David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that, but I just wanted to bring you back to the Australian Universities Accord. From my reading of it, the very first recommendation, the first mention of reform, is replacing the Job-ready Graduates Package. And I'd just like to impress on the Senate how urgent this task is. It's all good to be wiping 20 per cent of student debt, but, going forward, where is the equity in our system? Why are we penalising students that happen to choose certain courses that are now double the price? Where is the courage from the Albanese government to take on hard reform?

I want to read for the Senate what the universities accord had to say about replacing the Job-ready Graduates Package:

The JRG package needs to be replaced. Its purpose of providing price signals to influence student subject choices has failed—

Labor told us this when they were in opposition. We're now into their second term, and JRG remains in universities—

Only 1.5% of students applied to enrol in courses they would not have applied for under the pre JRG student contribution arrangements. It has left some students facing extremely high student contributions and large HELP debts that do not reflect their future earning potential, and tilted the overall cost burden of higher education further on to students and away from the Australian Government.

There is obviously a cost to reforming JRG. The government is sort of acknowledging that by wiping 20 per cent of student debt. But this is the job of government. Surely, that is why governments are elected: to actually take on hard reform. To go back to the accord:

Particularly significant was the 113% rise in student contributions for students studying communications, humanities, other society and culture, and human movement. By cutting student and Commonwealth contributions in other disciplines, the JRG package also reduced the amount of funding available to … engineering and mathematics. The Review recommends that the Australian Government reduce student contributions for those affected by JRG and moves towards a student contribution system based on potential lifetime earnings.

Yes, this isn't simple—there's work to do here—but, please, I urge the Albanese Labor government to get cracking on this. You've had three years. We can't just kick this to another body and have another review. This is urgent for our higher education sector. You just have to look across the country. It is struggling. It is struggling to actually undertake its mission of educating Australians and undertaking really important research.

We went through this with what I think was the really ill-conceived ESOS bill, where, after a long time of having had funding taken away from them, universities have gone out and relied on international students for cross-subsidisation, for everything from funding research to—if you look at universities like Western Sydney University—equity programs, providing lunch and food pantries to students who are food insecure. We're not listening to them and saying, 'Let's make your funding model sustainable.' So, again, Minister, could you maybe just outline to the Senate what the government's proposed process and timeline is for reforming JRG.