Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. Very regrettably, this bill comprises a poor and, frankly, chaotic response to the Universities Accord interim report. It is more about the government being seen to be doing something rather than the Minister for Education, Mr Clare, undertaking cohesive, considered policy reform of the higher education sector, underpinned by evidence based policy and proper consultation.

The coalition does not support this bill because it removes a vital cost-of-living safeguard for Australian university students—the 50 per cent pass rule—which protects students who are failing their course from incurring massive student debt with nothing to show for it. This bill also represents bad policy because it includes a rushed and haphazard support-for-students policy which does not properly support students, whether it be on holding universities to account for deficient courses, ensuring that students complete their courses successfully or keeping students safe on campus. This policy is a totally inadequate response to the many ways the government needs to be stepping up and holding universities to account for every single aspect of their performance in order to put students first. That is the government's No. 1 responsibility—to put students first—and this bill does not do this.

In opposing this bill, I want to make it clear that the opposition does support the extension of regional university centres, which was an important measure of the opposition when we were in government. The regional university centres are a very important part of our support for regional students and one of a raft of many different policies.

I want to turn, firstly, to the 50 per cent pass rule. Under the Job-ready Graduates program, the coalition introduced a provision which required students to maintain a pass rate of 50 per cent or above for units of study they undertake. Students who have a low completion rate and do not meet this requirement lose eligibility for Commonwealth assistance, a Commonwealth supported place, and they must either pay for their course upfront, transfer to another course or withdraw from their studies. The rule commenced on 1 January 2022. A low completion rate is when a student has a fail rate of more than 50 per cent of units of study after he or she has attempted eight or more units of study in a bachelor-level or higher course—or four or more units in a higher education course lower than a bachelor course.

The 50 per cent pass rule was introduced not as a punitive measure but to protect students from accruing massive HECS debts—

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Trying to keep them out of university.

Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

under circumstances where it's highly likely they will not complete their course, safeguarding them from racking up a massive HECS debt without any university qualification to show for it. I will take the interjection from Senator Faruqi, because, as part of this 50 per cent rule, there are very important special circumstances exemptions. Where a student hits difficulties—whether it be illness, a death in the family, some other disadvantage caused by the course provider, financial difficulties, changes to employment or any other relevant circumstance, Senator Faruqi—students can go to their university and say: 'These are my circumstances. The 50 per cent pass rule does not apply to me. But I am now on notice that I do need to make sure that I lift my pass rate to stay in my course, and I would obviously seek this exemption in relation to the rule.'

The 50 per cent pass rule is a rule that the universities hate because, of course, they lose students potentially and also revenue, and it was a measure that was not supported by and large in the interim report. One of the most disappointing aspects of the proposal to abolish the 50 per cent pass rule is that there is no evidence for it. We fought very hard for a Senate inquiry and for public hearings, which were initially opposed by the committee, and we had to bring it into the Senate to have that decision overturned so we could have public hearings. Mr Clare said, in his second reading speech for this bill in the other place:

More than 13,000 students at 27 universities have been hit by this in the past two years, mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds.

We actually know that there is not the data to support that conclusion. This comes from a Universities Australia survey that they asked not be made public because of its statistical unreliability. While they looked at the number of students affected, including those who were at risk of not passing all of their subjects, there is no data to show how many students lost their Commonwealth supported place. So it's very, very disappointing that, when we sought that data from the minister, from the Department of Education, and we wanted the breakdown, to look at the 27 universities and what data each of them had given to Universities Australia, that information was denied, which is wrong. They are under an obligation to provide that information to the Senate committee.

I particularly want to focus on this, because Universities Australia, in its survey, very clearly advised that affected students included those who had been put on a restricted study plan or those who were at risk of being affected, so perhaps students who had failed 30 per cent of their units but had not yet hit the 50 per cent pass rule threshold. This is a very deceptive proposal being put forward, underpinned by very little evidence. The government's attempts to claim that more than 13,000 students have been hit by this rule—effectively the minister was suggesting that these students have lost their Commonwealth supported place—have no credibility.

Also, claims by the government that equity students, including those from disadvantaged or low-SES families, were impacted disproportionately were not borne out in the data that we did receive. For instance, at Curtin University, 1,213 students were affected, which includes students, of course, who were potentially facing the risk of losing their Commonwealth supported place, but only 311 were from equity cohorts—around 25 per cent, or three per cent of total students. So the evidence we have received does not support the government's proposition. To make matters worse, the Senate inquiry established there are no requirements on universities to report the number of students who have lost their CSP. That should be remedied. Unfortunately, this is another example of policy on the run.

