Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak 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. These bills, which we are debating here this evening, will give effect to the Morrison coalition government's decision to implement increased cost recovery for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, which was announced in the 2018-19 budget.

As many of my colleagues have mentioned here this evening, the government has delayed the introduction of increased cost recovery for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency on several occasions due to external factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic. At present, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency cost-recovery levels are very low, at around 15 per cent of total costs, and the taxpayer currently bears the burden of funding the vast majority of TEQSA's regulatory activities. I should say, here, I will be referring to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency as TEQSA from here on in.

The increased cost recovery for TEQSA will involve increasing its application based fees, to recover the true cost of these activities. The increase to application based fees will be enabled by a new fees determination, to be issued by TEQSA itself, and will introduce a new annual charge on higher education providers to recover the cost of TEQSA's risk monitoring and regulatory oversight activities. The new charge is the subject of these bills. Later in my contribution, this evening, I will go into some of those regulatory activities that TEQSA undertakes. It is incredibly important work that TEQSA does regulating our higher education sector in this country. They should be appropriately resourced to do that work.

I have some concerns about how universities are complying with the legislative framework with which they should comply, and I certainly have views on TEQSA's role in ensuring compliance. It should also be noted that TEQSA will seek stakeholder feedback on a draft cost-recovery implementation statement, consistent with the Australian government's cost-recovery guidelines. This will be phased in over three years to moderate the immediate financial impact.

There are two bills that we are debating here concurrently tonight. The charges bill will enable a new annual charge to be collected from registered higher education providers—to those listening along at home, that most usually refers to our universities—to recover the costs of TEQSA's risk monitoring, compliance monitoring and investigations, complaint management, stakeholder engagement and other regulatory oversight activities. These costs are not currently recovered by TEQSA and are borne by the taxpayer. The cost-recovery bill will amend the TEQSA Act to enable TEQSA to levy the annual charge created by the charges bill, which I just mentioned.

TEQSA has an incredibly important role to play in ensuring our higher education system in Australia is of an internationally high standard. Universities play an increasingly influential role in Australia and, having listened to contributions from across the chamber and on my own side this evening, I think we can all agree that universities play an important role. Since the early 1990s the number of students in higher education has more than doubled. Around 40 per cent of Australians now have a bachelor's degree or higher. With the influx of international students coming to Australia to study in recent decades, higher education has also become one of our biggest exports.

Undoubtedly, that industry and the business model universities have developed as a result of its growth are under pressure due to the impact of COVID-19 and the inability of international students to come to Australia since the beginning of 2020. But it's critical that Australian universities maintain strong standards of academic rigour, and TEQSA has a significant role to play here in regulating our universities so they do maintain those very strong standards. Australian taxpayers invest a huge amount of money into our universities and to support Australians to undertake higher education. In return for that investment, the core duty of universities is to provide a relevant, rigorous and challenging education to anyone who chooses to go to university. Some may go to university to pursue higher learning based on an interest, for personal growth or some sort of passion, but in the main most people go to university to learn and train for a career. Those students need our universities to be delivering the highest-quality education, and our nation needs those students to be coming out of university well equipped to join the workforce, fill skills gaps and, hopefully, create and build businesses and job opportunities for others.

I've been a little disappointed by some of the rhetoric on the opposition benches tonight. They were trying to say that these bills are about undermining the quality of what universities are providing to students. I think we can all agree that universities have an important role to play in educating Australians. It puzzles me that those on the opposite side don't understand how these bills that we are debating here tonight, which support TEQSA to undertake its regulatory activities, actually strengthen the quality of the education that our young Australians—or all Australians—are being provided with.

One concern that, unfortunately, continues to arise from our university sector is a worrying lack of commitment to free speech and academic freedom. Again, this is an area where TEQSA has a role to play. Indeed, this government has ensured that TEQSA has a role to play in developing the French Model Code and ensuring that universities are complying with that code. Freedom of speech and academic freedom are fundamentally important to the delivery of a quality higher education. Students at universities, particularly but not only in disciplines such as humanities and the law, must be exposed to a range of different perspectives, including those which challenge their preconceived notions. This is a growing issue and something that I spoke about in my maiden speech to the Senate just over two years ago. Unfortunately, since then we have been hearing more and more stories of university campuses becoming havens to groupthink authoritarianism and cancel culture.

