Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I tell you what: as a good union official, I never, ever had stats that good. You know why? Because I could not offer incentives; I could not offer inducements; I could not take advantage of people. That is why. And that is exactly what is happening here. Nine thousand students in 10 months—that should have rung alarm bells somewhere, but it did not. And what was being offered? Can you imagine the pressure being applied to those young students? It must have been horrible: 'Sign up now. Sign up today. Sign here. Sign on the dotted line.' Nine thousand students in 10 months should have rung alarm bells somewhere, but it did not.

What were those shonky salespeople of Phoenix saying to those potential students? What on earth was going on? We know from media reports that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has started court proceedings against the private training college Phoenix in the Federal Court. The allegation is of misleading and deceptive behaviour, so what on earth were they promising? What were they saying to those 9,000 students that was misleading and deceptive? One can only imagine.

The ACCC went on to say that there are clearly problems with the federal government's billion-dollar VET FEE-HELP system. I think that, when one government regulator criticises another, we should all sit up and take note. So here we have the ACCC calling into question the VET FEE-HELP system. The ACCC said that it is going to go after the $100 million that Phoenix took from those students—the $100 million of taxpayers' money, the $100 million snatched away from reputable companies that want to offer good, quality training that has now gone.

We know that Phoenix targeted people with intellectual disabilities and, it seems, it targeted people who did not have computer skills with its online courses. What kind of shonky operation is that? We know through our Senate inquiry that online courses are preferred by the shonks and the sharks. They told us that at the Senate inquiry. Why? Because there is much more profit. There are no overheads. You do not have to front up with a teacher and a classroom and a physical presence; you just offer it online. We also know that the parent company of Phoenix, Australian Careers Network, has halted its trading since these reports emerged. It has been halted on the stock exchange for three months. Of course, despite the ACCC saying that it was going to go after Phoenix for that $100 million, Australian Careers Network has said that it will contest that.

In the business pages of our newspapers we hear about one shonky operator fighting with the ACCC, when what is at the heart of this is young people and mature-age students trying to improve their skills. All of that is lost, as the business papers report day in and day out about these shonky operators when really it is about educational opportunities for our young people. So let's get rid of these shonks and these sharks. It is a disastrous outcome that ACN, Australian Careers Network, has halted its trading. What kind of company is that? This is clearly not about vocational education and training; this is about private companies seeking to rip off Australian taxpayers through the VET FEE-HELP scheme. This is fraudulent behaviour that must be stamped out so that we get the quality and the reputation back in the vocational education system. We need a robust system that will stop these rorts starting—not a new bill seeking to rein in rorts once they have started. This is the wrong place to start.

It is not just the shonks, the shysters and the sharks; we know that VET FEE-HELP is accumulating a substantial amount of bad debt. The Grattan Institute told the Senate inquiry that almost half of the VET FEE-HELP debt has become bad debt. The figure they gave was 40 per cent. Forty per cent has become bad debt. What kind of system are we running? It is just throwing good money after bad. It seems that the Turnbull government thinks there is an endless drip of money, a bottomless pit of money. First we had 9,000 students enrolled by a shonky operator in nine months. That did not ring alarm bells anywhere. Then we had a figure of 40 per cent bad debt and that does not ring alarm bells anywhere. That tells me the government has lost the plot. The government is too busy trying to impose a big, fat new GST on everyone to worry about what is happening in education. It is too busy—with its deregulation agenda to let private colleges and other shonks run the system—to notice what is going on here. A 40 per cent debt is a massive debt and it is bad debt, so that means it will not be recovered. That is what we are really talking about here: debt that will never be recovered.

This is not the government's first attempt to fix the VET FEE-HELP scheme. Amendments were made to the act last year and new national standards came into effect on 1 April this year, but they have not stemmed the tide of abuse and exploitation. The system is in crisis on the watch of the Turnbull government. That is what is happening. Senator Birmingham will wax lyrical about everything they are doing, but you cannot talk the talk and not walk the walk. Last week we had the Phoenix Institute in the Federal Court with the ACCC accusing them of fraudulent behaviour, of misleading and deceptive behaviour. That is a pretty strong charge to level at a company.

For months we have heard the government say that its previous changes, the most notable being new national standards that came into effect on 1 April 2015 this year, would fix the problem. They have not fixed the problem. The problem continues. On 1 April—April Fool's Day, it would seem—the then assistant minister for education and training said in a media release, 'The time is up for dodgy marketing agents offering inducements like laptops, meals, vouchers and prizes so that people sign up for VET courses they don't need and incur a debt they cannot repay.' Nine thousand students have been ripped off by Phoenix since 1 April, so what on earth were these standards supposed to do? They certainly did not stop Phoenix.

Since that media release on April Fool's Day, the reports of exploitation have continued. The Age reported on 4 April that brokers were targeting elderly and disabled public housing tenants in Melbourne suburbs and were giving them iPads. Fifteen private colleges were reported to be under investigation for flouting the new standards by offering inducements like laptop scholarships, according to The Age of 16 May. ASQA was forced to defend its conduct in June 2015.

The Senate inquiry was told that brokers were continuing to flout the national standards. That evidence was given to us by the Redfern Legal Centre. The Australian College of Broadway was accused of enrolling a woman for a $28,000 course after convincing her it was free. That was reported in The Australian on 5 August. The Fairfax media continued to report that Careers Australia had enrolled almost 3,000 students using VET FEE-HELP but only 300 had graduated.

These are the shonks and the shysters. These are the people we want to stamp out with the amendments that we have put forward. The government has laughed off the sorts of recommendations that our Senate inquiry put forward, but we believe they are required as part of a robust system. We will continue to have students in this country left without a qualification if the government does not act decisively on this matter once and for all.