I also want to briefly mention the horrific cost-of-living pressures that so many students are facing as a result of Labor's cost-of-living crisis. More than three million Australians had their student debt increased by 7.1 per cent on 1 June this year. So many students can barely pay the rent or the power bill, let alone stay in their course. The government has done nothing to support students who are in crisis. Last year the indexation rate was 3.9 per cent. Next year it's forecast to be around six per cent. So there will be around a 16 per cent increase in student debt, and this measure was a vital measure to ensure that students did not continue to rack up student debt on courses or units of study that they were failing and did not leave university with nothing but massive debt. So I say shame on the government, because the suggestion that the support-for-students policy is an adequate replacement is totally wrong, and it is not borne out by the evidence.

I do want to briefly turn to the support-for-students policy. This is an attempt to patch the glaring hole in student protections for accruing unnecessary HELP debts, which would result if the 50 per cent pass rule were abolished. At the time of the bill's introduction, there were no details about this policy. This policy is an absolute shambles. We've just received the guidelines. These are regulations not encompassed in the bill, which, of course, could be changed or abolished on a whim without parliamentary oversight. The guidelines lack any substance, cohesion or accountability as to how the government and higher education providers will deliver the appropriate support to students to help them succeed in their studies.

In fact, Universities Australia is deeply concerned about this policy on the run. It says it won't achieve the stated policy intent of providing support for students. It will place further reporting requirements on universities, which equates to more red tape and risks diverting resources away from the core aim of supporting students, which universities are already fully committed to doing. There has been no assessment about the regulatory gaps that this policy is seeking to fill. There has been no assessment about the implementation cost. There has been no assessment about whether the universities can even possibly hope to introduce this by 1 January. Universities Australia has said they are deeply concerned about the time line and that, to expect universities to overhaul their existing systems or in some cases to develop entirely new ones—which might require the procurement of new IT systems or the upgrade—is just completely unrealistic. In its statement it says, 'It is our firm view that the guidelines, as they stand, will create additional regulatory burden for universities without driving better outcomes for students.'

It looks like there was some reference to support for students that need protection from sexual violence and sexual harassment. That looks like it was just tacked on the end. The really big issues in relation to protecting students on campus and the safety of students has not been properly addressed at all. That is a complete disgrace.

Less than two weeks ago the minister scrambled, realising that this is just a shambolic mass, and picked up the coalition's proposal that I have prosecuted very strongly over a number of months, for an independent student ombudsman—someone who will independently hold the universities to account and give students the right for redress and the right for justice. That now seems to have been patched together. Apparently that's going to be proposed to education ministers at the next education ministers meeting. But, again, that reflects the utterly incohesive policy in relation to student support. If the minister knows what he was doing, where is the student ombudsman proposal? Why wasn't this part of the bill? Why don't we receive comprehensive support for students? This is an example of the minister trying to be seen to be doing something as a result of the Universities Accord rather, as I said, than delivering cohesive and properly considered policy underpinned by evidence and proper consultation.

I also want to briefly raise concerns about the extension of demand driven funding for Indigenous students. Very disappointingly, the government has not addressed how universities are going to improve Indigenous completion rates. That is very concerning. Why have other equity cohorts not been included in the expansion of these uncapped places? As I said, principally, the minister and the government have got this fundamentally wrong, and this bill should be opposed.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. This bill, while it is a step in the right direction, does fall short of what is actually needed. No-one can deny that our universities in Australia are in deep crisis. Universities are increasingly being run as big corporations where vice-chancellors earn millions and students are funnelled through like cash cows. Funding cuts, fee hikes, systemic wage theft and rampant casualisation have eaten away at the very foundations of our universities. Expensive degrees are leaving students in decades of debt—tens of thousands of dollars of it. From June last year to June this year, student debt increased by a whopping one per cent, just in one year, and it is rising faster than it can be paid off. Unpaid placements and unlivable PhD stipends are pushing students to the limit while the cost of living soars. Staff are in insecure, casualised jobs where they are routinely overworked and underpaid. And university spaces are unsafe, with hundreds of students assaulted every week and nearly one in three staff having experienced sexual harassment.

