John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

To think that we were disrupted by question time! Never worry, that is the agenda of the day and we will go along with that. I was talking about the amounts of money for investment in research, which, of course, involves a lot of our universities. If I can just repeat them: $150 million next financial year for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy; $135.5 billion to deliver 100 new four-year research positions per year under the Future Fellowships scheme; $26 million to speed up research into dementia; $42 million to support new research into tropical disease; and $24 million to support the Antarctic Gateway Partnership.

I want to address the funding and the hysterical and false claims by Labor and the Greens that we are destroying the hopes and dreams of young Australians. I say that is simply wrong when people make those statements. It is a fact that we will provide $37 billion in funding to higher education institutions over the four financial years to 2017-18. I said '$37 billion'. That is a huge amount of money. If we go back to Senator Abetz's answer in the chamber here one day when he was comparing millions and billions and bringing them into seconds in time. One million seconds is just 11½ days; a billion seconds is 31.7 years. When we took billions we talk huge amounts of money. As I said, we will provide $37 billion in funding to higher education institutions over the four financial years to 2017-18. We will spend more and more on higher education each and every year, which is in stark contrast to the previous government. What Labor hides from is the fact that in Labor's last budget year higher education funding was at $8.97 billion. But under the Abbott-Truss government, higher education funding is growing to $9.47 billion by 2017-18.

The really good news is that the subsidisation of students will increase. The Commonwealth Grants Scheme will rise from $6.2 billion to $6.7 billion in 2017-18. In summary, there is more money being spread amongst more students. Let us talk about the students. Under this bill for the first time ever all Australian undergraduate students in registered higher education institutions will be supported for all accredited courses from diplomas to bachelor degrees. This is all about opportunity. I repeat: from diplomas through to bachelor degrees. Each institution will charge its own fees. No doubt some fees will go up and some will go down, but the Council of Private Higher Education has indicated its members will reduce its fees. Students will remain protected by the HECS system under which no Australian student need pay a cent up-front. That will remain locked in concrete. No Australian student will have to pay a cent up-front. No student will repay one cent until they are earning over $50,000 a year. That is a pretty good system subsidised by the taxpayers of Australia, isn't it, Senator Back.

Senator Back interjecting—

You can walk into a university and do not have to pay a cent, and when you finish your degree and get a higher paying job you do not have to pay a cent back until you are earning more than $50,000 a year. University students earn on average 75 per cent more over their working lives than nongraduates and typically earn around $1 million more than nongraduates over their working lives

It is only fair they make a contribution to the cost of their education. I think it is just fair that they make a contribution to it when they are going to earn, on average, $1 million more than their fellow Australians who did not do a degree.

I want to talk more about regional education, because I am from a regional area. In recent years, I have had the opportunity to call in at the University of New England at Armidale, where I live close by; Charles Sturt University at Orange; and the Charles Sturt University campus at Port Macquarie. I want to talk about the great job our universities do with dentistry courses. This is one of my favourite topics, because dentists are in such short supply in many regional and remote areas. The figures I remember are that there are as few as 15 dentists per 100,000 people in remote areas, which is a huge shortage of dentists. I have always been concerned about the lack of doctors, dentists and other health professionals in rural and remote areas. For too long, young people came out of their training and headed straight back to the bright lights of the cities. So, rather than continually talk about it, I decided that I would actually do something about it. Five years ago, in conjunction with the National Rural Health Alliance, I sponsored a first-year dentistry student to the tune of $4,800. The student has to come from a regional area of New South Wales and commit to returning to a regional area to practise. There have been five outstanding recipients of my scholarship: Olivia Jom, Jessica Powell, Alayne White, Amelia Judson and the current recipient, Jarrod Brice, who has just completed his first year at the University of Adelaide.

I want to talk about Jarrod. When we were assessing the final six or seven to see who I would give my scholarship to, Jarrod was on Abstudy. He comes from the western town of Euston in the river country, and he wants to complete his dentistry degree and go out and work in many of those Aboriginal areas where so much is needed in relation to health issues and where dentistry is one of the services that is really in demand and required. These young people have all highly praised the training that they received in their first university year. I also want to pay tribute to their mentor, Dr Christopher Cole, a dentist in Armidale, who has given great support to these students.

Let us look at what this package means for regional students—students from places like Scone, Tweed Heads, Inverell, Moree and the small and large towns across rural and regional areas. Regional students will be the big winners. Providers will be able to offer more courses and compete for students. From 2016, they will be able to set their own tuition fees—universities like the very well regarded University of New England at Armidale. This university was founded in 1938 as a college of the University of Sydney and became fully independent in 1954. It is Australia's oldest regional university.    They do outstanding research there, particularly the CRCs.

