Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Declaration of percentage of Commonwealth supported places to be provided by Table A providers for a course of study in medicine, made under paragraph 36-35(1)(b) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, be disallowed.

I am moving this motion on behalf of the opposition to disallow the Minister for Education, Science and Training’s declaration increasing the cap to 25 per cent for the number of full fee paying domestic undergraduate medical students able to be enrolled in Australia’s public universities. This is a fundamental point of difference between the government and the Labor opposition. This government wants to allow yet more $200,000 degrees, whereas Labor believes in fair and equitable entry into our universities based on merit, not on money.

We believe in entry to universities based on merit, not on the size of your bank balance. The government’s only solution to the doctors shortage is to allow more students to jump the queue and buy their way into a medical course, even if those students with money have lower marks. Labor believes increasing HECS funded medical places is the only way to ensure more doctors are willing to work in rural and regional areas.

The policy change that this regulation encompasses is the result of an agreement announced by the Prime Minister following the Council of Australian Governments meeting in February. There is no doubt that this was hastily cobbled together and not thought through. We learnt during a recent Senate estimates hearing that the Department of Education, Science and Training—and presumably the education minister—did not know about the change until the public announcement was actually made. And it shows. Fumbling this announcement, the Prime Minister repeatedly demonstrated his complete ignorance and lack of understanding about how Australia’s university system works. During the COAG press conference, the Prime Minister said:

... there would be an increase from 10 to 25 percent in the number of fully-funded places ... in university medical schools that will bring, for medical students, the figure of fully-funded places up to the same level as exists for other faculties.

But he got it completely wrong. These are not fully funded places. They are full fee paying places—a big difference to students, a completely different type of funding mechanism. Instead of being supported by the Commonwealth, these places are full fee and are fully paid for by the students. The change does not, as the PM thought, bring the number of these students up to the same level as other courses. Other faculties and courses have a 35 per cent cap and this declaration brings the cap up to 25 per cent for medicine. In a valiant defence of the Prime Minister’s fumblings with some basic understanding of the structure of higher education, during Senate estimates a DEST official told us:

We are all aware that not everything is absolutely accurately stated during the course of press conferences, because they go on for a long time and many things are said. I think that what the Prime Minister was intimating was quite clear ...

Perhaps all that was clear is that you cannot believe everything that the Prime Minister says! But students in this country already know that. In 1999, the Prime Minister said that there would be no $100,000 degrees in Australia. This year there are over 60 degrees in this country which cost more than $100,000. The policy change that this government is bringing forward and that we are debating here today will increase the number of $200,000 degrees in Australia. In fact, none of the degrees to which this proposal applies will cost less than $100,000. This is all about creating more opportunities for the select few who can afford—or perhaps, rather, whose parents can afford—to spend more on a medical degree than many Australians can afford to spend on their first home.

This government’s approach is simple: any growth in university places should come from full-fee places. Under this government, it is students who will meet the full cost of expanding medical education in Australia. Full-fee medical degrees cost an outrageous $216,000 at the University of New South Wales, $148,000 at the University of Queensland and $205,000 at the University of Melbourne. Figures are similar elsewhere in the country. To those students, the Prime Minister’s promise that there would not be $100,000 degrees in this country must ring extremely hollow! Of all the full-fee medical degrees available in Australia’s public universities, none of them cost less than $100,000. These are not sums within the contemplation of ordinary Australian students. But, in the Howard government’s Australia, apparently $200,000 is a reasonable amount to pay to become a doctor.

The President of the Australian Medical Students Association, Ms Teresa Cosgriff, put it simply and eloquently when she spoke a truth that it seems only those opposing the declaration before us understand. She said:

Full-fee places are simply not an option for most students and it defies logic to argue otherwise.

The skyrocketing cost of obtaining a degree under this government is impacting on participation in higher education. There can be no question about this at all. Late last year, Central Queensland University handed back 490 HECS places to the Commonwealth because of insufficient student demand. So, just one year after the Howard government’s 25 per cent HECS hike, student demand has softened sufficiently in some courses such that at least one university has been unable to fill its quota of places. Along with CQU, James Cook University and Edith Cowan University are also reportedly facing the prospect of handing HECS places back to Canberra.

Central Queensland University’s decision to hand back these places is unfortunate for that institution, but it actually presented the Commonwealth government with a unique opportunity to do something about the doctors shortage in Queensland. If the Howard government were serious about providing more opportunities for students to study medicine and to become doctors and work in regional areas experiencing shortage, the Howard government would have converted these returned places into HECS funded medical places. But instead of doing that—instead of turning the 490 HECS places CQU handed back into medical places in Queensland—the Howard government is content to simply increase full fee paying places in medicine by 285 right across the country.

