Senate debates Bills

Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026; In Committee


Mehreen Faruqi

Mehreen Faruqi NSW, Australian Greens

10:08 am

I move:

(1) Schedule 1, item 59, page 41 (line 23), omit "at the time the person enrols in the unit,".

This amendment is about the timing of low socioeconomic status—or SES—applications. Again, for a bill that the Albanese government has marketed as being all about equity, an understanding of how disadvantage operates and impacts on student lives was sorely missing from this bill. Universities, staff and academics all criticised the profound inequity in the bill, especially when calculating the applicability of needs based funding and a student's low SES at the time the person enrolled in the unit. This means that the low-SES student living in a regional area who moves to the inner city for university will apparently no longer be disadvantaged.

This perverse position should really never have made it into the bill and into parliament. This Greens amendment will remove the words 'at the time the person enrols in the unit,' that precedes 'the person is a low SES student'. The government has, appropriately, agreed to support this amendment to ensure that low-SES regional students who move for university are not excluded from much-needed support. This will make the bill more sensible and more equitable and will remove any ambiguity around who is a low-SES student and who isn't just because of where they live and where they might have moved from.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move Greens amendments on sheet 4055 together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 6 (line 18) to page 7 (line 28), omit subsection 30-20, substitute:

30-20 Requirements for allocations to Table A providers

Number of places that must be allocated

(1) A *Table A provider's *domestic student profile for a year must be equal to:

(a) if at any time during the year, a mission based compact under Division 2 of Part 3 of the *ATEC Act was in force between the *ATEC and the provider—the sum of:

(i) the *core student load for the provider for the year; and

(ii) the *additional growth allocation (if any) for the provider for the year; or

(b) otherwise—the core student load for the provider for the year.

Places for particular higher education courses

(2) The allocation must not specify that a number of the Commonwealth supported places in the provider's *domestic student profile are for a particular *higher education course or kind of higher education course.

(2) Schedule 1, item 2, page 8 (lines 27 to 32), section 30-30 to be opposed.

(3) Schedule 1, item 5, page 12 (lines 24 and 25), omit "other than *designated higher education courses (see subsection (2))".

(4) Schedule 1, item 5, page 12 (lines 26 and 27), omit paragraph 33-5(1)(b).

(5) Schedule 1, item 5, page 13 (lines 2 and 3), omit "other than designated higher education courses".

(6) Schedule 1, item 5, page 13 (line 5), omit "other than *designated higher education courses".

(7) Schedule 1, item 5, page 14 (line 13) to page 16 (line 29), omit subsections 33-5(3) to (7), substitute:

(3) If the *number of Commonwealth supported places provided by the provider in *higher education courses during the year exceeds the provider's *domestic student profile for the year, then the amount for those courses is the amount worked out by multiplying:

(a) the provider's *domestic student profile for the year; by

(b) the provider's *average cluster rate for those courses for the year.

(8) Schedule 1, item 6, page 25 (lines 15 and 16), omit "other than *designated higher education courses".

(9) Schedule 1, item 6, page 25 (line 17), omit paragraph 33-15(2)(b).

(10) Schedule 1, item 10, page 26 (lines 1 to 3), to be opposed.

(11) Schedule 1, item 12, page 26 (lines 7 and 8), to be opposed.

(12) Schedule 1, item 31, page 35 (lines 1 and 2), omit the definition of "designated courses profile".

These amendments remove the ability for the minister to set specific courses as designated higher education courses. With this power, the minister would have been able to set the Commonwealth supported place allocations to zero for a specific degree. Ministers change, and any future minister could do that. Frankly, it is not hard to imagine a world under One Nation or the coalition where the minister decides that art degrees are too woke and that no student can study them. No minister should be able to tell students what they can and cannot study. We saw what the coalition government did with Job-ready Graduates. They made art degrees so expensive that students either don't do them or come out with tens of thousands of dollars of debt if they do deign to study them. These Greens amendments remove every reference to designated higher education courses and strip the minister of this power. These amendments, I am happy to report, will be supported by the government.

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