Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 and the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025. These are the bills which establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, known as ATEC. That's how I'll refer to it. Let me say this from the very outset. These bills are not in a state fit to pass this parliament. They are replete with problems at every level, from design flaws to major technical operational errors. The bills have been criticised right across the board. To put it bluntly, these bills are not what Australians need right now. This bill has very few friends. Maybe it will have some friends here in this place tonight and pass this parliament, but out there, in the real world, among providers and universities in the higher ed sector, it does not have the kind of support that would justify this bill probably being rushed through tonight. I've only got 3½ more minutes to speak because this bill is subject to the guillotine that we're dealing with tonight.

There is not enough time under the standing orders to do justice to all of the problems with this legislation. There is an attempt to set down in law a national tertiary education objective for Australia, which fails to even mention the words 'teaching', 'learning' or 'research'. There is a fundamental problem that it adds to the already overly regulated sector. There is a decision to spend at least $54 million on a new bureaucracy, not a cent of which will create a single new student place, improve student experience on campus, enhance teaching or deliver new research. There is a decision to bring universities far more tightly under ministerial control than has previously been the case, all while removing parliamentary oversight.

I could go on. The list does go on. But this bill, as I said, is not fit to pass. It's got very few friends. The National Tertiary Education Union has slammed it as a ham-fisted attempt to ram more ideology into our universities and tertiary providers. The NTEU said:

The NTEU believes that this objective does not adequately address the character, nature and purpose of higher education; it makes no reference, for example, to the importance of critical inquiry, academic discovery and discourse, institutional independence or even to academic freedom. Instead, the objectives seek to define tertiary education as part of broader Government policy and could apply to virtually any sector.

When a member of the Liberal Party is quoting from the National Tertiary Education Union in its criticism of the bill, you know that it's got a problem! You know that this bill has some very real problems.

The criticism doesn't stop there. Even the institutions who champion ATEC—and there were some championing the idea, concept and model of ATEC—have slammed the bill. Universities Australia said:

As currently drafted, the Bill does not deliver on the Australian Universities Accord's … aspirations for an independent body to design and drive the longer-term reform agenda for Australia's tertiary system.

Deakin University, ATEC supporter, said this:

… though supportive of an ATEC, and already engaged with the interim body in a productive and meaningful manner, Deakin holds several concerns regarding the proposed legislation. We posit that addressing these concerns, which range from a lack of clarity to missed opportunities to truly achieve the ambitions of establishing such a function, should be a priority.

And then professor of higher education policy at Monash University, Andrew Norton, stated in his submission:

… the ATEC bills should be rejected. They would narrow higher education's purposes. As they stand, they offer universities nothing but additional government control and bureaucracy. Due to ATEC's design flaws, we can have little confidence that it will improve on the current policy framework.

And what are we going to do here tonight? We're probably going to pass it.

So I call on the government to reconsider that position. This is a serious issue. There are serious critics of it. This bill is not fit for purpose. It needs to be amended. We'll be moving some amendments in the committee stage, and I hope that we can get support for those.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025. The Australian Universities Accord final report was released in February last year, and it outlined the blueprint for higher education reform over the next decade and the decade after that. The accord found that the tertiary education system's approach to planning and policymaking is fragmented, lacks collaboration and does not focus on the long-term future.

The evidence was clear: Australia has not been adequately applying the expertise of our higher education system. For too long, we have lacked a single institution responsible for leading and pulling together both higher education and VET to respond to our national needs. The accord highlighted the need for a dedicated national steward to support long-term planning, consistency and improved outcomes for different cohorts.

Establishing the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, the ATEC, was one of the key recommendations of the accord. Through these bills we can deliver on that recommendation. These bills establish the ATEC to be an independent steward for the higher education system. The ATEC will provide advice to government to support long-term planning and publish an annual report on the health and performance of the tertiary system. Let me be clear: the ATEC is not about being a regulator; it's about bringing together the VET and higher education systems, making it easier for students to get the qualifications they need and desire. The ATEC will be empowered to allocate funding under the new managed growth funding system, implement needs based funding within the core funding model, and negotiate mission based compacts to support this diverse, responsive and high-performing sector.

Importantly, the bills ensure that the ATEC will recognise the role of First Nations Australians in the higher education system and improve access and success within it. Through its work, the ATEC will help more students—in particular, those from regional and rural communities—to access university, and it will help them to participate better and succeed when they get there.

