educate another scientist or researcher, we increase Australia's capacity to innovate. And when someone from a disadvantaged family becomes the first in their family to graduate from university, as I was, we potentially change the economic trajectory of that family for generations. That's why education policy is good economic policy.

But, ultimately, there's an even more simple reason to support this legislation: it's fair. Australians believe in a fair go—not a guarantee that everyone will achieve exactly the same outcome or result, and not a promise that success will come without effort, but belief that everyone deserves an opportunity to try. If you work hard at school and earn the marks required for university, your family's bank balance should not be the thing that stops you from going there. If you grow up in regional Queensland, distance should not automatically close the door. If nobody in your family has attended university before, you should still be able to become the first. That is what social mobility looks like, and that is the Australia that Labor should always fight for.

The universities accord makes clear Australia will need significantly more people with tertiary qualifications in the decades ahead, and this bill is an important part of meeting that challenge. It creates a new managed growth fund, it expands the number of places, it provides support to around 230,000 additional students, it embeds needs based funding and it represents approximately $3.6 billion in additional investment.

But behind those numbers are people: a kid from Logan, a young woman from regional Queensland, a First Nations student who wants to become a teacher, a mature-age worker who wants to start over again or a migrant who's intent on making things better for their family. These are reasons that matter, and this is why Australia cannot afford to waste talent. Your postcode should not determine your potential, your parents' income should not determine your ambition and your background should never determine whether the doors of education are open to you. The great promise of education is that it allows people to build lives bigger than the circumstances into which they were born, and our job is to make sure that promise belongs to everyone. That's what opening the doors of opportunity means, and that's what these reforms are about. I commend this bill to the House.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. This bill is the next step in the Albanese Labor government's ambition for an educated Australia. We're putting in place the necessary reforms to set our tertiary education system up to deliver on Australia's future skills needs. These reforms are practical, they're funded and they are long overdue.

In February 2024, the government released the final report of the Australian Universities Accord. The accord provides the blueprint for higher education reform over the next 20 years. At the heart of the accord is an ambitious goal: that, by 2050, 80 per cent of Australia's workforce will hold a certificate, diploma or degree. It's a big target, and it's meant to be, because meeting Australia's future skills needs in the decades ahead means having more students at TAFE and more people at university. But the only way to achieve this is by breaking down the barriers that stop so many young people from getting to university. Talent is everywhere; it's opportunity that's not.

Canberra is a university town, home to more universities than any other electorate in Australia. We've got the Australian National University, the University of Canberra, and campuses of the University of New South Wales, the Australian Catholic University and Charles Sturt University within my electorate. And we are not standing still: the University of New South Wales is also currently constructing their new Reid campus, near the Civic CBD, which is slated for completion in 2028.

The Canberra electorate is highly educated, with around 66,000 residents—or 53 per cent—having a bachelor's degree or higher. A further 8,200 residents, or nearly seven per cent, have a certificate level III or IV qualification. The education and training sector is the third biggest employer in my electorate, providing jobs for over 8,600 residents, and, as at the 2021 census, my constituents included over 21,800 tertiary students.

Even so, there is some way to go and still plenty of work to do before my electorate—and Australia—reaches the accord's important 2050 goal. Since 2024, the Albanese Labor government has already implemented more than 30 of the accord's 47 recommendations in full or in part. We have made HECS better and fairer by cutting 20 per cent off HECS debts, capping indexation of HECS debts to the lower of the consumer price index and the wage price index, moving to a marginal repayment system and raising the minimum repayment threshold. These reforms mean that graduates keep more of their pay before their loan repayments even begin.

We've also introduced paid prac for the first time, for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students. This has been done in recognition of the fact that unpaid placements have, for too long, locked out students who cannot afford to work for free while completing the very training this country needs them to complete. Recently, we have expanded this excellent scheme to pharmacy and allied health students. I was really pleased to have the opportunity to speak with many of these students at the recent market day at the University of Canberra about what it was going to mean for them and how much easier it would make it for them to take on those prac placements and also to, as one student put it, be more adventurous in the opportunities that they took up through those placements.

We have also doubled the number of university study hubs by establishing 20 new regional university study hubs and 14 suburban university study hubs. University study hubs break down barriers to tertiary study by making it easier for students to access learning resources and support services, engage with other students and succeed in their higher education journey. We have increased the number of free university bridging courses, giving people a genuine second chance to gain entry to a university and gain tertiary qualifications. We've introduced the National Student Ombudsman and a national code to prevent and respond to gender based violence, because a university education should never come at the cost of a student's safety. We have established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, as the steward of the entire tertiary education system, giving our country, for the first time, an organisation whose sole purpose is to plan for Australia's future skill needs.

As the Minister for Education has said, this bill implements two more key changes recommended by the accord. The accord recommended the adoption of a new funding model for higher education, one planned and managed by ATEC through mission based compacts with individual institutions. It also recommended increasing the number of higher education students from underrepresented backgrounds, matched by a genuine focus on the success of those students, not merely their enrolment.

This bill will help more people from financially disadvantaged families, the regions and the bush to get into university. In simple terms, if you get the marks and you've got what it takes, you will get a place—a Commonwealth supported place. In other words, places for these students will effectively now be uncapped. It also formalises the role of ATEC in allocating Commonwealth supported places for higher education courses to higher education providers and to international student places where the minister makes a determination. The bill will see an additional $3.6 billion of Australian government investment in the higher education funding system over the next 10 years. This will increase the number of students at university to meet Australia's future skills needs.

There is still work to do, however. Because of the unique nature of the ACT, there is not a single postcode that is currently classified as being of low socioeconomic status. This is because we have a mixture of housing types in each and every suburb, with most suburbs including public housing. This is one of the things that make our city such an inclusive place and a wonderful place to live. But, with our relatively high average incomes and low unemployment, the ACT is also a really difficult place to be on a lower income or to be poor. It is not the case that disadvantage and these challenges don't exist in our city—they absolutely do—but, with the way the data currently classifies suburbs and postcodes, this does not show up. This, in turn, disadvantages our universities in the way that funding is allocated to them.

I have raised this issue with the minister, and I'm hoping that we might be able to address this issue. I'll continue to advocate for my community to ensure that people in the ACT, particularly in my electorate, are not disadvantaged by these rules and that our universities can continue to build on their important role in educating students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

I also want to take this opportunity to speak about the disastrous Jobs-ready Graduates Package introduced by the Morrison government, which is encumbering university students with enormous levels of debt and discouraging students from taking on a range of really important degrees, including those in the humanities. When I attended university with the assistance of HECS and paid it back, it was, in hindsight, a relatively modest debt to the government, and it was paid back relatively quickly. It wasn't a huge impost on my life or the lives of those that had these debts at that time. Now, students come to me telling us their stories of absolutely enormous debts and the impact this is having on them as they finish their degrees, move into the workforce and try to plan for other things that they might want to be doing, like investing in a home, starting a family et cetera. It was never the intention of the HECS to be like that, and I hope that this is something that our government can address as soon as possible. The sooner we get rid of that job-ready graduates program, the better it will be for young Australians and those wanting to take on a university education.

Whenever I talk about breaking down the barriers for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to get into university, I think it's important that we don't ignore the costs of living that students face, particularly when they move from a regional area or a remote area to a capital city like Canberra, where things are expensive—rent and food. And this is actually a great barrier that people face. I think that it would be great if we could look at the Youth Allowance payment and have a bit of a rethink about that as to how it can be a more meaningful support to young people who are trying to live away from home a lot of the time—or even those living at home; it doesn't mean that it's not a huge cost for them and their families to support them through that. I think that this is one of the barriers that also need to be looked at for young people, if we really want to get more people having access to tertiary education.