In 2012 the Poultry CRC, headed by my good friend Professor Mingan Choct, won the prestigious World's Poultry Science Association Education Award, which recognised the CRC's efforts in outreach activities. It was poultry's equivalent to an Olympic gold medal, as it only happens once every four years and only one award is given out in this particular category. This is the type of excellent work being done in our regional universities and it was enhanced under our program. The Nationals have a strong link with UNE through Dr Earle Page, later Sir Earle Page, who was the first Chancellor of UNE, in 1954, and of course was Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Country Party.

Non-university higher education institutions in regional communities—such as the higher education courses offered at TAFE—will also benefit from the government funding. The government will provide $274 million in regional loading in recognition of the higher costs incurred by regional campuses. That $274 million is a good subsidy and good financial support. Commonwealth scholarships will offer disadvantaged students more support than ever. These include fee exemptions, living costs and other support. The new Commonwealth scholarships will actually support disadvantaged students. We will require that universities and other higher education providers spend $1 in every $5 of additional revenue raised on scholarships for disadvantaged students. So those universities who raise their fees by $5 will have to spend $1 to promote more scholarships. In simple terms, the scholarships will be an enormous benefit to students from regional Australia because they will provide major support for living costs for regional students.

What are the university leaders saying about the bill before us? I quote from a media release by the Rural Universities Network and the Group of Eight on 8 September with the heading: 'RUN and Go8 urge Senate to pass higher education reforms with safeguards for low-income graduates and structural support for regional universities'. The release says:

Deregulation will allow all universities to play to their strengths.

The Australian Technology Network of Universities said on 28 August:

This significant structural reform provides universities with the autonomy to implement sustainable financial arrangements for teaching that align with the needs of current and future students.

Chief Executive of TAFE Directors Australia, Mr Martin Riordan, said on 28 August:

The package of higher education legislation would finally deliver improved equity for TAFE students, and would support industry demands for more 'work-ready' skills.

That is most important—work-ready skills so that people can go and do their TAFE course and be ready to get to work as we need them.

I mentioned the University of New England earlier. Let me quote from Mr Jim Barber, who was the Vice-Chancellor at UNE for several years. He says:

Australia never has and still doesn't provide demand-driven education in the sense of a service that is shaped by student preference or need.

This is most important. Mr Barber goes on:

Truly demand-driven education requires at least two further changes to our higher education system.

First we need education providers who are willing and able to unbundle the single-product offering that has been eligible for Commonwealth funding so far and second, we require a funding and regulatory environment that allows this to occur.

He goes on to say:

Indeed, a demand-driven system would require that students are not only able to choose the services they require but also the manner in which those services are delivered.

Mr Barber says:

… the prestigious university brands will find themselves going head-to-head with a raft of cheaper but equally high-quality competitors.

That is the important issue with this bill. I repeat:

… the prestigious university brands will find themselves going head-to-head with a raft of cheaper but equally high-quality competitors.

The other encouraging budget initiative is the opening up of Commonwealth-supported places to TAFEs and private providers. This Is important because traditional universities are so constrained by fixed costs associated with Infrastructure and academic employment conditions that it is unreasonable to expect them to achieve the level of unbundling necessary to create genuine choice.

Let's give our students genuine choice on what they want to do, what they want to study, what their profession is going to be. Mr Barber concludes:

Taken together. these budgetary and regulatory developments should increase the range of educational options on offer in Australia, providing students with genuine ¬choice rather than Mao suits.

When that happens, Australia will be justified in describing its higher education system as demand-driven.

I will conclude by saying that is the important thing. Let's provide what the students want, not just a basic fixed course, and of course have encouragement from overseas. Our export earning from education is huge for this nation; I think it is the third largest export earner in our country. People come here from overseas to be educated, of course in primary-secondary but also many in tertiary, and that is why the universities support this. Sure, there are going to be amendments, and I commend Minister Christopher Pyne for working with senators Leyonhjelm, Day and others to see that this does pass the Senate.

This is important, and the basic bottom line here is that, at the moment, when someone does a degree, 60 per cent is paid for by the taxpayers even when they pay the HECS, HELP-FEEs et cetera back. They will earn over their lifetime an average of $1 million more than those Australian workers who did not go to university. We wish to raise that to 50 per cent. That is not too much to ask. I mentioned free education at the start of my speech. There is no such thing as free education; someone pays. Many of the bricklayers, the shearers, the builders, the truckies—the blue-collar workers—who are out there paying tax, allowing these people to get their so-called free education that is not free have never stepped foot on a university campus. They have never been to university, but they work hard in their blue-collar work. It is likewise with many secretarial and women workers in so many important jobs keeping our country going. Many of them have never been to university, but they pay the taxes to allow others to go to university.

Life is about fairness. This bill also attends to fairness, and I commend the bill.