Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

In respect of the government response to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee interim and final reports on quality of governance at Australian higher education providers, I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I'd like to thank my colleagues on the committee, as well as the committee secretariat, for a report that really goes deep into the crisis that universities are facing. The final report exposes the depth and breadth of failed leadership, the corporate rot and the consultant capture decaying our public universities. Arrogant executives indulge in obscene pay packets and big consultancies, feasting on public money, while the people who teach, who research, who support students and who hold the university together are overworked, underpaid and exploited.

On behalf of the Greens, I really do want to thank staff and students across universities who have shown immense courage and commitment, not just by providing evidence to this inquiry but also by refusing to accept the neoliberal corporate culture that pervades our universities. This corporate culture treats staff and students as mere cogs in the wheel of a profit-making university instead of the heart and soul of a public institution. Staff and students and their unions have spoken out in a hostile and intimidatory environment. This inquiry would not have existed without their activism, without their advocacy and without their solidarity. The Greens will continue to amplify their voices in our mission to rebuild universities which are based on equity, democracy and public good.

While the final report is a scathing indictment of the corporatisation of universities and the severity of the crisis at hand, and while the committee report presents very strong evidence on the complete failures of the neoliberal agenda, it really falls short of providing remedies that match the systemic overhaul needed to end the era of managerial bloat and unaccountable, opaque governance. The final report really shows us some horrendous examples of universities and what corporatisation has done to those universities. Two of the very glaring case studies come from ANU and the University of Technology Sydney. They show us how the corporate governance model in universities has utterly failed the public interest test as transparency and accountability are falling by the wayside. For example, the UTS management engaged in bureaucratic contortions to avoid disclosing information.

What is happening at these universities, sadly, is by no means an anomaly. It is a symptom of a rotten model that has spread across the university sector in this country. It is a model built on running universities as businesses where consultant capture and endless restructures have become the norm. KPMG, Nous and other big consultancies feast on public money while the people, as I said earlier, who really uphold and run the universities are run into the ground.

The failures of governance in universities do go hand-in-hand with decades of underfunding by governments, most viciously exemplified by the fee hikes and funding cuts of the job-ready graduates scheme, which have been widely condemned but still not reversed by the Labor government. We know that the Job-ready Graduates Package has increased fees to almost $56,000 for humanities. This is a lifetime of debt that is near impossible for students to pay off. Their whole life is shackled by the weight of this student debt.

We heard from a lot of people during this inquiry, students included. Ms Campbell, a fifth-year student at UTS and the President of the UTS Students' Association, gave this evidence:

At every level, students see how little voice we have in decisions that directly affect our education and how far university leadership has drifted from transparency, accountability and public purpose.

Mr Lee, Vice President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, reported:

… members who are student members on governing bodies have repeatedly talked to us about being treated as second-class members on their respective university councils.

He went on to note:

In some universities, the student members are the only ones who are not remunerated for their time. This is indicative of the levels of respect afforded to student members in the university senates.

This report should be a turning point for how universities operate and for how universities must see themselves not as job factories but as places of learning, of research and of teaching which build the minds of the next generation and which contribute to society as a public good. It is imperative that the government listens to the damning evidence provided in this inquiry, takes seriously the recommendations that are being made by staff and students, and acts with urgency to turn things around, because at the moment the recommendations in the report that the government has offered don't move the dial too much. It is as it always is with the Labor government—just tinkering around the edges. Universities don't need tinkering around the edges. Universities need to be fully publicly funded. Students need access to university which is free. Every single student deserves that and the wiping of debt. And let's get rid of the horrific, punitive, terrible, failed and flawed Job Ready Graduates package with urgency.