Under Labor, there are more Australians at university today than we have ever had before, and it is going to continue to grow. Next year, there will be 16,000 more places for more students in the system. Another 16,000 places will be added each year in 2028 and 2029, and in 2030 this will increase to 19,000 additional fully funded Commonwealth supported places. Our changes are expected to result in an extra 230,000 commencing domestic students at university over the next decade. This is a wonderful thing. In particular, this bill will support more students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students studying at regional campuses to participate and, importantly, to succeed at university. As the CEO of Universities Australia, Luke Sheehy said:

"Australia needs more university-educated workers, not fewer …

"That means opening the door to university for more Australians, no matter their postcode, background or bank balance.

"More opportunity is good for students, good for communities and good for the economy.

…   …   …

"This bill represents a major change to how student places are funded, allocated and supported. The ambition is right …

The bill enacts our government's commitment to the accord through a new funding system. It will embed a new managed-growth funding system and establish demand driven, needs based funding to support students from underrepresented backgrounds to access and succeed at university. We'll also formalise the role of the ATEC in allocating Commonwealth supported places. The new managed-growth funding system will effectively uncap the number of places for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in regional areas. The new system will address existing issues in the higher education funding system and will better align Commonwealth funding with enrolments. Higher education providers will be supported to transition to the new funding system. Similar to Gonski funding for schools, the more students a university has that meet the criteria, the more funding they will receive to help these students to participate and succeed at university. And this is why it's important that the particular situation of the ACT is able to be accounted for in that funding model.

This bill sets the base equity amount at $1,535 and the base regional amount at $1,398. This is more than two times the average amount provided to universities per student last year, which was as little as $600 under similar previous programs. Universities will be able to direct this extra funding towards things like tutoring, mentoring and other academic supports; direct financial assistance such as scholarships and grants; and offsetting the higher costs of campuses in regional and remote areas.

This bill does not stand alone. It builds on a substantial suite of reforms this government has already delivered. Labor is investing in education at every stage of life, helping Australians learn, gain skills and succeed. We have put in place a three-day guarantee for early education. The historic Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is the biggest new investment by an Australian government in public education ever, the first time that all of our public schools have been fully funded to the Schooling Resource Standard. That is an incredible achievement and one I talk about at every opportunity.

Education is so critical to Australia's future in a global economy, which is why this bill is so important. It will mean more Australians from every background and from every part of our country getting the chance to study at TAFE and at university and succeeding once they get there. Labor is the party of education. Labor is the party of opportunity. Labor is putting in place the necessary reforms to future-proof Australia's tertiary education sector, and I commend the bill to the House.

Ash Ambihaipahar (Barton, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. This bill is a blueprint for the future of higher education in this country. It is about setting up our kids for a future as big as their ambition, and it's about setting up our universities so they can foster our best and brightest. And, therefore, it is about making our country as smart and strong as possible as it can be. That is what higher education is about. It's about giving people the tools they need to participate fully in society. Of course, universities are only part of that picture; TAFE is another essential piece of the puzzle, giving people different pathways, different options and different chances to succeed.

But today we are speaking about universities, and I want to frame this debate in the context of Barton, the community that I'm so proud to represent. People come to Barton because of opportunity. We sit just outside the centre of Sydney. We have great train lines and buses that allow people to get to work, school and university. And, if you live in Kogarah, Wolli Creek, Rockdale, Hurstville, Arncliffe, Bexley or the surrounding suburbs, you are within reach of some of the best higher education institutions in this country. You can get to the University of New South Wales, which I know is the university of choice for many locals in the St George area. You can get to the University of Sydney, which I did after graduating from Danebank in Hurstville. You can get to the University of Technology Sydney, to which I also went back to study law after completing my science degree and deciding to change my career.

That is the power of higher education. It does not just open the door; it opens many doors at different points in our lives. Because of Barton's proximity to these institutions, I meet so many young people who are thinking about university, preparing for university or already studying there. For many of them, university is not just for their own dream; it's their parents dream too. It is something their families have worked for, saved for and also sacrificed for. Families move to our area because they want their children to have every possible chance. They want them to go to good schools, be surrounded by opportunity and believe the future is open to them. In Barton we are blessed with really incredible schools. I think of Sydney Technical High School, Beverly Hills Girls High School, Kingsgrove High School, Kingsgrove North High School, Blakehurst High School, Marist Catholic College Kogarah, St Mary's and St Mina's Coptic Orthodox College, St Ursula's College, Bethany Catholic College Hurstville, St George Girls High School, Kogarah High School, Bayside High School and so many others just outside my boundaries. These are schools filled with students who are so bright, ambitious and ready to make their mark in the world.

And that is what this country should be about. There are some in this parliament—some in the other place—who like to talk a lot about Australian values. They talk about who belongs, who gets to contribute and what Australia should actually look like. But to me, Australian values are very clear: they are aspiration, hard work, sacrifice and the belief that the next generation should have more opportunities than the one before it. And Barton is full of that aspiration. It is aspiration of parents who came here to give their kids a better chance than they had. It is families working long hours, taking extra shifts, running small businesses commuting across the city, doing everything they can to make sure their children can stand on stronger ground. It is a whole family carrying hope for the future together. And it's because of this aspiration that I want to say to every kid in Barton: your postcode should not limit your future, your parents' income should not decide your future, and your background should never be treated as a barrier to your future.

For many families in my electorate, that future includes university. So, when I think about this bill, I think about the year 12 students I speak to across my electorate—the students studying hard, sitting exams, working part time and wondering whether university is really within reach. They want to know that, if they go to university, they will not be saddled with a debt that follows them around for the rest of their lives. They want higher education to help them move forward and not hold them back. A university degree should be a doorway, not a debt sentence.

I also think about the students already at university. They want to know that, when they graduate, they will step into a workforce that has a place for them. They are worried about the future of work. They're worried about whether artificial intelligence will wipe out entry-level jobs. They are worried that the skills they have spent years learning may not actually match to the economy they graduate into. I hear that concern. Young people are not imagining it. They are looking at a changing world and asking whether the systems around them are keeping up.

Young people are not asking for a free ride. They're asking for a fair shot. They're asking whether this country still believes that if you work hard, you study hard and you back yourself there will be a place for you. I want those students to know that when I come into this place, when I sit in the caucus, when I sit in committee and when I look at legislation and policy I'm thinking about them. I'm thinking about the country they will inherit, the jobs they will do, the communities they will serve and the contribution they will make.

Our job in this parliament is not just to manage the present; it is about preparing for the future. That means making higher education fairer. It means making sure university is not reserved for those whose families can already afford it. It means making sure students who work hard, dream big and want to contribute to this country have a real chance to do so.

Let's look at this bill and see what it actually does. The main thing this bill does is introduce a new funding system. This is demand driven, needs based funding to support students from underrepresented backgrounds to get into university and stay at university and succeed once they are there. I think Minister Clare described it best when he called it Gonski but for universities. That means when a university enrols more students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and regional students it will receive more funding to support them—simple as that. This matters.