The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, which I chair, conducted an inquiry into these bills. Our inquiry spanned three months. It received 70 submissions from a range of stakeholders, including public universities, peak bodies, and staff and student representative organisations. Overall I believe the message was clear: Australia's tertiary education system lacks coordinated leadership and has become fragmented and unable to meet our national higher education needs. Reform is essential. Long-term direction is crucial to the sustainability and consistency within the tertiary sector. A dedicated system steward is needed. A dedicated system steward is overdue.

We know the sector strongly supports the establishment of an ATEC. For that reason, our report recommended that the Senate pass these bills. Over the course of this inquiry we heard evidence that the ATEC has the potential to become one of the most consequential transformations of the Australian higher education sector since the reforms of the eighties. Any further delay in creating a steward would leave the sector without the guidance it so urgently requires.

Establishing the ATEC in law is a significant and substantial reform. It is an overdue reform. The sector needs a steward. All Australians benefit when our higher education system is performing at its best. We can and should have a higher education system that is the envy of the world. That's why we're investing extensively in higher education, driving governance reforms across the sector and delivering further reforms to make it more affordable for Australians to attend university. We've cut the HELP debt of all Australians who have a student loan by 20 per cent, wiping $16 billion worth of student debt. We've established a Commonwealth prac payment for the first time to support teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students while they are completing their practical training at university. We've established a National Student Ombudsman and are implementing a new set of university governance principles.

The Labor Party has always been the party of education. Our government will continue to build a better and fairer higher education system for every Australian. We need to be clear that an ATEC is an essential part of that agenda. An ATEC is what is required to secure and to steward the system. I commend these bills to the Senate.

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

The higher education sector is in crisis. Inquiry after inquiry, report after report, tell the same story, over and over, of the complete failures of a neo-liberal agenda and the corporatisation, the consultant capture and the commercialisation of universities, where the public focused knowledge creation, teaching and research mission of universities has given way to the commodification and marketisation of pubic higher education, to the utter detriment of staff, students and public education.

An Australian Tertiary Education Commission, or ATEC, as envisaged by the accord, has the potential to provide stability and stewardship to the higher education sector. However, the proposal in this bill requires significant changes. The Greens have secured a number of amendments to the bill that will improved ATEC's ability to confront the significant challenges facing the higher education system.

One of the issues with the bill is that it fails to even recognise the public mission of universities. Universities should be places that advance the public good through learning, teaching and research. They should be places to seek knowledge, to research, to debate and for discussion and be places that support the social, civic and educational basis of a society. They should not simply become job factories that churn out graduates.

Another issue raised, nearly unanimously, by stakeholders in the Senate inquiry is the lack of independence of the proposed ATEC. The ATEC must have the teeth and the remit to genuinely guide a sector in crisis with independence. It must be able to do its work frankly and fearlessly. Otherwise, it's just an administrative exercise and risks merely duplicating the Department of Education.

We all know that research is a core function of our higher education system that contributes to the public good by advancing knowledge, technology and society. But this bill has a lack of focus on research, and that is a concern. It will be addressed through Greens amendments, which put research front and centre of the ATEC's mission. The bill abolishes the Higher Education Standards Panel, which currently sits under TEQSA, and provides independent advice on the Higher Education Standards Framework. A Greens amendment will ensure that the functions of the Higher Education Standards Panel, or HESP, and its expertise are transferred to the ATEC—that this function and its expertise don't get lost.

In order to fulfil the public mission of higher education, universities and their leadership must represent the communities that they serve, and they must confront the legacies of imperialism and racism. All campuses must be actively anti-racist, but, unfortunately, we are far from this.

Possibly the most significant concern in this bill is that while it will, perhaps, be Minister Clare's signature reform it neglects to address the punitive Job-ready Graduate scheme, fee hikes and funding cuts—one of the major challenges facing higher education. This policy is responsible for students paying more and more—paying $50,000 for arts degrees—and getting crushed under higher and higher debt. It is this policy that is stopping people from studying what they love. It is this policy that is creating the biggest inequities and unfairness in the higher education system.

When in opposition, Labor called the JRG package 'an act of economic and cultural vandalism'. Given all of this hot air, Prime Minister Albanese should have dumped Morrison's job-ready graduates' fee hikes the second Labor came into power. Instead, we are four years into the Albanese government and today we have another higher education bill but still no change. Labor really is all talk and very little action. They won't even allow the ATEC to give them advice on student contributions, because they know exactly what that advice will say, and this government doesn't want to hear it.