These crises have continued to worsen for years, and Labor is doing nowhere near enough at the moment to respond. Students and staff are suffering on campuses right now. They cannot wait for months or even years for the uni accords process to first be completed and then be implemented. Tinkering around the edges is not what we need here. Big, bold action is needed to reimagine universities as public places where staff and students can thrive and flourish. Labor can and must do much more right now to lift students out of poverty, improve staff working conditions and make campuses safe for all. We know that universities should be well-funded, democratic places of public good where students have fee-free access to a safe and effective learning environment and staff have secure jobs and excellent pay.

What I want to do is to talk a little bit more about aspects of the bill, about aspects of our education system that need to be reimagined, and about why this bill is a missed opportunity to fix some of these. I will start with Commonwealth supported places for First Nations students. This bill is a really welcome step to improve First Nations university participation by providing Commonwealth supported places for First Nations students in undergrad degrees. But education should be accessible as a lifelong pursuit, and we know that First Nations students experience pretty big financial barriers to participating at all levels of university, including at the postgraduate level. The average cost of postgraduate coursework degrees is $28,000 per year, and a significant amount of literature shows that financial barriers are often the primary reason why the number of First Nations students transitioning from undergraduate to postgraduate education is so low. Students in postgraduate degrees are generally older and have greater family and financial obligations, which makes paying for postgraduate study even more difficult. Current financial support and scholarships are inadequate and not available for part-time students.

So I will be moving a committee of the whole amendment to provide Commonwealth supported places for all First Nations students in postgraduate degrees, in addition to the undergraduate degrees. It makes no sense that we increase that support for First Nations people for undergrad degrees but not for postgraduate ones. The amendment is supported by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association, and it would deliver on the Universities Accord recommendation that all students, including postgraduate coursework students, should have access to sufficient financial support to support their study. Ultimately, university should be free and all student debt wiped, but lowering this financial barrier of entry for First Nations students at all levels of study will be an incredibly important step. If we are serious about improving First Nations university participation and about closing the gap and reducing the disadvantage that First Nations people face in this country, we have to listen to First Nations people and take a step towards reducing educational disadvantage. I hope that my colleagues in this chamber can support this amendment.

I now come to the 50 per cent pass rule. This bill removes the punitive 50 per cent pass rule introduced by the Liberals' Job-ready Graduates package, and that's really good, but the bill does nothing to reverse the absolutely disastrous fee hikes and funding cuts that were introduced at the same time. The Job-ready Graduates package cut government funding for student learning by $1 billion per year and increased student contributions by $414 million per year. Fees for arts and humanities degrees rose by a massive 113 per cent. Women, lower SES and First Nations students are hit the hardest by the fee hikes and the resulting unfair rise in student debt, so excuse me if I am cynical about the coalition then coming in here and crying with concern about the rise of student debt.

Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excuse me! We are concerned.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition is the one that increases student debt by thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Exactly, that is hypocrisy to the limit. If the coalition is really interested in addressing the burden of student debt then come and join the Greens' campaign to make university and TAFE free, to wipe all student debt. You weren't even willing to support the Greens. You opposed us even debating our bill on scrapping indexation. That is what you did, so please spare me this sudden concern right now about students.

Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because it was irresponsible, like so many Greens promises.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Henderson, you literally just had your opportunity to speak. Your interjections are disorderly, please desist.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

University learning and research are a fundamental public good, and students should always be able to study what they want to study, not what the government of the day wants them to study, which is what the coalition was trying to do. Universities should not be seen as job factories but places of knowledge creation which hold power to push society forward. The Job-ready Graduates package was a shameful, shameful, punitive mess that was misguided from the start and must be immediately reversed.

I must say, Labor did speak a big game in opposition to that package when it was introduced, calling the scheme broken beyond repair, but they have done nothing to reverse it; it is a pathetic abdication of responsibility on the government's part. The government should have binned it the second they came into power but there was no action. All that scheme has done is condemn generations of young people to decades of debt and push universities further into strife. It has entrenched gender inequality, as women overwhelmingly study the courses which were hit hardest by fee hikes and are incurring more and more student debt, so it needs to go and it needs to go now.

No-one should ever have to experience sexual violence yet every week hundreds of students experience it in university settings, and nearly one-in-three university staff are sexually harassed. That is completely unacceptable. The government and universities have failed quite miserably in their duty to keep students and staff safe. It is clear the universities cannot be left to regulate themselves. The bill establishes the framework for support for student policy, and the content of the policy is being developed by the department here in parallel. This policy must explicitly address sexual assault and harassment as issues that impact a student's ability to complete their studies. It should require universities to offer academic accommodations for students and provide an appeals and complaints process for when university policies are inadequate or have been applied unfairly. This would be a first step to improving universities' failure to respond to sexual violence, but there is so much more work to be done.