Getting into university is only the first step. We also have to make sure students have the support they need to finish it. This funding will give universities additional resources for tutoring, mentoring, academic support, scholarships and emergency financial assistance. For some students, that support might be the difference between actually finishing their degree and dropping out. It might be the difference between buying textbooks, paying rent, getting to campus, taking on a placement or keeping going when things really get hard. Under these changes, that funding will be about double what universities would previously receive per student, and that's a serious investment in young people, fairness and Australia's future.

These changes flow from the universities accord process, a 12-month review of the higher education sector. That review found:

The current … model does not provide for sufficient growth in enrolments to meet the nation's skills needs, with growth occurring in unplanned, unmanaged and under-funded ways that can have unintended consequences for the breadth and quality of courses.

That should concern all of us. It tells us that the system is not properly set up to produce the graduates our country needs. Growth has been happening in a way that is not planned properly, managed properly or funded properly. It also tells us too many students are being pushed into a system that does not always set them up for success. Too many students are taking on debt for courses that may not lead them where they need to go.

Too many students with the marks, ability and work ethic are still missing out because they do not come from wealthy families or communities where university has always felt like a given. That's not good enough. Talent is not confined to one postcode. Intelligence is not confined to one income bracket. Ambition is not confined to one kind of family. There are brilliant kids in Barton and right across this country who deserve every chance to get into the course they have earned, study the skills our country needs and build the future they are working so hard for. That is why we are introducing this legislation.

Under this bill, the minister will be able to amend the total allocation pool determination, either on their own initiative or following a request from the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, in response to demand from equity cohorts. That sounds a bit technical, but what it means is quite practical. It means the system can respond when more students from underrepresented backgrounds want to study. It means universities will be resourced to support them. It means there will be enough places for eligible students from equity backgrounds to participate. In plain English, students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students from regional areas will have a fairer chance to get into courses they have earned their place in. That is what opening the doors of opportunity actually means. It's not telling young people to work hard and then leaving the door half shut. It's making sure that, when they do work hard, there is a real place for them on the other side.

The bill will also give the minister greater flexibility to determine different kinds of courses as demand-driven higher education courses in order to respond to emerging government priorities. For example, the minister may choose to classify courses such as nursing or education as demand-driven courses to support more enrolments where the workforce need is clear. Those needs are clear. We need nurses, teachers, social workers and engineers. We need people with the skills to care for our community, build our future, strengthen our economy and respond to the challenges that are coming at us.

This bill is not just about university places; it's about making sure Australia has the workforce it needs. It's about saying to a young person in Barton, 'If you want to become a nurse, teacher, lawyer, scientist, social worker, engineer or anything else this country needs then your background should not be the thing that stops you.' All of this means we are effectively uncapping the number of places for students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and regional areas. It means making sure our young people are studying the subjects and learning the skills they need to build good lives, support their families and contribute to this country.

We expect these changes will result in an extra 230,000 Australian students at our universities over the next decade. That is 230,000 more people whose talents this country cannot afford to waste. This is on top of the work this government has already done through the Australian Universities Accord. We have wiped 20 per cent off student debts. We've capped HECS indexation to the lower of CPI and WPI. We have introduced paid pracs for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students. We have increased the number of free university-ready courses. We are doubling the number of university study hubs. That's because this government has a vision for the future, and it's not some vague consultation thought-bubble. It is much simpler than that. It is trusting the talent of our kids. It's giving people a fair go. It's rewarding aspiration. It's making sure that every child in every community has the chance to build a life as big as their ambition.

Zhi Soon (Banks, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Prior to being a parliamentarian, I was a different type of public servant. I spent a great deal of my career working in education policy, looking at how education systems, both in Australia and overseas, can be more effective and provide better outcomes for students. My time in this field showed me that there is much government can do in order to improve our education system from an efficiency and effectiveness perspective. However, if a situation persists where students are unable to meaningfully access the education system, government must legislate in order to ensure that the transformational power of education is an opportunity available to all.

The government released the final report of the Australian Universities Accord in February 2024. The universities accord is a blueprint for higher education reform over the next 20 years, and the government has made significant progress in its implementation.

So far, this Labor government has implemented 30 of the accord's 47 recommendations in part or in full. As promised, the first piece of legislation passed by this parliament cut the HECS debts of hundreds of thousands of Australians by 20 per cent, along with changes to cap indexation, moving to a marginal repayment system and raising the minimum threshold to make the HECS system fairer on students and graduates. We introduced the Commonwealth paid prac payment for teaching nursing, midwifery and social work students, ensuring that students studying some of the most in-demand professions do not have to choose between paying their bills and completing their mandatory practical training. We've seen the results of the paid prac payment and, as was announced a few weeks ago, we're expanding it to students studying to be paramedics, pharmacists, psychologists and seven more in-demand allied health professions. This expansion represents a $143 million investment in our health workforce, ensuring that we can continue to train local talent for in-demand professions in our healthcare system.

It was my pleasure to welcome the Minister for Health and Ageing to the suburb of Mortdale in my electorate two weeks ago to meet with local speech pathologists and occupational therapists. While all of the professionals we met spoke about the value of their practical training, they also reflected that it was a significant challenge for them to give up existing work in order to support themselves.

The recommendations also included making sure that there were proper stewards of our higher education system and a process to resolve student complaints when they call out the behaviour of higher education providers. This government has established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission through legislation which passed the house earlier this year and came into effect in April. The commission will help deliver reforms needed to ensure the higher education system is working in the national interest, as well as monitor the performance of providers and provide advice to government on appropriate policy settings for our country.

What the Universities Accord made particularly clear is that our higher education system needs reform urgently to ensure it continues to deliver for students and our economy. The accord says clearly that, over the next decade, the number of people in the workforce with a certificate, a diploma or a degree will need to grow to 80 per cent. It means more students at universities and TAFE across our country if we are to meet Australia's growing skills need. This legislation is the latest step in the government's response to make sure we can address those needs.

The accord recommended a new funding model for higher education, planned and managed through the ATEC. It also recommended increasing the number of students, as my colleague the member for Barton outlined earlier, from underrepresented backgrounds and a focus on ensuring their success.

In short, this legislation does three things. It embeds the new, managed-growth funding system to support growth in domestic students, including those from low-socioeconomic, regional and remote backgrounds. It establishes demand driven, needs based funding to support students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students studying at regional campuses. It also formalises the role of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission in allocating Commonwealth supported places for higher education courses to providers and international students where the minister makes a determination. As a result, the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 enacts government's commitment of an additional $3.6 billion in the higher education system over the medium term and is projected to see 230,000 extra domestic students commence university over the next decade.

The House Standing Committee on Education is currently conducting an inquiry into the factors driving educational attainment, examining what drives differences in outcomes across different demographics. While the inquiry will seek to provide clarity on what creates these disparities in the education space, what can't be questioned is that they are there. As the minister pointed out when he moved the second reading, close to 50 per cent of Australians in their 30s have a university degree, but it is significantly lower for people who come from a lower socioeconomic background or from the regions and lower still for people from rural or remote areas. It is a disparity that we need to change, not just because we need more people who have tertiary education but also as a matter of fairness, because there are talented young people everywhere, all over our country, who come from all different backgrounds.

The new managed growth fund system will effectively uncap the number of places for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and regional areas. These changes sit alongside the network of suburban and regional study hubs for university students that this government has doubled, bringing down the barriers to tertiary education for students in the outer suburbs, in regional and remote areas of our country. They provide a place for students to study and access IT equipment as well as advice on career pathways, employment, study options and their general wellbeing—all the things that students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and in the big cities often have easy access to. These centres are a game changer, and the big winners are our regional communities. Of the 70 centres in the network, 55 are in regional or remote Australia. According to the Department for Education Statistics, they have supported nearly 21,000 students.