Before politics, I worked in the university sector as an academic and as a researcher. That was my dream job. That was my passion. My passion for higher education has not dimmed one bit since I have come into this place, and it has been personally devastating for me to see the sector get smashed over and over. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission won't fix it all, but the Greens recognise its potential to provide guidance, stability and stewardship to a sector in crisis.

We are pleased that Labor has agreed to many of our amendments to this bill, which will help ensure that the ATEC will be more effective in fulfilling its role, but we are deeply concerned by the government's refusal to ensure that the ATEC examines contributions and actually scrap the JRG. The longer JRG remains, the more students are punished and the more inequitable our higher education system becomes.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must say that the there are some deeply troubling aspects in this bill. I start at the front, in terms of the objective. The legislation proposes a national tertiary education objective that is meant to guide the ATEC in the performance of every function and exercise of every power. Let me read this objective. The objective that's contained in clause 13 of the bill is to:

(a) promote a strong, equitable and resilient democracy; and

(b) drive national, economic and social development and environmental sustainability.

I'm trying to relate that objective, in a precise way, to our tertiary education sector. Reflecting on that bureaucratic language—that objective could apply to almost any institution in this country. I put it to you that, if I were to state that objective outside of the context of this debate and ask any reasonable listener to tell me what the purpose of that objective was, what it was related to, which institution it related to—I suspect an average person would struggle to connect that objective to the tertiary education sector at all. There's no mention of learning. There's no mention of research. There's no mention of teaching. There's no mention of knowledge. There's no mention of critical thinking.

I'm looking again at the definition, the objective—'promote a strong, equitable and resilient democracy and drive national, economic and social development and environmental sustainability'. It's absurd, absolutely absurd. This is the objective of the so-called steward of the higher education system, and it's completely disconnected from the teaching function of a university, its research function, its learning function, its critical thinking function, its knowledge function. It's unmoored. It's unmoored from the purpose for which it's in this bill in terms of our tertiary education system.

I'm not the only one who's noticed this. The National Tertiary Education Union said:

The NTEU believes that this objective does not adequately address the character, nature and purpose of higher education; it makes no reference, for example, to the importance of critical inquiry, academic discovery and discourse, institutional independence or even to academic freedom. Instead, the objectives seek to define tertiary education as part of broader Government policy and could apply to virtually any sector.

That is exactly the point I made, and I challenge the government speakers to take on that point.

Tell me, if this objective were put in any other legislation or on a blank piece of paper and the reader of the objective were asked to connect it with the institution for which it's meant to provide the objective—tell me how you reach that connection with the tertiary education sector, because I can't see it. I'll put some direct questions to the speakers who will follow me and who themselves have benefited from the critical thinking with which they've been inculcated through our tertiary education system. Tell me: Why the objective doesn't refer to teaching? Why doesn't the objective refer to learning? Why doesn't the objective refer to research or knowledge or critical thinking? Why have the concerns of the National Tertiary Education Union, our educators in the tertiary education system, been ignored in this regard? Tell me, because I can't see the reason.

I have other comments and concerns with respect to this bill, but I will say this. It's a great disappointment that, in relation to something where we should be able to get cross-chamber support, for a piece of legislation that's this important—it's a great concern that the government is pressing forward with a piece of legislation that does not achieve its stated objectives.

Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 and the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025.

This is an essential piece of legislation borne out of the Australian Universities Accord, the most comprehensive review of Australia's higher education system in over a decade. This bill is not just a technical measure; it is the legislative foundation for transformative reform. It will establish ATEC, a new, independent steward of our tertiary education system. This is a proud Labor reform, a reform that puts students, equity and national prosperity at the heart of education policy.

For far too long, our tertiary education system has operated in silos, disconnected, fragmented and too often leaving behind the very students that deserve the greatest opportunity. The accord recognised this, recommending a joined-up, strategic and fair system that meets Australia's economic and social needs. The creation of ATEC will be a game changer. It will provide long-term policy and funding certainty for universities and students alike, something the sector has desperately needed. It will drive needs based funding that channels support to students from disadvantaged backgrounds and to regional campuses that carry higher delivery costs. It will improve transparency, data and planning across the tertiary systems so governments, universities and students can invest with confidence. It will support a seamless pathway between VET and higher education, ensuring more Australians can gain the skills that employers need.