We need a regulatory system that has expert-led oversight of universities, of the actions that universities take to end sexual violence, and meaningful accountability for universities when they fail to keep staff and students safe. We need complaints mechanisms that are trauma-informed, timely and that students can trust, and we need transparency on what each university is doing to respond and prevent sexual violence. Oversight, accountability, complaints avenues and transparency, these are the key functions of a system which are needed to address sexual violence in universities that campaigners like End Rape on Campus and Fair Agenda are calling for, and the government must deliver on that.

TEQSA is meant to be the regulatory agency for higher education but has been totally missing in action on sexual violence. It is shameful that TEQSA has failed to take any meaningful action in response to the countless complaints of sexual violence that have been put to them by students and student groups. We do need an independent review of TEQSA to understand why their regulatory response has failed to do what it was supposed to do. We must also recognise that international student survivors face particular difficulty in getting adequate support from universities, and that's something that needs to be specifically addressed. Every week students and staff are suffering from violence. There are more reports, more working groups and more meetings, and that's not good enough. I think the government needs to act right now to make staff and students safe right now.

University and TAFE should be fee-free for every student, and all student debt should be wiped. You will keep hearing this from me until we get there, because education is a fundamental public good and right. At the moment, more than three million Australians owe in excess of $74 billion in student debt, and this debt is rising faster than it can be paid off. The current annual minimum repayment income is just $51,550, which is only around $5,500 above the annual minimum wage. People are struggling to survive in this cost-of-living crisis. They desperately need this money to use for essentials, not to cover their student debt. It is a terrible political choice by the government to keep this system in place.

As to student placements, I have said this before and I will say it again: they are an exploitation of students. The exploitation of compulsory unpaid placements is putting tens of thousands of students under even more pressure. Students have shared shocking reports of having to choose between putting petrol in the car to get to their placements and having a meal. Unpaid placements are especially common in feminised fields of study, like teaching, nursing and social work, which is further entrenching gender inequality. Even international students are undertaking unpaid placements and are under huge pressure, especially at this time, because of the restrictions on their work rights, and we know how they are struggling to pay their rent or even find a proper place to live. It is also particularly difficult for students with parenting responsibilities and those already marginalised, including First Nations people and migrants. In inquiry after inquiry, the Labor government has heard how desperately in need of support these students are; the message has been loud and clear. All mandatory placements must be paid, and Labor must work with students and experts to explore other reforms to improve the placement system.

Another group of struggling students I want to talk about and shine a light on is PhD students. PhD stipends are not even at $30,000 per year, which is obviously well below the minimum wage. I know that some universities top it up, but data on 189 PhD programs shows that only 42 programs offer above the government stipend, and all do not meet the minimum wage. Students cannot effectively live in dignity in these conditions. Many are forced to quit their PhD programs, rely on their partner's income, cut back on food, or work extra jobs during the night. Despite conducting research full time, PhD students cannot access paid parental leave entitlements as other working parents can. This must change, and the Labor government has the opportunity to do this. They refused it earlier this year, when they voted against the Greens amendment to give PhD students parental leave, but it needs to change.

The last thing I want to say on the bill is about staff. Every month we see job cuts and underpayments at our universities. The corporate university model has completely and truly failed.

I stand in solidarity with the NTEU and their tireless campaigning on many of these issues. Labor must boost funding to universities and ensure this leads to increases in secure and well-paid employment for staff. University staff deserve the best conditions. My second reading amendment goes to the heart of these big, bold changes that we need to make to start addressing the current challenges facing universities. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Government to:

(a) make university and TAFE fee-free for all;

(b) wipe all student debt;

(c) pay students for undertaking mandatory vocational placements;

(d) raise PhD student stipends, and provide paid parental leave to PhD students;

(e) establish independent oversight of universities' actions to end sexual violence, and impose consequences on universities that fail to keep staff and students safe; and

(f) ensure university staff are in secure jobs and paid fair wages."

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I'll say from the outset that it is disappointing to see that the Liberals and Nationals said in the dissenting report on the inquiry into this bill that they are opposed to this bill. However, we shouldn't be surprised. They were responsible for the introduction of the deeply unpopular Job-ready Graduates package. The Job-ready Graduates package massively increased fees for many students. In fact, according to the National Tertiary Education Union's submission, it reduced the Commonwealth contribution per student place on average by 14 per cent. As a result, Australia now ranks as the fourth-worst country in the OECD for public funding of tertiary education. The Job-ready Graduates reforms were widely opposed when they were introduced and rushed, by those opposite, through parliament.