The demand-driven, needs based funding model will provide extra funding to support students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, First Nations students and students studying at regional campuses. Under this new arrangement, the amount of funding per student will more than double in some cases. Similarly to the Gonski model for schools, the more students a university has that meet these criteria, the more funding the university will receive to help these students participate and succeed.

The bill before the House sets the base equity amount at $1,535 and the base regional amount at $1,398, which is more than double the average amount provided last year. In some cases, under previous comparable funding programs it was as little as $600. Universities will be able to put this funding towards academic support programs such as tutoring and mentoring, direct financial assistance in the form of grants or scholarships, or offsetting of the higher cost of campuses in regional and remote areas. We know that students from the cohorts this bill seeks to help are less likely to start a university degree. They are also less likely to finish it, with data indicating they are twice as likely to drop out after their first year. This is why needs based funding is so important. It is a real reform to ensure that students who, coming out of school, have the grades to get into university have the supports to finish their degrees.

Additionally, the bill sets out and formalises some procedural elements, including a framework for the ATEC to exercise its existing powers to allocate international student places where the Minister for Education makes an international allocation pool determination. The bill also makes some technical amendments to modernise information sharing between the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency—the regulator—and ATEC to inform their work as needed and appropriate.

I also feel compelled to challenge one of the points that the member for Berowra made in his contribution to the House. One of the central arguments he made was his idea that competition, deregulation and independence would be the best way forward for the university sector. Core to that was the notion that we should let the university sector operate like other marketplaces and encourage competition. It has to be said, though, letting universities operate like businesses, rather than educational institutions, in a market that is inherently uneven or unequal has unfortunately been part of the problem. Even the father of classical economics, Adam Smith, argued that education should not be left to the market.

Some universities have access to a larger pool of potential students than others. Some universities have reputations built over decades of prestige that make them inherently more attractive to potential students. The need to meet commercial pressures in such an environment is what has driven an overreliance on certain revenue streams, such as international students, that the government has had to correct. In some circumstances it has also predicated a drop in the quality of education delivered and the sort of conduct uncovered by inquiries into university governance, like the one my friend Dr Sarah Kaine is chairing in the New South Wales parliament.

Indeed, higher education is not just any good or service. Given the level of tertiary qualified students our economy is going to need, it is becoming more and more essential. Pursuing purer competition and deregulation in the university sector would only usher in a new era of problems that Australian students have had enough of, as well as the sort of consolidation that reduces access in the name of commercial performance.

This legislation is important. Too many young people in this country face barriers to higher education on the basis of things that they cannot control. We cannot go on telling young people that they should have aspirations for their future, before leaving them at the mercy of a system that gets in the way of them reaching that potential, not least of all because as a country we cannot afford the underlying cost of talented young people not getting a chance to succeed on the basis of where they live or how much their parents earn.

This legislation before the House will help make our higher education sector fairer. It will help build a sector where growth is planned, giving providers the certainty to plan for the future; where funding responds to the needs of students, lowering the barriers that prevent educational attainment and success; and where the opportunity to access the transformational power of education is not rationed for some while being plentiful for others but is available to all Australians, including in my electorate of Banks and in regional remote areas across our great country.

David Moncrieff (Hughes, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

'Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears and never regrets.' Those words, attributed to the great polymath Leonardo da Vinci, speak to a timeless truth. Education is the great equaliser and enabler. It is the single most powerful driver of social mobility and the ladder by which young people from suburbs like those in my home of southern Sydney can build a better life for themselves, their families and their communities.

The democratisation of education increases the supply of innovative and interested minds. In turn, increased education makes for a more exciting society. That is why education is a core value of the Australian Labor Party. It empowers workers, grows the stock of human capital, promotes economic mobility and gives people the skills and confidence to withstand powerful shocks. As the party of growth and security, Labor will always work to improve higher education and expand its accessibility to all.

At the start of 2024, our government released the final report of the Australian Universities Accord. It provides a roadmap for reforming higher education to expand access and opportunity well into the future. The Albanese Labor government has already improved the fairness of HECS by cutting 20 per cent off every student loan, capping indexation, moving to a marginal repayment system and raising the minimum repayment threshold. That means billions of dollars in debt has been wiped out for over three million Australians, including 18,226 students in my electorate with a HECS debt and 589 with a VET loan. Now, if wages fail to rise faster than inflation, indexation will be capped to the lower of the CPI or the wage price index, ensuring that student loans no longer outpace students' purchasing power. We've raised the minimum repayment threshold from $54,435 to $67,000 and introduced a marginal repayment system. Under the previous repayment structure, earning $1 over the threshold required a percentage payment on your entire income, acting as a high effective marginal tax rate and disincentivising work. Now, repayments only apply to income earned above the threshold.

We have introduced the National Student Ombudsman and National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence. Academic success depends on an environment where students feel safe, respected and supported. Following persistent advocacy regarding safety failures across university campuses, our government has established the National Student Ombudsman, a single entry body that can investigate student complaints spanning academic disputes, administrative fairness and welfare concerns. Higher education institutions must also comply with new mandatory standards to address gender based violence. Student safety is not an optional campus policy. That's why the national higher education code now requires providers to maintain secure student accommodation, establish trauma informed support services and publish de-identified reporting data, with compliance overseen by the Department of Education. We have made Commonwealth supported places available to all First Nations students with the marks to get in, and we have established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission as a steward of the tertiary education system.

Years ago I had the privilege of being able to study economics and finance at the University of Wollongong's southern Sydney, now Sutherland, campus. Like so many young people growing up in the shire and in Sydney's southern suburbs broadly, I faced the daily calculus that every tertiary student must grapple with—long commutes, the pressures of working, paying for textbooks and transport, and the challenges of navigating studies. It was just as important as what I was able to learn in the lecture theatre where I studied. Having access to a local university campus, right in Sutherland and Loftus, meant that I was able to access high quality tertiary education without the barriers of long hours of commuting between home, work and university. It meant that I could stay connected to the community that I grew up in, remain employed in the local area and focus on my studies without the kind of geographic and financial barriers that many students face. The skills and experience I gained through my studies went on to inform and equip me for my work in the finance sector and subsequently to my involvement in government and arrival in this place. This has instilled in me the deep understanding that good local access to education can unlock real opportunities and growth.

There are few places that the Albanese government's commitment to accessible education is more visible than at the Suburban Study Hub Macquarie Fields in my electorate of Hughes. This study hub is a game changer for students and residents in south-west Sydney. For those students living in the Macarthur suburbs of Macquarie Fields, Glenfield, Ingleburn, Long Point and Bardia, travel to university can involve long hours in the car or on trains or buses every day. Those in the outer suburbs of Sydney without good public transport connections often feel acutely the challenge of commuting to a metropolitan campus while juggling insecure work or other commitments. For mature-age students or parents caring for children while trying to upskill, that commute is a critical determinant. For the quiet Australians in the outer suburbs of southern and south-western Sydney, accessibility is not a buzzword. It can be the difference between pursuing higher education and being held back simply by the accident of geography.

