Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Charges) Bill 2021 and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2021. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, TEQSA, as the national regulator of our universities, plays a very important role in maintaining the quality of our nation's higher education. Australia has world-class universities, thanks in no small part to the regulating work that TEQSA does. These bills will continue to support this work by enabling TEQSA to charge universities an annual fee for the work that it does. This will take the monetary burden off the taxpayer and create a self-sustaining system between universities and their regulator to keep higher education in Australia strong.

The importance of having high-quality and robust universities cannot be overstated. Higher education shapes the minds of young people and prepares them to be productive and contributing members of society. University students get the opportunity to expand their minds and learn to think critically, which is very important to being a good citizen of the world. Education is often the difference between developed and undeveloped countries. This is why keeping universities operating at a high standard remains a priority for this government. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency is the government's authority for doing this and ensuring continuing high standards at our universities.

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency does the work of registering higher education providers, accrediting courses where self-accreditation has not been given and regulating providers to ensure they are delivering best practice. Any new provider of higher education must first register and then renew their registration once every seven years. Throughout that time TEQSA conducts regular compliance and quality assessments and also collects and disseminates information relating to higher education and best practice.

Because of the essential work that happens it's important that TEQSA gets the money it needs to function. At the moment this money is coming from the taxpayer. The purpose of these bills is to transition TEQSA's cost recovery to come from universities, as the beneficiaries of its services. At the moment only 15 per cent of total cost is being recovered from the sector. Over the next three years this will transition to 100 per cent so that TEQSA can become a self-sustaining system. It makes sense for universities to pay for the services that they are benefiting from and which they need for their industry to remain strong. In addition, it's government policy that regulators be able to recover the full cost of what it takes to deliver their services, so these bills will see the higher education sector come into line with this.

An example of the important work being done is when TEQSA identified and improved the transparency of the admissions process of universities. There was way too much variety and confusing application pathways, which made it difficult and confusing for potential students to apply. TEQSA was able to address the problem by creating an implementation plan that universities adopted which included standardising admissions information, terminology and thresholds, which streamlined the process. This means that potential students can now easily see the admission requirements and compare universities in order to make an informed choice about where they go and whether they can get in. This is just one example of the important regulatory work that TEQSA does and why it needs adequate funding to be able to fulfil its purpose of protecting student interests and the reputation of Australian higher education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a difficult time for the higher education sector because of the loss—