The Tertiary Education Union and Alison Barnes' report made a number of observations regarding the implementation of those reforms: 'It rips billions out of public universities, while unfairly burdening many students with excessive and even lifelong debt. We also predicted that the changes under job-ready guarantees would be unsustainable.' Well, it turns out this was a pretty accurate prediction of the destruction by the Job-ready Graduates package unleashed on the sector.

In May 2023, the ABC reported on a student named Jess who started university in 2021. After the Job-ready Graduates package had been enacted, Jess chose to study arts despite the increasing fees. They reported that her HECS debt at the end of her studies would be $45,000—more than double what it would have been if she had commenced her studies a year earlier.

Bailey Riley, from the National Union of Students, summarised both students and institutions' views of the Job-ready Graduates reforms, saying: 'It's very unusual for universities and student unions to agree, and we all agree that the Job-ready Graduates was in terms of the funding very terrible for students and for universities.' There seems to be pretty clear evidence across the board that it didn't succeed in any of its marks.

Andrew Norton, from the Australian National University, in analysing the impact of the Job-ready Graduates package, told the Australian Financial Review in January 2023:

the Coalition's 2020 Job Ready Graduates package fail to shift student demand into its desired courses—

So not only did the Liberals and Nationals' university reforms make higher education less affordable and less accessible but it even failed to achieve its objective, which was supposed to be pour students into specific courses.

Those opposite have a disturbing anti-higher-education agenda here, because we already know that they are anti-TAFE. The shadow minister for skills and training, Ms Ley, said fee-free TAFE is 'wasteful spending'. The Leader of the Opposition hasn't even said the word TAFE in this place since 2004.

It's also clear that they're opposed to making university more accessible and affordable for middle-class families. In addition to making university more expensive for Australian students, the previous Job-ready Graduates laws also introduced a new rule that revoked Commonwealth assistance from students experiencing difficulties in their studies.

I'm very pleased to say that this bill removes that callous, inconsiderate rule. Since being elected in May 2022, we've started the process of writing the wrongs of those opposite through the Australian Universities Accord process. The interim report, led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC, makes five recommendations for priority action to make a difference to the experience of university students. We are urgently taking action on all five of these recommendations, and this bill deals with two recommendations which require a legislative response.

The first recommendation is removing the 50 per cent pass rule. That was forced upon students in the previous government's deeply unpopular Job-ready Graduates reforms package that was rushed through this place. The Liberals and Nationals' 50 per cent pass rule means that any student who cannot maintain a pass rate of 50 per cent of units studied will automatically lose eligibility for Commonwealth assistance. Let's be clear: the Liberals' and the Nationals' 50 per cent pass rule discriminates against and penalises those who are doing it tough—surprise, surprise! The interim report on the Australian Universities Accord, handed down in July this year, reported that the 50 per cent rule has a disproportionately negative impact on students from poor backgrounds and from the regions. Of course, we don't hear the Nationals saying anything about this. Heaven forbid they start thinking about the regions and the impact on their own constituency! We know that many—not all; there are a few people over there who have a bit of a conscience—on the opposite side don't think about people that are poor, as is clear from the policies they support and put forward.

The removal of this punitive action is supported by advocacy groups and institutions across the sector, including the peak body for the sector, Universities Australia. As of 19 July 2022, 13,000 students at 27 institutions are reported to have been affected by this rule. Its removal is supported by the University of Adelaide, Monash University, University of Technology Sydney, University of the Sunshine Coast, University of New England, University of Newcastle, Queensland University of Technology and Western Sydney University, among others, as well as the National Union of Students, which represents over one million Australian students, and the National Tertiary Education Union, which represents 27,000 academics and university staff. To be clear, not a single witness at the inquiry into this bill was opposed to removing the 50 per cent rule.