Proximity is powerful. The new Macquarie Fields suburban university study hub has been a game changer for so many students in my electorate. It provides high-speed internet, dedicated quiet study spaces, academic support and a welcoming learning community right at their doorstep. It transforms the tyranny of distance into an accessible pathway to further opportunities. The Macquarie Fields suburban university study hub is one of 14 new suburban university study hubs, along with 20 new regional university study hubs. It is so much more than a quality facility. It represents the core philosophy of the universities accord, breaking barriers to higher education and expanding opportunity for all.

The Albanese Labor government has also, for the first time, introduced paid prac for teaching nursing, midwifery and social work students. Now we're expanding it to cover 10 more courses, including clinical psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, paramedicine, radiography, pharmacy, rehab therapy, audiology and podiatry. These are some of the most essential jobs in my community in southern Sydney and across Australia, but too many students in these roles have been forced to choose between continuing in their studies and paying their bills as they give up paid work to take on weeks of unpaid placements.

I recently spoke with student pharmacists Mia, Shi-Anne and Sebastian and heard firsthand about the huge difference that this will make to students studying these courses. Mia, Shi-Anne and Sebastian told me that it would be an enormous relief to students like them, allowing them to progress in their studies without having to forgo the paid work that covers their rent and groceries. It means students will get more opportunities to do placements in their community without having to worry about how they'll pay their rent and their bills. They told me about students having to moonlight their paid jobs with their pracs, which is stopping them from getting enough rest and putting safety at risk. This bill, the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026, aims to stop that.

For them, paid prac will go on to be one of those reforms that, when they look back in the future, they won't believe wasn't already there. We shouldn't routinely be making students choose between finishing a degree and paying the rent on their home. Paid prac is both sensible cost-of-living relief for students and an investment in our future health workforce and Medicare.

With the rise of AI and uncertainty surrounding work, access to higher education is a must-have. Lifelong learning is a critical component in a workforce that is dynamic, future focused and ready to pursue, head on, the coming trends in the labour market and the wider economy. The universities accord states that, in the coming decades, the number of Australians in the workforce with a certificate, diploma or degree will need to rise to 80 per cent. That means more mature-age workers in TAFE or university learning new skills to prepare for a rapidly changing world of work. Accessible higher education is what turns headwinds into tailwinds and approaching storms into rising tides. Workers that are capable and equipped with the skills and confidence to take advantage of new technologies are able to withstand these powerful forces and shape them to propel Australia's future prosperity.

The Albanese Labor government has wasted no time in confronting these challenges head on. We have already implemented more than 30 of the accord's recommendations in full or in part: HECS relief and reform, introducing and expanding paid prac, rolling out suburban and regional university study hubs, increasing the number and availability of bridging courses, improving safety and governance, giving First Nations communities greater access to Commonwealth supported places and empowering our university regulators to steward the sector with an eye to the future.

Building on the $2.5 billion committed in the 2024-25 financial year, this bill introduces an additional $3.6 billion investment into higher education over the next decade. This transformative funding injection will fundamentally re-engineer how university places are allocated. Contrast this with the previous government's disastrous demolition job on higher education. Under the job-ready graduates scheme, higher education funding became mired in a tangled web of arbitrary caps and misaligned incentives, with an ideological government committed to picking winners and white-anting programs.

This bill is overhauling that broken model with a new managed growth funding system. Managed by the ATEC, this system will directly align Commonwealth funding with actual student enrolments and expand the number of university places allocated to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and regional areas. It will effectively uncap the number of places for students from these backgrounds. If a student has the talent and determination, they will have a place in our higher education system if they want it. It will also formalise the role of the ATEC in allocating Commonwealth supported places. These changes are projected to result in an extra 200,000 commencing domestic students at Australian universities over the next decade. That's 200,000 lives forever changed and 200,000 skilled workers added to our economy.

We're also introducing demand-driven needs-based funding to provide extra support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, for First Nations students and for students studying at regional campuses. In some cases, this will more than double the amount of funding per student. The base equity amount will be set at $1,535, and the base regional amount at $1,398. That is more than twice the average amount provided to universities per student last year, which in some cases was as little as $600 under the previous program.

Universities will be able to allocate this funding towards the bread-and-butter components of student success such as tailored academic tutoring and peer mentoring to help students master complex subjects; direct financial assistance through scholarships and grants; and the offsetting of higher operational costs of running regional and satellite campuses, ensuring that institutions like the Sutherland campus of the University of Wollongong—of which I was a student—can keep their doors open.

Higher education changes lives. When I reflect on my time walking through the grounds of that campus of the University of Wollongong as a student, it's clear that it changed mine. And when I visit the vibrant suburban study hub in Macquarie Fields, I know that students in my electorate and across southern and south-western Sydney will be able to access the same opportunities that I had as a student. The doors of opportunity are there, and good access to higher education is the key to unlock them. I commend this bill to the House.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I join my colleagues on this side of the House in speaking in support of the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. It is in the national interest and it should be our aim to ensure that every person has the opportunity to pursue the career of their choice and for which they have a passion. However, that has not always been the case, and it's still not the case, albeit that Australia provides more career opportunities than most other countries, particularly under the Albanese government's free TAFE policy and changes to the Higher Education Loan Program.

I understand that over 800,000 Australians have now enrolled in a free TAFE course, and that is good for the nation and good for the individuals. Those figures also highlight that young people in particular but also others want to further their education and achieve a professional degree or trade certificate if it is made easier for them to do so. Former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam, just over half a century ago, understood that. It was under his leadership that, in 1974, university and tertiary education was made free and opened up to all Australians. In 1989, the Hawke government introduced HECS, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, to ensure university funding was sustainable while still ensuring university education was accessible to everyone.

Today, around 60 per cent of high school students enrol in a university course, compared to around 12 to 14 per cent back in 1974. The 60 per cent university attendance rate now puts Australia at above average in attendance when compared with most other advanced countries. However, we still have a way to go when compared to countries like South Korea, Japan and Canada, which have university attendance rates of more like 70 per cent or just under. South Korea and Japan, in particular, are good examples of the importance of education, both countries having become economic powerhouses through science and innovation industries that rely on university education.

We also know that young people from disadvantaged or regional families are still often faced with barriers to university education. In particular, living costs while at university, the need to enter the workforce at a younger age to support their families and, for regional students, simply having to live away from home are real barriers for many young people. It is up to us in this parliament to try and break down those barriers. They result in a lot of young people losing out because they don't get to university—young people who quite often are very smart, but they come from disadvantaged families and therefore never get the opportunity to put their ability to the full test. It seems to me that, as a result of that, it is not only the younger person that misses out on the career that they might otherwise have wanted to pursue but also the nation that misses out, because those young people could have made a significant contribution to the prosperity of our country had they been able to get their university degree or even a further education degree in another field.

I know from past university attendance rates of high school students from Adelaide's northern suburbs that students that come from disadvantaged communities are far less likely to get to university. Indeed, in one study going back some 15 years, it was suggested that perhaps as much as seven times the rate of university participation occurred from the wealthier suburbs as occurred from the northern suburbs of Adelaide, which were at the time considered lower socioeconomic communities. Looking at some figures from the census, it's very clear that the attendance rates of young people from low-socioeconomic areas or areas that are disadvantaged are far lower than they are for those from what we might refer to as the wealthier suburbs. We need to correct that, as I said earlier, both for the good of the young person and for the good of the nation.