Right now, our universities are under pressure. They are operating with thin margins and grappling with costs and stretched resources. Without bold reform, we risk undermining our nation's ability to educate the skilled workforce of tomorrow. We are at a pivotal moment. The target set by the accord that 80 per cent of working-age Australians hold a tertiary qualification by 2050 is an ambitious national objective. To get there, we must act now, not later.

I know some will ask: Why legislate now? Why commit to ATEC? The answer is simple. It is because our universities cannot wait. Our students cannot wait. Our future cannot wait. Already the Albanese government is rolling out accord reforms, including shared funding for placements, preparatory programs and improved support to make higher education more accessible and affordable. But, without formalising ATEC in law, we risk losing the momentum of those gains and, with that, billions in funding and further reform opportunities. This bill won't solve every challenge overnight—no single law can—but it anchors the system in fairness, consistency and long-term vision.

So today I urge the Senate to support this bill. This is not a debate about politics. This is about nation building. Supporting this bill means backing students, giving them clearer pathways to qualifications without unnecessary barriers. It means backing universities, offering policy certainty that allows them to plan, invest and innovate. It means backing regional Australia, ensuring country campuses and regional students are not left behind. It means backing equity and fairness, direct support to those who need it the most. If you want a system that offers opportunity to every Australian regardless of their background, support this bill. Australia needs a strong, competitive tertiary sector. Partner with us in delivering it.

This is another example of the Albanese government backing excellence in education not just in words but in action. It is Labor that is lifting dreams, opening doors and building a future where every Australian can prosper. So let the Senate pass this legislation for our students, for our universities, for Australia's future. I commend the bill to the Senate.

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

by leave—I move the Greens amendment on sheet 3712:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) this bill fails to grapple with the most significant issues facing our higher education sector, namely the impacts of the job-ready graduates package,

(ii) students are being shackled by a lifetime of debt which is making the cost of living crisis worse, locking people out of the housing market, causing people to delay having families and crushing dreams of going to university,

(iii) the student debt system cannot be fixed because student debt should not exist and higher education, like education at every level, is an essential public good that should be free, universal and provided by the government,

(iv) the recent final report of the Racism@Uni Study found that racism 'remains a significant barrier to equity and inclusion in Australian universities', and

(v) universities are being hollowed out by corporatisation and governance failures, while Commonwealth funding continues to slide backwards; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) wipe all student debt and return to free university and TAFE for all,

(ii) urgently reverse the fee hikes and funding cuts of the job-ready graduates package,

(iii) invest in higher education to ensure high-quality public learning, teaching and research, and

(iv) take urgent action to implement the recommendations of the Racism@Uni Study and address racism at universities".

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

I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 and to foreshadow amendments I'll be moving in relation to this legislation. I want to start by thanking colleagues who were on the university governance inquiry for the huge amount of work that they undertook, starting with Senator Sheldon, who helped kick it off, and then Senator Marielle Smith. They both did really impressive work as chair of a committee dealing with a huge range of stakeholders. At times, through that committee's work and at Senate estimates, we were dealing with some pretty difficult subject matters and things could get fairly heated.

I want to acknowledge Senator O'Sullivan, Senator Henderson, Senator Faruqi, Senator Kovacic and Senator Barbara Pocock for their work. I think that some of that work highlighting the deficiencies in governance at universities in this country, starting with some of the concerns we've been hearing from our national university, the ANU, for a long time now, have really strengthened the need for more leadership in this space. I also want to thank the NTEU and the many staff, students, peak bodies and experts who have engaged so closely with me and my office over years now on these critical reforms.

At the outset I want to acknowledge that the establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, is a welcome and necessary step. I thank Minister Clare and his office for their work on this and for bringing it forward. For too long we've had a higher education sector that has lacked coordination and lacked the independent stewardship that is actually required for long-term sustainability, and I think that's really caught up with us now. We're seeing the impact of that at universities across the country.