Commenting on the Howard government’s decision that we are debating today, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, who is the National President of the Australian Medical Association, said that the government’s plan to increase medical student numbers would be more effective if the places were HECS funded and not full fee paying. In other words, even the AMA—and they can hardly be accused of being a Labor lobby group—are saying: ‘This is not effective policy; this is not the way forward. What the government should be doing is funding HECS places.’ That is actually what the opposition has been saying. Ms Cosgriff from the Medical Students Association also comments that the decision to increase full-fee places rather than HECS places is ‘a simplistic measure that addresses neither the question of equity nor the workplace shortages we are experiencing’.

Whilst the previous minister missed his chance late last year, the new education minister could convert any further places James Cook or Edith Cowan universities are reportedly considering handing back to the Commonwealth into HECS funded medical places. Let us see if the new minister, Ms Bishop, has a little more foresight than her predecessor and is prepared to use the opportunity to expand HECS funded places for medical students so we can properly address the doctors shortage which exists.

Labor knows, from doing things like talking to people at universities, that there is spare capacity in medical schools, at James Cook University and Griffith University, where new HECS funded medical places could be located. If this was to be done with the HECS places being given back to Canberra in other disciplines because of softening demand, it could be done without costing the government one extra cent. More HECS places in medicine are the only solution to our severe doctor shortage. Federal Labor will continue to focus on increasing the availability of HECS funded places producing graduate doctors. Our policy at the last election was to have 1,000 additional commencing medical places. This policy far exceeds the increase in full fee paying places that this government is putting forward as its solution.

It is ridiculous to expect that someone with a $200,000 debt is going to work on an average general practitioner’s salary in the country. Doctors with fee debts bigger than mortgages will clearly, for market reasons, be drawn to higher pay specialisation. The Howard government’s plan will exacerbate the existing biased distribution of graduate doctors staying in metropolitan areas because full-fee places in medicine are not rural bonded. Full-fee students cannot be required to work in a rural or regional area. Those senators in the National Party who profess to represent rural and regional Australia might think about the impact of this government’s approach and the fact that full fee paying places are hardly going to yield the sorts of doctors who are likely to move into rural and regional areas as general practitioners, simply by virtue of the fact that they will have been saddled with an enormous debt because of this government’s policies.

Peter Beattie, like other state premiers, is working hard to solve the shortage of doctors, particularly in regional and rural areas. His task is made so much harder by this government’s refusal to provide sufficient HECS funded medical places. In light of the Howard government’s stubborn refusal to do what should be done, the state and territory governments clearly signed up to this second-best outcome. We in federal Labor acknowledge the difficult position our state and territory colleagues have been put in by this government, but we cannot support the expansion of $200,000 degrees in this country. This approach will do nothing to solve the doctors crisis and may only make it worse.

Senator Vanstone was the education minister who, in 1996, introduced full fee paying domestic undergraduate courses to Australian universities. She presided over the introduction of a policy that puts the size of your bank balance ahead of your hard-earned school marks when deciding who can go to university. But even Senator Vanstone, if you look back at what she said then, would not go as far as the current minister is going here with this latest change. When announcing the introduction of these places in 1996, Senator Vanstone said in a press release:

The only course where the extra opportunities will not be available will be Medicine where, for health policy reasons, the Government wishes to limit the number of medical graduates.

It would be instructive to hear from the government what has changed over the last 10 years—which health policy reasons have changed so that we can now allow one quarter of the domestic medical students at our public universities to be full fee paying.

Or perhaps Senator Vanstone could tell us the fate of the highly respected foreign doctor working in Brisbane who, according to the Courier Mail of 19 March this year, may be kicked out of country because of a technical dispute over medical expenses for the doctor’s child, expenses which the family is willing to fully pay. There is a desperate doctor shortage in Queensland, which has been the justification for this increase in $200,000 degrees, yet the federal government is contemplating kicking out a highly regarded and qualified doctor. This does not make any sense.

This increase in the cap on full fee paying students is yet one more example of how this government is Americanising our university system. Over 10 long years we have seen higher fees, less opportunity and diminishing public investment at a time when we would have thought Australia’s prosperity into the future as well as the needs of our ageing community require a greater investment in our public education system. The Howard government has cut $5 billion from our universities since 1996. It is little wonder that the OECD reports that Australia was the only developed country to have reduced public investment in tertiary education during this time. The average increase in the OECD was a 38 per cent increase. So, whilst Australia is going backwards, the rest of world is surging ahead.

Student debt in Australia has blown out by $10 billion under this government, with current and former students now owing the Commonwealth $13 billion. This government’s education agenda is clouded by misguided ideology and a lack of understanding. Education is an investment in our future. It is not a cost to be avoided. Labor has opposed having full fee paying domestic undergraduates at our public universities since they were introduced by this government. It was our policy to abolish these fee paying places at the 1998, 2001 and 2004 elections. We are consistent in our position that education is an investment. We are consistent in our position that access and entry to university should be predicated on your ability and on your hard-earned school marks, not on the size of your or your parents’ bank balance. We again move today to prevent to further spread of $200,000 degrees.