Having said that, it's not to imply that everybody wants a university degree—and I accept that some young people simply don't—or indeed that university qualifications are more important than others. Again, every job is important and we cannot have a society without all of those jobs being filled up. But what we need to focus on is ensuring that everybody who wants to pursue a career that requires a university degree can do so—particularly as we now have free TAFE and they can pursue a trade qualification by doing that.

This legislation has four key objectives. Firstly, it embeds a new managed growth system. Secondly, it establishes demand driven, needs based funding to support students from underrepresented backgrounds. Thirdly, it formalises the role of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, otherwise known as ATEC, in allocating Commonwealth supported places. And, fourthly, it establishes a framework for ATEC's existing function of allocating international student places.

I want to speak just briefly on international students because it's subject matter that has been given a lot of public discourse over recent months. In 2025, there were some 800,000 to 850,000 international students who studied in Australia, according to one source. They were contributing around $53 billion to the Australian economy. That's a significant input into our economy—$53 billion. In 2024, over $12 billion of direct university income came from international students. In other words, it was money that came from overseas into our country. Again, it is a fairly significant export, if I could use that term to describe what is happening. Indeed, it's often said that the higher education sector is the fourth-biggest export that we have in this country.

Over 50 per cent of those students who were coming to this country were coming from China, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines. You could argue that, perhaps with the exception of China today, all of those countries are still developing countries. I'll come back to that in a moment. I think that there is an importance in our accommodating international students if they are coming from developing countries. One of the things it enables us to do is assist those developing countries by opening up our universities to their students, who can get the qualifications they need and then go back to their countries and use those qualifications to help their own people. In my view, that is an important thing that we should be doing as a good global citizen. But I notice that, regrettably, those student numbers are falling. In fact, using the last figures I was able to get hold of, they have fallen by about 20 per cent to a figure of about 680,000.

In addition to the point I just made about international students going back to their countries—they are also building strong bonds with this country by doing so—the reality is that, while they are here, those international students are creating jobs in the university sector and jobs for many local businesses that support them during their stay in Australia. So, if we as a nation are to reduce the number of international students that come into this country, there will be flow-on effects as a result. I respectfully suggest to everyone in this place that the issue of university students should be very carefully managed, because there will be consequences, whichever way we go with respect to their numbers.

Another matter that I want to briefly touch on is the issue of medical places. Ever since I've been in this place, we've spoken about the shortage of GPs in particular and other health professionals more broadly throughout the country, particularly in the regional and remote areas of Australia. There is no question that we have a shortage of GPs. Quite often, we are relying on GPs from overseas to fill the shortages that we have. It has been the case for years because, in my view, the medical places offered by our universities in this country have been rigidly capped. I'm not sure why that is the case, but I suspect it's in order to protect the existing medical profession. My view is that, if we are ever to have the workforce we need—particularly across all of the health professional areas and, as I said, in the GP space, where I know that there is definitely a shortage—then we need not only to have the universities relax their entry criteria for those students who want to pursue a medical career but also to increase the number of medical places that are available within the universities themselves.

The third issue I want to speak about with respect to universities is another that is raised with me from time to time. Again, it often gets a fair bit of media reporting as well. It is the issue of the salaries paid to vice-chancellors. I looked up the list of what vice-chancellors are being paid in universities across Australia and it ranged from about a million dollars to a million and a half dollars. That's the kind of income they are currently getting. At the same time, I see universities cutting staffing levels, support services for the students that go there and other expenditure.

From a sector that is largely government funded, the payments to vice-chancellors are widely seen throughout the community as being excessive. The federal government funds our universities, and in 2024 the universities across Australia were funded to the tune of about $21 billion. That was to cover the entrance fees and so on of students. Nevertheless it's direct government funding that goes into them. Government funding is taxpayer funding. Salaries of a million dollars or more to vice-chancellors may be the norm, but they need to be justified, because right now, when so many people are doing it tough, they're constantly asking the question: why are universities paying those kinds of salaries to their vice-chancellors?

I also note that there has been some criticism of this legislation by some of the industry groups, including the Business Council of Australia and others. I think the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry also flagged some concerns they have with the legislation. I don't dismiss their concerns. I think they have raised some legitimate concerns that need to be considered. Having said that, I believe that this legislation goes a long way to achieving what we all want to achieve, and that is to ensure that everybody who wants to get a university degree can do so and that, in particular, young people from remote, rural and regional places of Australia or disadvantaged communities within the metropolitan areas are able to get to university when they can.

I'm pleased to see that the minister is sticking to that view and has provided this legislation, which I genuinely believe goes a long way to doing that. Sure, it may be that we will need to closely watch what happens in the year or two ahead, and I'm sure the minister is fully aware of that and will do so. But I believe the legislation achieves an objective that was started by the Whitlam government over half a century ago, and that is to ensure that everybody who wants to get a university degree can do so. I commend this legislation to the House.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. It's sometimes forgotten, but the history books record that, on 5 December 1973, Lionel Bowen, then a Whitlam minister, announced that there would be two new universities, one in Campbelltown and one in Albury-Wodonga. Later, on 26 February 1974, the federal Minister for Education, Kim Beazley Sr, announced nearly $100,000 in funding for the New South Wales government for the establishment of the university in Campbelltown.

Perhaps much more widely known is the decision by Whitlam to open the gates to universities by abolishing fees to attend. I'm told that, towards the end of his life, letters of thanks from grateful students, especially women who benefited from Gough's decision, were the most common that he would receive. Whitlam was, of course, deeply committed to Western Sydney University. It houses his papers and library and continues his legacy through research, publications and promoting public discourse. From a personal perspective, Western Sydney University has also provided my own children with an excellent tertiary education, one which will serve them for the rest of their lives.

As much as Medicare is a part of Labor's DNA, so is our commitment to education. Labor believes that one of the key vehicles to improving the lives of Australians is education, from early childhood right through to university and beyond. In this ever-changing world, the demands on our education system are immense, not just to produce an educated workforce but also to produce educated thinkers. In the ensuing years after Whitlam, Labor's commitment to education has never wavered. We're always looking for new ways to bolster our learning institutions in whatever manner or shape they take. For example, in the early childhood sector, the Albanese Labor government increased childcare subsidies. Further, to address critical workforce shortages, we've championed a historic pay rise.

In relation to our schools, the Albanese Labor government has introduced scholarships and the Commonwealth prac payment to support those who are in training. In addition, through the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, this government is putting every public school and the 2.6 million students who attend them on the path of receiving full funding.

TAFE has not escaped the government's attention either. Indeed, I would argue that Labor's commitment to the fee-free TAFE program will go down in history as the most significant education policy announcement since Federation. As a result of this decision in 2023, the program has recorded over 650,000 enrolments and more than 170,000 course completions. Not only that, this government has now established fee-free TAFE as a permanent feature of Australia's VET system. The Albanese Labor government stands proud of the achievements in the education sector, but, like in all areas of public administration, there is always more to do.

That brings us to the bill before us today. In 2024, the government released the final report of the Australian Universities Accord. In short, the accord provides a blueprint for higher education reform over the next number of decades. Of the accord's 47 recommendations, the Albanese government has already implemented, either in part or in full, 30 of the recommendations. Some of the reforms implemented include cutting HECS debt by 20 per cent, capping indexation on HECS debts to the lower of the CPI or the WPI, doubling the number of university study hubs, establishing the Australian Tertiary Education Commission—the ATEC—introducing the National Student Ombudsman and increasing the number of fee-free university bridging courses.