As has been pointed to in some of the contributions, our universities are critical national institutions. They educate the next generation, they drive innovation and they underpin our economic and social prosperity. So getting the settings right clearly matters. However, if ATEC is to fulfil its promise, it must be more than a new layer of administration. It must be genuinely independent, properly resourced and empowered to provide frank and fearless advice. That's why the second reading amendment I'll be moving makes three key points. First, it notes that the creation of ATEC is positive reform. Second, it recognises that ATEC's long-term effectiveness depends on its independence. This was raised a number of times through the committee process. That means independence in its functions, in its resourcing and in its reporting. Third, it urges ATEC to prioritise one of the most urgent and pressing issues in higher education today: fixing the failed job-ready graduates scheme.

This scheme has distorted student contribution settings, particularly for arts and humanities disciplines. It was rightly slammed by Labor when they were in opposition, but it has unfortunately now been in operation for longer under the Albanese government than it was under the Morrison government, and that is having a huge impact on students and our higher education sector. The universities accord made clear recommendations on this issue, and ATEC must move quickly to progress reform.

I will try to talk about my amendments in committee of the whole if there is time. I would just urge my Senate colleagues to look at amendments and ensure that we actually set the ATEC up for success. I think we need to be really critically looking at student contributions. We hear a lot about intergenerational inequality in this country. We see rising wealth inequality. Actually ensuring that the contributions of students is being looked at by ATEC, I think, is a really important part of setting this up for success.

Charlotte Walker (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about these bills, the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 and the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025. They're about something really important: whether our university system is actually working for people, especially young people. Right now I think a lot of Australians are looking at higher education and thinking that it feels expensive, confusing and disconnected from real life and it doesn't actually have people like them in mind. We ask young people to make huge decisions about their future early. We then tell them education is the pathway to opportunity, to a decent job and to security, but then we give them a system that can feel messy, inconsistent and at times completely out of step with what students and the country need. That is why these bills matter.

The bills started out as a report of the Australian Universities Accord. The Albanese Labor government has implemented 37 of the recommendations so far. This legislation is the next step. It creates the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC—the long-term final boss of the higher education system.

At the moment, uni policy can feel like it does a 180 from one change to the next. There's not always a clear long-term direction. Different parts of the system don't line up properly, and when that happens students are the ones who wear it. They wear it through higher debt, through qualifications that don't always match workforce needs and through barriers that make uni feel out of reach in the first place. These bills are trying to bring a bit more sense, consistency and planning into the system to make things smoother for everyone involved. We can't keep treating education policy like an all-nighter essay—panic driven, last-minute and hoping it somehow passes. It should not be shaped by random short-term thinking; it should be based on what kind of country we want to build, what skills we need and how we make sure people have a fair shot at participating.

That's one of the reasons why I like that these bills put a national objective into law, and that the objective is not about pumping out more graduates for the sake of it; it is about making sure tertiary education supports a strong democracy, economic and social development, and environmental sustainability. It boils down to this: education should help people build decent lives and should help the country meet the challenges ahead—which seems pretty reasonable to me.

But, when you look around, the cracks are obvious. We've got skill shortages in areas we desperately need skills. We've got ongoing inequality in who gets access to higher education and who succeeds once they're there. We've got a gap between universities and vocational education that still makes moving between the two harder than it should be. And we've got students carrying the cost of policy failures they didn't create. There is something genuinely refreshing about setting up a body whose job is to step back, look at the system as a whole and ask: Is it working? Is this fair? Is this sustainable? Are we setting people up well or just hoping for the best? That kind of long-term thinking has been missing.

I also think it matters that these bills put equity front and centre, because talent is everywhere in this country; opportunity is not. There are still too many people, especially students from regional areas, low-income backgrounds and First Nations communities, who face extra barriers getting into higher education and succeeding once they're there. If we're serious about fairness, education can't just be there for people who already know how to navigate the system; it has to work for the people who have been shut out of it too. That's why having a First Nations commissioner is important. That is why having a stronger focus on access and outcomes matters. That is why having someone keeping an eye on whether the system is serving the whole country is fundamental.