The 50 per cent rule is so deeply and widely unpopular that the only people opposed to its removal are those opposite, who introduced the requirement in the first place. They can never admit that they got it wrong. We all heard the former prime minister Scott Morrison finally being named in this place yesterday. They've run away from him for so long, but they still want to stick to his policies. The rule is universally reviled by students, their families, their teachers, student organisations and universities. Fundamentally, it is a policy which punishes people who are disadvantaged by where they live or by their background. The University of Newcastle found that, of the more than 1,000 students impacted by the rule, over 75 per cent were enrolled in enabling pathways, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and first-in-family students. We've had some pretty lively debates over this last week about the 'yes' campaign, and we've heard those opposite talk about 'what practical things we can do'. Well, guess what! This is practical, and you're opposed to it. You're opposed to helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Everyone on the opposite side has to take responsibility, regardless of their history and background.

The 50 per cent rule is a policy that punishes people who have to work long hours to make ends meet while studying as well. It is a policy that punishes those with caring commitments while they are studying. It is a policy that punishes people who experience sudden trauma in their lives, whether it's a death, an illness in the family, a personal injury or anything else that limits the time a student can dedicate to studying. It is a policy that is indefensible, which is why no-one at the inquiry into the bill ever tried to defend it—except Senator Henderson and those opposite. They defended the indefensible, and what rationale did they provide? They said they were worried about students failing courses and racking up student debt. If they were so worried about student debt, why did they pass the Job-ready Graduates bill, which lumped students with the biggest increase to course fees in modern history? They don't care about student debt. They care about punishing students from working families and from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and keeping them out of universities. That's the effect of their policy. That's the reality. That's the practical result.

The Queensland University of Technology Guild's academic advocacy service reported that it has assisted 'a number of students who were extremely distressed about the prospect of being excluded from their course due to not having the means to pay full up-front fees'. Your bank account or what your parents do for work should not determine what educational opportunities are available to Australian students. It reeks of elitism, but those opposite think that revoking Commonwealth funding from students doing it tough is good policy.

The second recommendation this bill addresses is the extension of demand-driven funding to metropolitan First Nations students. Currently, only Indigenous students from regional and remote Australia can access demand-driven places. We want to change that to include Indigenous people living in metropolitan areas, and so do universities across the country. Increasing First Nations access to tertiary education is a priority for our government. It is estimated this measure will double the number of Indigenous students enrolled in universities in a decade. That's real practical change. A decade is the same amount of time the coalition wasted on inaction and making it even harder for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend universities.

The shadow education minister says the coalition are:

… very concerned about the government's decision to reverse the Coalition's 50 per cent pass rule, which was designed to protect students not punish them. We do not want to see more students burdened by massive HECS debts they will not be able to repay.

It seems that those opposite, including Senator Henderson, are quick to forget the systematic way in which they increased the burden on students and their HECS debt. The Liberals and Nationals government increased the average students HECS debt by eight per cent through Job-ready Graduates. They reduced the Commonwealth contribution per student place, on average, by 14 per cent. The tuition fee increased to over 110 per cent for humanities, arts and social science courses, making it more expensive under the previous government to get a degree in social work or journalism than to get a degree in medicine.

The National Teritary Education Union put it best:

Taking these factors into account, the Coalition's opposition to the Bill based on concerns over students' financial wellbeing appears to be at best highly selective, given the impact of the JRG and other changes to HECS-HELP that the former Government enacted.

Senator Henderson says pulling funding from students experiencing difficulty in their studies is a cost-of-living measure. That is quite outrageous! If you're doing it tough, those opposite want to strip away your university funding—but they say it's for your own good. It really sums up their atrocious approach to higher education, whether it's universities or TAFE.

I look forward to continuing to work with the government, on the work this government has started, to ensure that universities are accessible and fair for all Australians.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I'm pleased to stand here and speak on this bill after we finally had the opportunity to examine it through the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. It should be said that initially the Labor Party and the Greens didn't want this bill to have an inquiry. The Selection of Bills Committee report that came here did not include this bill being sent to an inquiry. A typical pattern we're seeing emerge with this government is one of not wanting to open themselves up to proper scrutiny. That is the role of this place here. The reason we have this house of review, the Senate, is to hold inquiries and look at bills to check that they're actually going to meet their stated objectives, to check that they're actually going to deliver effectively and, importantly, to check that there are not going to be adverse impacts on those the bill is designed to impact. It was very disappointing that the government didn't want to hold an inquiry into this bill, but I acknowledge the support of all the crossbench senators. We don't win many votes in this place now that we're in opposition, but this was one vote I was very pleased we were able to win in this place—to amend the Selection of Bills Committee report to ensure this inquiry was able to go ahead.