Part of the universities accord states that to meet Australia's future workforce needs, the number of people in the workforce with a certificate, diploma or degree will need to be around 80 per cent. This means that people will need to attend either TAFE or uni, and, for this to be achieved, action needs to be taken now. The Australian Universities Accord thankfully provides the blueprint to deliver on this target by recommending a new funding model for higher education that is planned and managed by the Australian Tertiary Education Commission.

The accord also recommends increasing the number of higher education students from underrepresented backgrounds. In response to the accord's recommendations, in the 2024-25 MYEFO the Albanese Labor government committed an additional $2.5 billion to Australia's higher education system over the next decade. The bill before us enacts that commitment through a new funding system. In addition, it will also embed a new managed growth funding system and establish demand driven needs based funding to support students from underrepresented backgrounds to both access and succeed in university. Further, the bill will also formalise the role of ATEC in allocating supported places.

In effect, the new Managed Growth Funding System will remove the cap on the number of places for students from regional areas and low socioeconomic backgrounds. In raw numbers, it is expected that this will result in an additional 200,000 domestic students commencing at university over the next decade. For universities, the funding will work a little similar to Gonski for schools—that is, the more students a university has that meet the criteria, the more funding they will receive to help these students succeed. The bill sets the base equity amount at $1,535 and the base regional amount at $1,398. That's more than double the amount provided to universities per student last year. Universities will be able to put this additional funding towards things such as tutoring, mentoring and other academic supports, as well as direct financial assistance.

In addition to these welcome reforms, the bill in front of us today also sets out the framework for ATEC to exercise its existing functions to allocate international student places. Further, it makes small technical amendments to modernising the sharing of information between the Commonwealth Ombudsman, TEQSA and ATEC.

The bill, in its title, includes the words 'opening the doors of opportunity', and those are words I heartily endorse. The Albanese Labor government is committed to opening the doors of opportunity for all Australians, regardless of their age or where they live. Gough Whitlam spent his entire time in public life working to create opportunities for all Australians while also dismantling the inequalities that by their very existence denied access to such opportunities. I, as the current member for Werriwa, am equally committed to these aims and ideals. I commend the bill to the House.

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

The Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 delivers important reform for Australian students, universities and the future workforce of Australia. This legislation is about much more than changing funding arrangements. It's about opening the doors of opportunity to more Australians. It's about recognising that talent exists in every suburb, every regional town and every remote community and ensuring that a person's circumstances do not determine the limits of their ambition.

Education has always been one of Australia's greatest strengths. It has transformed lives and driven our national prosperity. For generations, Australians have understood that investing in education is investing in the future of our country. Every doctor treating patients in our hospitals, every engineer designing critical infrastructure, every teacher standing in front of a classroom and every researcher developing tomorrow's breakthroughs began with access to education. The responsibility of this parliament is to ensure that opportunity remains available to every generation that follows.

In February 2024, the Albanese Labor government received the final report of the Australian Universities Accord. The accord was not simply another review to gather dust on a shelf. It was developed as a blueprint for higher education reform over the next decade and the decade beyond. It asked an important question: what sort of tertiary education system will Australia need if we are to remain prosperous, competitive and resilient in an increasingly complex world? Its conclusion was clear: Australia must prepare today for the workforce demands of tomorrow.

The accord found that, by 2050, around 80 per cent of Australia's working-age population will require a certificate, diploma or degree qualification. That represents one of the most significant workforce transitions our nation has ever faced. New technologies are transforming industries. Artificial intelligence is reshaping workplaces. The transition to clean energy is creating new occupations. Advanced manufacturing is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Healthcare demands continue to grow as our population ages. Every one of those challenges points to the same conclusion—that Australia will need more skilled workers than ever before.

Meeting that demand cannot happen overnight. It requires long-term planning and a continuous source of investment. Most importantly, it requires a government prepared to act before the pressures become crises. That is exactly what the Albanese Labor government has done. Rather than treating the Universities Accord report as just another report, we have treated it as a road map for reform. Already the government has implemented more than 30 of the accord's 47 recommendations in full or in part. That record demonstrates our commitment to not simply talking about education reform but delivering it.

Australians have already seen meaningful improvements flowing from that work. Millions of graduates carrying HECS debts have benefited from reforms that make the system fairer with the 20 per cent HECS cuts last year. We have capped indexation to the lower of the consumer price index or wage price index. We have introduced a fairer marginal repayment system. We have lifted the minimum repayment threshold so Australians are not forced to begin repayments before they are financially ready to.

These reforms recognise that education should create opportunity rather than unnecessary financial hardship. They ensure graduates can focus on building their careers, buying a home and starting a family without carrying an unfair burden created by an outdated repayment system.

This government has also recognised that financial barriers extend well beyond student loans. For too long, students studying essential qualifications like teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work were expected to complete extensive professional placements while often sacrificing the income they relied upon to support themselves. Many talented Australians simply could not afford to finish the exact degrees our country desperately needs.

That is why the introduction of paid prac represents such an important reform. It acknowledges that practical placements are essential to these professions. It also acknowledges that asking students to work without financial support places an unreasonable burden upon them. Supporting students through these placements is an investment in Australia's future teachers, nurses, midwives and social workers. It is an investment that will strengthen communities across the nation.

Access to higher education has also been expanded through the establishment of additional university study hubs. There are 20 new Regional University Study Hubs and 14 new Suburban University Study Hubs which are helping Australians study closer to home. Free university bridging courses have been expanded, creating new pathways for students who may not have followed a traditional academic journey. Demand driven Commonwealth supported places have been extended to First Nations students who achieve the required entry standards. The National Student Ombudsman has been established. The National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence is strengthening safety across university campuses. Taken together, these reforms represent a comprehensive effort to improve both access and the student experience.

The government has also established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. The creation of ATEC reflects one of the central recommendations of the Universities Accord—long-term challenges require long-term stewardship. Australia's tertiary education system cannot be managed effectively through short electoral cycles alone. It requires strategic planning. It requires evidence based decision making. It requires an organisation capable of looking beyond immediate pressures and ensuring that investment aligns with Australia's future workforce needs.

The legislation before the House builds directly upon that foundation. In the 2024-25 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Albanese Labor government committed an additional $2.5 billion to Australia's higher education system over the next decade. That investment recognises the simple truth—ambitious reforms cannot be achieved without meaningful investment. It introduces a new funding system designed to support growth, improve equity and provide universities with greater certainty as they prepare for the future.

One of the most significant reforms contained within this legislation is the creation of the managed growth funding system. The existing funding model has struggled to keep pace with Australia's changing workforce requirements. Universities have faced uncertainty when making long-term decisions about infrastructure, staffing and student support. The new managed growth funding system addresses those shortcomings, as it aligns Commonwealth funding more closely with actual enrolments. This will provide greater certainty for universities. It creates a more sustainable framework for long-term planning. Perhaps most importantly, it effectively uncaps the number of places available to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and regional Australia. This is something that will help students in the north of Adelaide to be offered the opportunity everyone else in the nation has access to.

For too long, many capable Australians have faced barriers that had nothing to do with their talent or their determination. Students from regional communities often confront additional accommodation costs. Many relocate hundreds of kilometres from home to study, while others balance work, caring responsibilities and education simultaneously. Young Australians from disadvantaged backgrounds frequently encounter financial pressures. That means that a university education cannot be a priority. These barriers deserve practical solutions rather than sympathetic words and token gestures.

