Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This isn't really a serious bill, and it's a bit disappointing that we're spending our time on it this morning. It's more of an exercise in virtue signalling divorced from reality and, perhaps, an opportunity for some media reels for the Greens. What does the Higher Education Support Amendment (End Dirty University Partnerships) Bill 2025 do? Essentially, it says that, if you are a university that receives funding under part 2-2 of the Higher Education Support Act, you need to disclose and divest if you operate in the industries that the Greens don't like. They term them under the bill as 'industries that are harmful or considered detrimental to the public good'. But I'm assuming that the Greens make a determination about what those actual industries are.

It is a bill that's actually designed to remove money from research, prevent innovation and give Australian universities a competitive disadvantage—not a competitive advantage, but a competitive disadvantage—when it comes to capitalising on the talents, skills and ideas, the brains trust, of our universities. What this bill does is list a series of bodies that are so-called prohibited entities. What is a prohibited entity? To put it bluntly, it's any corporation that is engaging in business undertaking or in relation to fossil fuels, gambling, tobacco, weapons or any other endeavour that the Greens do not like, which, in the legislative terms, means an entity prescribed by the minister for the purposes of the amendment clause 36-75(3) of the Higher Education Support Act. I'll come back to that and how vague and unworkable it is in a minute.

Essentially, what item 1 of the bill requires is that any university that receives a grant under the relevant part must provide a disclosure report if it enters into a partnership or makes an investment in one of those entities. It's not as simple as they'd like you to believe it is. This obligation is proposed in divisions 19 to 68 of the Higher Education Support Act. There's also an obligation to disclose current arrangements in that proposed section, which I'll leave for another time because it's a little bit too complicated.

Much of this bill actually makes no sense, is unworkable in practice or creates barriers in practice—like under item 2 of the bill, 'providers are prohibited from entering into a partnership with or making an investment', as I said. But it actually says that, when they disclose the fact that they've broken this law, nothing actually happens. There's no penalty and there are no consequences. You just have to declare that you've broken the law, and then nothing happens, which is a bit silly, if you ask me. But let's go on.

Clause 36-75(2) says a university must not appoint a person to its governing body if they have an investment in or are a member of a board of a prohibited entity. How would you know that? How would you actually know that? This bill doesn't actually, say, carve out superannuation, so you'd actually have to go through and have a look at the individual superannuation investments of every single proposed board member to ensure that one of the funds hadn't invested in one of these prohibited entities. It doesn't sound very sensible to me.

Then it says that a minister can make an instrument prescribing any business entity and say whether it's harmful, but then subsection 4 says that the instrument must be ratified by resolution of each house of parliament. On the one hand, it's saying the minister can do it, but then the House and the Senate have to agree, so what's the point of that? You may as well just pass a new bill. So that doesn't make a lot of sense either.

Let's just go through some of the unworkable elements of this bill. I want to start with some of the entities that under this bill would be prohibited and some of the unintended consequences or consequences that have not been considered. Let's go with the 'weapons industry' definition. By definition in this bill, the 'weapons industry' means:

(a) a corporation engaged in a business undertaking that involves the manufacture or sale of weapons, weapon parts or armaments; or

(b) a related body corporate of a corporation referred to in paragraph (a).

So how does this work in practice? We have to define the weapon. There is no real definition. There is nothing in the legislation which explains what it means to be involved in the manufacture or sale of weapons, parts or armaments. It's hopelessly vague. Kitchen knives are weapons, and so are baseball bats. Radios are integral to modern armed conflicts. Are they weapons? They haven't been defined under this bill. We don't know. Cars are frequently used as a mobility platform on which weapons systems are mounted. Are they captured under this proposed bill? Chemicals can be weapons. Indeed, chemical warfare is one of the most horrific forms of modern warfare. Satellites and communications infrastructure are used across the modern battle space to direct and control the current of battle. Are they weapons? Are they captured under this proposed bill? Artificial intelligence, quantum computing and machine learning are all components that go into the way modern wars are fought in the electronic and cyberspace domains. Senator Faruqi herself spoke of drones. All of these rely on networks provided by internet service providers and others. Are they too weapons that are going to be captured under this bill? After all, anything can be weaponised.

Does this mean universities are prohibited from partnerships with Coles, Woolworths, and Big W because they sell kitchen knives and baseball bats? Does it mean universities cannot partner with or invest in organisations that make chemicals? Does it mean universities should stay out of quantum computing, space technology, artificial intelligence and computer science, all of which can be weaponised? We don't know. It's hopelessly broad and entirely unworkable. Presumably, under the Greens' vision of the world, universities must remain cloistered in splendid isolation, divorced from the realities of the real world, in which we must all operate.

Worse still, universities cannot appoint anyone to their board if that person has an investment in one of those entities. The word 'investment' is defined as 'any mode of application of money or financial assets for the purpose of gaining a return'. As I noted previously, this would, of course, include superannuation. By extension, if any individual has a superannuation account and that superannuation account owns shares in some corporation which falls within the scope of the provision, which is very broad, they cannot serve on a university board. To be frank, this is a little bit sloppy, and it's replicated in respect of other industries that are also prohibited. This would, again, capture Woolworths, Coles, most chemists and countless other outlets that sell tobacco, like a petrol station, a local tobacconist—you name it. Under the Greens' vision of the world, a university can't work with Woolworths, Coles or a chemist, and a person who owns shares in any one of those entities, even unknowingly—perhaps through their super fund—can never sit on a university board.

Who else could be captured under this bill? Well, a gambling industry entity means any corporation that involves 'wagering, betting or other gambling', so that rules out a small business, a newsagent who sells scratchies, every school fete that runs a chocolate wheel, any pub or club that maybe has a Friday night meat tray raffle. They're all captured under the broad scope of this bill. A prohibited fossil fuel business entity means a corporation that involves 'the exploration, prospecting, discovery, development, extraction or exportation of fossil fuels'. That rules out any logistics company that transports fuel, any shipping company, any mining company and really just about anyone else who has a link to the fossil fuel supply chain. Again, if your super fund has an investment in BHP, you are not a fit and proper person to sit on a university board.

Imagine if these categories were extended more broadly and it was determined that any business undertaking or engaged in undertaking habitat destruction could be proscribed because it is harmful to the Australian community. Presumably, any entity that, say, bulldozed koala habitats to build investment properties, like Senator Faruqi famously did, would be a prohibited entity, and any owner could not sit on a university board. I'm using that to just explain the scope of this. It is not narrow. It is so completely broad that it is entirely impractical and unworkable.

I could go on, but I'm not going to. This bill is not fit for purpose. It's basically an attempt to prevent universities from doing anything with anyone that the Greens do not like. There is no trust placed in the institutions themselves, who might be acting with the highest standards of ethics and integrity, and who hold the actual purpose of research at the heart of what they are trying to do. At worst, this is probably a really weird moral smear that essentially says that anyone that has any kind of financial relationships with one of these incredibly broad arrangements is unfit to serve on a university board. I think that this is something that probably shouldn't have seen the light of day. This bill serves no purpose other than to allow a little bit of virtue signalling. It's the beat of a drum for the rank-and-file members of the Greens to make some social media videos. It genuinely does not warrant the consideration or the approval of this chamber.