I thank the committee for the opportunity. We work well together as a committee. While we come at issues from very different perspectives, I think there is a real collegiality in the way we operate. I want to acknowledge the chair for the way that he conducted the hearings and, as deputy chair, I appreciate being able to work with the chair on that. As I said, we come at things from very different perspectives, but we do show respect to each other, including Senator Faruqi and the Greens. I just want to acknowledge that.

We held two constructive public hearings, and I acknowledge that some in the sector do support this bill. However, the gaps that are left that we've been able to expose through the inquiry leave us, as an opposition, in no other position but to oppose this bill. I guess the real key, and the main reason I want people to take home from this, is that there is an alarming lack of evidence to support the changes that are contained in this piece of legislation. The aims of the bill we can find some agreement on, but the way they're going about it, what they're doing and the lack of evidence to back up their decisions are very, very alarming. This is proving to be a pattern and a way of operating for this government. They do it in many other areas. We're seeing it in the committee I am on in the current inquiry into the closing loopholes bill. What we're seeing exposed there is the lack of real evidence behind, and justification for, some of the changes. That's what we're seeing with this bill as well. Policy should always be evidence based, and not based on flimsy evidence pulled out of the air.

The coalition introduced the 50 per cent pass rule to protect students who failed more than half their units from accumulating massive amounts of student debt with nothing to show for it. The shadow minister for education, Senator Henderson, who's still here in the chamber with me, outlined in her remarks the big issue, which is that students are encumbered with significant amounts of debt. That's fine if you've completed your course and gone on and got a job in the area you've been trained for, but if you're constantly failing courses you still end up with the debt. That's not going to help you get a job, so you're never going to be able to properly repay that. This is a big issue.

Students should be directed and cautioned of the fact that they'll be withdrawn from their course if they don't get a minimum pass mark over a period of time. To not have that is really setting a very low expectation. There's an old famous phrase that we shouldn't suffer people the soft bigotry of low expectations. That goes to the very core of my concern about this bill, which is that we're setting too low expectations for students that it's going to be okay. It would be fine if it was matched with proper support for students, but what we're seeing it that there's not enough going on to provide support to students, and ultimately students are just being left to themselves while accumulating debt with courses they're not able to complete.

Senator Faruqi belled the cat, in my view, with a remark that she made in her contribution before that universities shouldn't be just job factories. Frankly, that's exactly what they should be. They should be job factories. The whole reason for someone undertaking a university course should be so that they can add significant value to themselves, to their education, to their knowledge and to their skills so that they can take those and apply them in a future career. Or maybe they're in a career and they're wanting to grow in their knowledge and experience, so undertaking a university course leading them into a better and higher paying job is a good thing. That's really what it should be. That's primarily what the universities should be about. That's what public funding going into supporting students to be able to undertake these courses should also be aimed at. We shouldn't just be funding students to undertake leisure courses—things that just pique their interest in a fanciful sort of pursuit. They should be about research. They should be about developing a body of knowledge that's necessary for the future prosperity of our nation. That is what universities should be about. They shouldn't just be about allowing people to undertake a course to fulfil an ideological dream they might have. They have to be about real, tangible, hard things.

This bill has too many gaps in it. There's not enough evidence to back up the measures in it. The Senate inquiry— which, ultimately, the government didn't want us to have—revealed that the department went to Universities Australia, which conducted an informal survey of its members, and it came back with a number that Minister Clare is currently taking as gospel. When we asked what the evidence was behind this, the committee was told that a survey was done. The minister is using the results of that survey to justify this bill.

Universities Australia provided two key caveats. Firstly, they said that the data was 'indicative only'. So it's not concrete; it's not something that you can hang your hat on. That's the first thing. It asked providers for the number of students affected by the rule. 'Affected' did not mean that students lost their Commonwealth supported place. It also included those students at risk of being affected by the rule. So what's the problem we're trying to fix? Are we counting the number of students that were actually impacted by the 50 per cent pass rule and that actually did lose their Commonwealth supported place? Or were they measuring people that could have potentially been impacted by it? We found that it was the latter. They were people that were at risk of being affected by the rule. I cast no aspersions over UA. They do terrific work across the sector. But, by their own admission, the majority of students did not lose their place.

The coalition asked for evidence, provided to the department, but we were told that it simply did not exist. And it was a legislative requirement for the department to collect this data. Claims that this rule is punitive or disproportionately affected students from equity cohorts are also not based on any facts or numbers but, instead, on anecdotal data. If there were real evidence to say this is what was happening and equity students, in particular, were being impacted, we wouldn't be having this argument. But there's no data to support that claim. That is our issue. So don't come in here with legislation that doesn't actually match the reality of what is going on. If there are serious needs and serious issues, for sure, bring that in and show the evidence. It would then be very hard to argue against it.