I want to pay credit to the government and the Minister for Education and Youth, Alan Tudge, for recognising this as a major concern. I should note that the education minister preceding Mr Tudge, Dan Tehan, also played a significant role in this piece of work. Both of those ministers have taken steps to develop and implement a model code for academic freedom and free speech for Australian universities—the French Model Code, as I alluded to earlier. Unfortunately, though, we've subsequently seen very poor take-up of that code. It seems that while some university leaders get it, there are many others who don't.

The most recent example is the Australian Defence Force being prevented from setting up a stall at the market day of the Australian National University, just down the road. Senator Seselja, shame! The university has thrown its hands up in the air and claimed there's nothing that can be done about the ADF being banned from their campus, because it was a student union's decision. Yet these student unions are recipients of significant amounts of funding through their universities by virtue of the student services and amenities fee. If students want to protest or make the case against the ADF being able to have a stall at a university, that's perfectly fine; they are more than welcome to do that. But the ADF is a hugely respected institution in Australia. It is highly unlikely that the view that the ADF having a stall at the university equates to supporting militarism, as was claimed by the student union, is shared by all of the students at the university, who pay the student services and amenities fee and fund the student union. In fact, I suspect many students would have relatives and family who have served in our defence forces and have the greatest respect for what the ADF and our defence personnel do to maintain peace and security in our region and ensure that we can go to university and have the freedoms that we do in this country.

Deferring to the power of student union is just one way in which many universities seem to lack a commitment to free speech. In June this year, I was shocked to read comments in a paper from the University of Melbourne's vice-chancellor about the university's plan to further water down its free speech policy. In defending this move, the vice-chancellor referred to the damage and harm caused by questions being pursued on the topics of sex and gender and claimed that the emotional distress and anguish caused by inappropriate words being spoken and written is very real. Such arguments are completely incompatible with both free speech and the pursuit of academic learning. If any point of view can be silenced simply by making a claim that the opinion in question causes someone distress and harm, there is no limit to the number of average people with normal, everyday views that you can silence. All you need to do to shut down debate is claim oppression and have a Twitter account. It's a levelling up of the well-known tactic of seeking redress for being offended. These days, if someone has a different opinion, you haven't just been offended; you've been harmed. Due process, proper scrutiny of claims and any concept of open debate go out the window, as administrators, bureaucrats and, sadly, Australia's universities rush to protect themselves from claims that they have failed to provide a safe environment.

How can a university be committed to free speech and academic freedom while a vice-chancellor is speaking about the damage and harm of questions being pursued and inappropriate words being spoken or written? I raised this question with the department of education in Senate estimates, and I was amazed to receive from the department a response effectively dismissing my concern about the free-speech impacts of the statements by the vice-chancellor on the University of Melbourne's policies. That's why the bills that we're discussing here this evening are so important. TEQSA has an incredibly important role to play, going forward, in the adherence of universities to their free-speech obligations. I certainly hope that TEQSA is prepared to look a little more closely than the department has at the obvious threats to free speech like the ones I have just mentioned here this evening.

In summary, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Charges) Bill 2021 and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2021, are important bills. They will give effect to the government's decision to implement increased cost recovery for TEQSA, which was initially delayed due to external factors including the COVID-19 pandemic. It's incredibly important that we have a well-resourced and efficiently resourced regulatory body for the higher education providers in this country.

In my first contribution in this place two years ago, I raised my concern about the erosion of academic freedom on our university campuses. I mentioned that 10 years ago, when I was studying at university, while my views might have been dismissed by my fellow students—most of them of a different political ilk to me, and they were dismissed on the basis of my own political ilk—at least we were able to have a conversation. I fear that at our university campuses now the conversations, the debates, are not happening. That results in graduates that are only ever provided with one perspective on the world. Isn't the very reason people go to university to expand their horizons, to expose themselves to new ideas? Because it is by exposing yourself to new ideas and to different points of view that you can develop a better understanding of how you think the world operates.

If we want our university graduates coming out of higher education with a sound, robust idea of where their place is in the world and how they are going to impact on their community, then we need bodies like TEQSA willing to ensure that our universities are places that encourage free academic inquiry. If that isn't the case, if our university students can't have the debate, if our universities aren't encouraged to provide students with the opportunity and the space to have that debate, then that is a very sorry state of affairs for free speech in this country and on our university campuses. I feel very strongly about this, as I'm sure you can tell. On that basis, I commend these two bills that we're debating this evening to the Senate.