There is also a practical side to the bills which makes a lot of sense. Universities will have to be clearer about what they're there to do and what their goals are, and how that lines up with national and local needs—and I don't think that's some outrageous ask. If institutions are receiving public support, it's fair to expect them to be thinking about students, communities, workforce needs and outcomes, not just operating in their own bubble. Some people are worried this could become another layer of bureaucracy. Some are worried it won't be independent enough. Some think the bills don't go far enough. While these are valid things to discuss, for me the big picture is this: the current system is not perfect and pretending it's fine is not a serious option.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contributions to the debate. The Australian Universities Accord was the biggest and broadest review of the higher education system in 15 years. It says that, in the years ahead, more jobs are going to require people with more skills. It says that 60 per cent of Australians working today have a qualification and that that number will need to increase to about 80 per cent by 2050. This means we need more people going to TAFE and more people going to university. The Universities Accord says the only way this will happen is if we break down two big barriers. The first of those is the barrier that has been built up between the vocational education system and the higher education system; the second is the barrier that stops young people from poor families, outer suburbs and regional Australia from going to university.

That's what these bills before us are all about. They formally establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, the ATEC. They set out the ongoing responsibilities of the ATEC: to provide independent, expert advice; to negotiate compacts with individual universities; to get the higher education sector to work more like a system; and to support the vocational education and higher education systems to work more closely together. Its job will be to drive the long-term reform we need across the tertiary education system to deliver better outcomes for students and meet Australia's current and future skills needs. Establishing the ATEC is a key recommendation of the Australian Universities Accord. It is the next important step to real and lasting reform, and to making tertiary education better and fairer. It will also continue to deliver on reforms recommended by the Universities Accord.

From their inquiry into these bills, the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment acknowledged broad stakeholder support for the establishment of the ATEC. The government notes the additional recommendations by Australian Greens senators as part of this inquiry, including those related to the Morrison government's Job-Ready Graduates scheme. As minister Clare has said: 'We're taking this one step at a time... there is more work to do… we have never ruled out reform here. It's all about what you do first.'

The government notes other recommendations from the Australian Greens senators in the standing committee report into these bills, including the ATEC being able to initiate and publish advice, expanding the National Tertiary Education objective, action against racism and support for marginalised communities, having appropriate expertise and capability, advising on research and research training, processes to change the threshold standards and clarifying any overlap with TEQSA.

The government also notes the additional comments and recommendations made by Senator Pocock. Some of these are similar to recommendations made by Greens senators, so I refer Senator Pocock to my earlier comments. The ATEC will negotiate individual compacts with universities and negotiate the content of those individual compacts with each university. Introducing further merits review processes in relation to Senator Pocock's amendments could unnecessarily delay actions to resolve a suspended compact.

On staffing arrangements, there will be a memorandum of understanding between the Department of Education and the ATEC to ensure clarity of operational arrangements. Senior ATEC staff will be made available by the secretary following consultation with ATEC commissioners. The secretary's power to engage staff, contractors and consultants can be delegated to the ATEC's executive director. ATEC staff will undertake their roles at the direction of commissioners. They will be able to recruit staff using standard APS recruitment processes, including merit-based selection.

I acknowledge Senator Pocock has put forward amendments including on the number of commissioners, and I thank him for his contribution to strengthening the ATEC. The Australian government also appreciates the support of many stakeholders for the establishment of the ATEC. These bills let us to deliver the ATEC in legislation. This is real, lasting reform, and it's disappointing but not surprising that the coalition have opposed the reform. The ATEC will make our university system stronger. I commend the bills to the Senate.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is the second reading amendment moved by Senator Faruqi on sheet 3712 be agreed to.

A division having been called an d the bells being rung—

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

Since time is limited for this debate, we're happy to have our support for the amendment recorded and not have a division, if others are keen to do the same.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will cancel the division and recorded in favour of the noes. The noes have it, but we will record the Greens's support for Senator Faruqi's amendment.

Question negatived.

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

by leave—I record the Greens's support for the amendment.

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

by leave—I move:

At the end of the motion, add "but the Senate:

(a) notes that the establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) is a welcome step in improving the sustainability, governance and enduring excellence of Australia's higher education system for staff, students and the continued future success of our country;

(b) recognises that, to fulfil its potential over the long-term, the ATEC requires independence in its functions, resourcing and reporting; and

(c) urges the ATEC to progress the urgent reform of the failed job-ready graduates scheme, consistent with the recommendations of the final report of the Universities Accord, with a view to urgently addressing inequitable student contribution settings—particularly in arts and humanities disciplines—and mitigating the disproportionate debt burden and emerging socio-economic stratification current arrangements are creating for the student cohort".

Question negatived.

I record my support for my amendment.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that second reading be agreed to.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—under the standing orders I ask that Senator Lambie's position on the two second reading amendments be recorded.