I fear that we are lowering expectations. We are saying to students undertaking these courses that, by this sort of measure, it doesn't matter. I don't know about you, but when I was studying, you had to get at least 50 per cent, and, if you only just got 50 per cent, you were barely getting through. We're lowering the expectations. What is going on in this country? What is going on in our education system that we can't have higher expectations? Scrapping the rule is a knee-jerk overreaction by the minister. It's a rule that has been in place for barely a year. It will leave students vulnerable, without a new safety net. We know that the government has fudged the numbers and that it does not have the evidence to back its decision to scrap this rule. Labor only wants to throw this rule out because it knows it's getting a failing grade in education. That's what they're facing. If anyone's failing, it's the Labor Party—in terms of their grip on putting forward effective policies that will make a difference in our education sector.

I want to talk about student wellbeing and safety measures. We know that student wellbeing and safety deserves more than half-baked policy made up on the fly. Again, that's what this government's doing. How do we know that? Well, we know that, in the bill, there were measures to provide support for wellbeing and safety. But, when we actually went through it, we found out it was just a blank piece of paper; there was nothing there. To anyone listening: I'm not exaggerating; there was nothing there. So this parliament is being asked to put in place legislation for something that the government will, in the future, put in detail. Through the inquiry, we were able to highlight this fact.

You'd have to say that, on any analysis, the minister was dragged into providing some detail, and that was only after pushback from the sector as well. When we asked the sector: 'Do you support this measure to provide support for student wellbeing and safety?' they said: 'Well, we don't actually know. We can't, in all conscience, give you any substantial comment because we haven't seen the detail.' Because of their advocacy, and through our support, the government has provided some detail, but it's simply not enough. There needs to be more time for proper consultation on this, and just rushing a time line for implementation of this important measure is very, very concerning.

Concerns from the sector included not just the lack of consultation and the rushed time line for the implementation, but also the potential for regulatory overlap and inconsistency—this is the problem, when you don't properly spell things out—and that's going to be a big problem. Concerns included also the duplication in reporting and regulation, leading to more red tape and administrative burden for universities. Universities should be focused not on paperwork but on educating their students and providing a safe and supportive learning environment. That's what they should be focused on. Let's not burden them with more red tape and regulation.

But, in classic Labor fashion, the only thing that they were clear on was that they would fine universities $16,500 for noncompliance with a scheme that they didn't even have any detail on. So they're going to be fined, but they don't know what they're actually going to be measured against!

This is unacceptable. This bill is half-baked. There are some sentiments in it that I can agree with, but the implementation of it is poor, and it's just demonstrating the lack of understanding that this government has.

The:

Thank you, Senator O'Sullivan. You've got just under two minutes, Senator Waters.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023, and I endorse and echo the comments made by Greens Deputy Leader Senator Faruqi. Overall, this is a positive bill. We do welcome the changes to improve access to universities for First Nations students and to support students who might be struggling to complete their units. However, it is a missed opportunity to act on what we consider to be the most urgent issues in higher ed: making university free; wiping student debt, or, at the very least, easing the student debt crisis by abolishing indexation and raising the minimum repayment income to the median wage; raising stipends for PhD students to at least the minimum wage; and of course, crucially, keeping students safe from sexual assault.

The rates of sexual assault on university campuses and in residential halls are horrific. Two hundred and seventy-five students are reporting assaults on campuses across the country, every week—275 students, every week! That was according to the 2021 National Student Safety Survey. That survey was done during COVID lockdowns, when most students weren't even living on campus, so we know the rates are even higher.

We did have Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins's report into this, the Change the course report, in 2017, but it was largely ignored by the universities. We recently had the consent laws inquiry, run by the Senate, which shone a light on sexual violence on campus in particular, and, thanks to the tireless efforts of advocates like End Rape on Campus, Fair Agenda and the STOP Campaign, pressure has mounted. That pressure led, earlier this month, to the education minister's reportedly considering establishing a national independent student ombudsman. Those advocates have long called for an independent taskforce on sexual violence. Whatever you call it, whether it's a taskforce or an ombudsman, it must be robust and it must have four key criteria to actually improve student safety. When I'm in continuation I will regale you all with those four points.

Debate interrupted.