Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

They have the numbers now, says Senator Wong. It is true. But, even with the numbers, is there any consideration left for process and convention in this place? My goodness! In the last round of estimates I asked the government what they were doing about the inquiry recommendations, only to be met with pretty much a non-response. What a difference extending rent assistance to Austudy recipients would make! A recent study found that more than half the part-time students surveyed would prefer to be in full-time study if their finances permitted, and a third believe a lack of government support is preventing them from studying full time. The study also revealed that part-time students were more likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and tended to have attended public schools. Current measures of student income support are clearly inadequate to overcome seemingly more entrenched inequities in the higher education sector.

I remember, back in 1990, that the then education minister published A fair chance for all, as part of an overview of the higher education sector. It contained the principle:

The overall objective for equity in higher education is to ensure that Australians from all groups in society have the opportunity to participate successfully in higher education.

Well, let us look at the participation rates in the last decade. Equity groups have seen a decline in their participation rates. They have either declined or remained stagnant. For example, participation of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds has fallen slightly, as has that of Indigenous Australians. That is understandable given the many cuts that have taken place, particularly to Abstudy since 2000. So much for this equity. Higher education has endured a barrage of attacks, funding cuts, cost shifting and cost increases. Everyone knows the litany of what has happened to education funding and support.

The National Union of Students released a report this year on the past 10 years in higher education, which contained a number of concerning findings. Accumulated HECS debts have risen from $3.9 billion to $13.2 billion during the decade. I mean, this is huge. The average student contribution to university operating costs increased from 14 per cent to 42 per cent, while the Commonwealth’s contribution has decreased from 61 per cent to 41 per cent. The student to staff ratios have increased from 15.6 to 20.7.

So, while this bill does very little that has not been already achieved administratively, it does once again highlight these issues and the government’s response to them, particularly to student income support. This bill contains, as has been acknowledged in the previous contribution, a potentially risky subsection that requires clarification. The proposed subsection 48(2) seeks:

... to eliminate the need to make new regulations whenever the Guide to Commonwealth Government Payments is altered.

However, this subsection may have the unintended effect of limiting the parliamentary scrutiny of changes to guidelines for Abstudy and the Assistance for Isolated Children schemes. Of issue here is the proposed new subsection 48(2), which relates to notifying Centrelink of a change in circumstances, for instance a change of course enrolment. It has been pointed out that the proposed change is unclear whether the term ‘notifying’ includes or excludes prescribed events, where ‘prescribed events’ refers to the reasons for notifying Centrelink, such as a change in circumstances. If ‘notifying’ does include prescribed events, then DEST may have the power to prescribe when, under which circumstances and how a person notifies Centrelink of a change of details. If ‘notifying’ does not include prescribed events, it is restricted to how a person may notify Centrelink. So there is concern that the department can change when or under what circumstances a person must notify Centrelink without this decision being subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Given the possible punishment for those failing to meet these obligation—up to one year in prison—it is imperative that ‘prescribed events’ cannot be changed without parliamentary scrutiny. I notice that the government was concerned enough about this clause to issue a replacement explanatory memorandum to shed light on what the subsection does and does not do. However, the bill itself has not been changed to this effect. Unlike the actual legislation, the explanatory memorandum and the clarification made in it is not binding. So we believe the clarification should be included in the bill to make this explicit.

I understand that Senator Wong made a similar comment, and I note the amendment which she has circulated. I draw the Senate’s and the Labor Party’s attention to an amendment, which they may be aware of, which I circulated in this place on 2 March 2006, which seeks to do the same thing. I think we are both after the same objective. I have not worded my amendment—on behalf of the Democrats—the same as the Labor Party amendment because the advice that we received after initially considering drafting it in the same format was that it was still ambiguous and that this was the better way to draft it. Having said that, we can probably read the numbers. I am not confident that either one will be successful. We considered drafting it in a similar fashion but we had advice, mulled over it for a long period of time and decided that this is the amendment that we are proceeding with today. But I think we are pretty keen to achieve exactly the same outcome, and there may be some on the coalition side who have similar views—yes, crazy—about process, parliamentary scrutiny and clarifying things that may actually need clarification in law. I do not know—call me crazy, but we will see—if anyone will actually consider that. Nonetheless, this legislation will of course be passed. It is a travesty that it has taken this long. It is appalling how undemocratic the process has been. For it to take from 2003 to 2006 is pretty pathetic. We are moving an amendment; I foreshadow the amendment moved in my name on behalf of the Democrats to at least try and clarify what could be quite a deleterious aspect of this bill.