The Universities Accord recognises that increasing student participation alone would never be enough. Students must also be supported to succeed once they arrive on campus. That recommendation sits at the heart of this bill. The legislation establishes a new demand driven, needs based funding system designed to ensure universities receive additional resources for students who require greater support. Students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, First Nations students and students studying at regional campuses are groups that have historically faced structural barriers to higher education.

This funding recognises that equity cannot simply be measured by who enrols but must also be measured by who graduates. Felix Hughes, the national president of the National Union of Students, welcomed these reforms, saying:

These reforms recognise that equity must be built into the higher education funding system and that supporting students from underrepresented backgrounds is essential to creating a more accessible higher education system.

Those words capture exactly why this legislation matters. Equity cannot be an afterthought. It must be embedded within the funding model itself.

The approach adopted through this bill reflects a principle that Australians already understand from school funding. Just as the Gonski reforms recognised that some schools require greater support to achieve equitable outcomes, this legislation recognises that universities that are supporting greater numbers of disadvantaged students should receive additional funding to help those students succeed. The funding supports need and aspirations in all communities across this nation.

Under these arrangements, the base equity amount will be set at $1,535, and the base regional amount will be set at $1,398. Those figures are significant, because they represent more than double the average support available under comparable programs only last year, where funding could be as little as $600 per student. That additional investment will make a tangible difference. It will allow universities to expand tutoring programs and strengthen mentoring services. Additional scholarships and direct financial assistance can be provided for students who require it. Regional campuses can receive assistance to offset the higher costs of operating outside metropolitan centres. These are practical investments that improve retention, completion and student success.

Professor Mary O'Kane AC, who chaired the Universities Accord, observed that Australia needs 'a tertiary education system that is fit for the future'. The challenges facing Australia in 2050 cannot be addressed by using funding models designed decades ago. We need an education system that evolves in tandem with our economy. It must remain responsive to the changing technologies, emerging industries and workforce shortages.

The Universities Accord also recognised that Australia's future prosperity depends on having a highly educated population capable of adapting to continual change. A stronger higher education system means businesses can access the skilled workers they need. It means that regional communities are better placed to recruit healthcare professionals. It means that schools benefit from more graduates entering the teaching profession. It means that emerging industries gain the expertise required to drive innovation and economic growth. That is how investment in education becomes an investment in Australia's future prosperity.

Ultimately, this matters to every Australian who wants our nation to remain competitive in the increasingly knowledge based global economy. The government expects that these reforms will support an additional 200,000 commencing domestic university students over the next decade. That represents 200,000 individual stories. No two backgrounds and aspirations will be the same: young Australians becoming the first in their family to attend university; regional students returning home with qualifications that strengthen local communities; First Nations graduates bringing new expertise and leadership into every profession; and adults returning to education to retrain for entirely new careers. Every one of those students represents potential unlocked. Every graduate strengthens Australia's future.

The legislation also formalises the role of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission in allocating Commonwealth supported places. This reflects another important recommendation of the accord. The modern education system requires coordinated planning across the entire sector, and the ATEC will provide that stewardship. The bill will also establish a framework supporting the commission's role in allocating international student places where a determination is made by the Minister for Education.

The legislation also modernises information-sharing between the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and the ATEC. Although technical in nature, these amendments improve cooperation between agencies and strengthen oversight across the higher education sector. Good public administration is built upon good information. An effective regulation depends upon agencies working together. These reforms support both those ideas.

Legislation of this nature asks us to think well beyond the present. It asks us to consider the Australia we hope to build over the coming decades. Will it be an Australia where opportunity remains centred among the few fortunate, or will it be an Australia where talent is recognised wherever it is found? The Albanese Labor government has made its choice. We believe every Australian deserves the opportunity to fulfil their potential. We believe higher education should be accessible, affordable and focused on student success. We believe our universities should be properly funded to meet the challenges of a changing world. Most importantly, we believe investing in people is the smartest investment any nation can make. Education has long been one of the foundations of Australia's success. It has strengthened our democracy, driven economic growth and created opportunities that have transformed countless lives. For all those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

For the information of honourable members, I present an addendum to the explanatory memorandum to this bill.

I'd like to thank all members for their contribution to this debate. This bill will help to open the doors of opportunity to our universities to more young people from poor families, from regional Australia and from the bush. It introduces a new managed-growth funding system that will provide an extra $3.6 billion and support an extra 230,000 commencing students over the next decade. It establishes a new demand driven, needs based funding system to help students from poor backgrounds, Indigenous students and students studying in the regions to participate and succeed in their studies—think Gonski for universities. It also gives the Australian Tertiary Education Commission the power to make decisions on international student allocations for eligible higher education providers each year.

In her contribution to the debate on this bill, the member for Lyne, opposite us, said this:

At the end of the day, the test for this legislation is simple. Will it create more opportunities for regional Australians? Will it strengthen pathways into nursing, teaching, allied health and other professions our community desperately needs? Will it help more students study closer to home? Will it help communities—like Taree, Gloucester, Wingham and Forster—build the workforce they need for the future? If it does, then it will be a worthwhile reform …

The answer to that question is yes, yes and yes. Let me give you a few examples. In New South Wales, at universities like Charles Sturt University that have campuses in Wagga and Orange and Bathurst and Dubbo and Albury-Wodonga and Port Macquarie, it means somewhere between $200 million and $500 million of extra funding over the next decade. In Queensland, at universities like Central Queensland University with campuses in Townsville, Rockhampton, Mackay, Bundaberg, Cairns, Gladstone and Emerald, it means up to $260 million in extra funding over the next decade. It's the same story in other parts of the country where there are regional universities—more kids from the regions going to uni, more kids from the regions finishing uni and more teachers, more nurses and more frontline workers studying, staying and working in the regions. It's the sort of thing that I hope the National Party will enthusiastically support. It's the sort of thing that the member for Lyne has said she will support.

The overwhelming majority of submissions to the Senate inquiry into this bill support what the government is looking to do here. The 2050 Alliance support this bill, and in their submission they say it is 'a critical step in implementing the policy and funding framework to deliver the accord's goals of increasing tertiary participation and equity by 2050'. James Cook University have said:

The Bill has the potential to introduce fairness into educational outcomes by addressing the failed market dynamics in the higher education system that has for too long disadvantaged regional people and places.

The University of Tasmania, that state's only university, support the bill and welcome the establishment of needs based funding as an enduring, demand responsive part of the Commonwealth's core teaching funding architecture. It is one of the most important improvements to university funding in a generation. On meeting Australia's future skills research and productivity needs, Flinders University have said:

We agree that achieving this goal requires a managed, national approach to growth and funding, rather than a model which risks concentration in a small number of large metropolitan universities at the expense of the under-represented students and regional communities that institutions such as Flinders exist to serve.

Following the second reading, the government will move amendments to correct some minor drafting issues in the bill, and on Monday the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee will hear from the sector and other stakeholders. I greatly look forward to the committee's report and to any recommendations for improvements, which, of course, the government will consider carefully. As always, the government is open to considering sensible and appropriate amendments, because this is an important bill. It means more young people from poor families, from the regions and from the bush getting a crack at going to university and getting the support they need to succeed when they get there. It will open the doors of opportunity wider. I commend this bill to the House.

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Kooyong has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that that amendment be agreed to.

Question negatived.

The question now is that this bill be now read a second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Messages from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for the bill and proposed amendments announced.

Debate adjourned.