Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I imagine that visitors to the gallery would have been somewhat bemused, perhaps entertained, by the member for Kennedy’s remarks. He always does provide us with an extremely unique and interesting perspective on legislation that we are debating. I want to confine my remarks, inasmuch as I can, to the specific legislation that has come before us; of course, following on from the member’s significant history both in this parliament and other parliaments, I will take the opportunity to range a little wider in the course of my remarks about the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 to make commentary about education in general.

One of the nation’s foremost education institutions, the University of New South Wales, sits in the seat of Kingsford Smith. Just as the number of speakers from the Labor Party speaking on this legislation greatly exceeds the number from the government side, so there are a great number of students—and I see them queued up at bus stops night after night on Anzac Parade—at that university, and their struggle is increasing. They have difficulties getting themselves through a tertiary education degree and then on to a career. There is no doubt that the odds are very much against a student’s capacity to do that nowadays.

I have had a number of representations from and discussions with students at UNSW. Their HECS fees continue to go up, their living expenses continue to rise and the provision of student services—many of which have now been cut out as a consequence of the Howard government’s decision on VSU—is reduced. Their parents—or parent, or carer—face increasing squeezes in costs, particularly costs related to mortgages and fuel. A number of these students are trying to study but are doing it in a way that is sailing very close to the wind. Earlier in my time in the parliament I had reason to draw to the attention of the House the fact that many of these students are so exposed and find the cost burdens upon them so high that they need to offer themselves up for purposes of medical experimentations and research of one kind or another, some of which, as has been pointed out by members here and in the Senate, actually prejudice their situation and open them up to situations of risk.

We have not had a great deal of time to consider this legislation. There has not been sufficient opportunity for members present to really dive down into it and get a hold of it. There is no Bills Digest, as far as I am aware. But, importantly, the opposition do support aspects of the legislation and we do support the bill. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has moved a second reading amendment, which I will speak to in a minute. Overall, though, I think the message has been clearly put in the parliament, and that is: the importance of education notwithstanding, it is a considerable concern both to the community and to us on this side of the House that we continue to spend less than comparable countries do on public investment in education.

After all, it is that investment in education which determines the future prospects of the nation. That is something which is well understood and agreed upon, throughout both the political and the public debate. But Australia spends much less on education than other comparable nations. Our direct public investment is low: the percentage is in the fours—4.3 per cent of GDP—when the average is about five. There is a more recent study I will refer to in a minute. Even with private investment, our average investment is lower than equivalent countries overseas. If we want to be a competitive and successful nation, I think it is very clear that we must significantly invest in education.

The Australian Council of Deans of Education has noted this, the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee has noted this and numerous reports point to it. Mr Blair, early in his term, summed it up very simply—in much the way that President Clinton did when he was seeking election with the slogan, ‘It’s about the economy,’ and so on. Mr Blair simply said: ‘Education, education, education’. But a lack of investment—whether in primary education, secondary education, vocational education and training or, with respect to this bill, tertiary education—and a trend to consistently provide less money out of our budget for education than comparable nations literally imperils our future. We cannot be expected to innovate and to meet the challenges that face us in the coming century unless we invest in people’s capacity to learn.

It is a fact that has been marked in this House, and we note and condemn it: Commonwealth outlay on universities as a percentage of GDP has fallen consistently over the past decade. Australia is 20th out of 28 OECD countries in terms of education attainment in the 25-to-34 age group. There are a number of other statistics relating to where we sit on the comparable country scale in terms of investment and education. Importantly, people need the opportunity to learn and sometimes to relearn. ‘Lifelong learning’ is the expression that is used, and it is an absolute fact. As life expectancy increases, as technological challenge bears down upon us, there is every likelihood that many people listening and many people whom we represent will have to educate themselves in the course of their lives. So it is critically important that the country’s investment in education is substantial.

This bill does contain significant amounts of new money, which Labor has welcomed. It funds the COAG Health Workforce and mental health packages. The changes to FEE-HELP are quite significant and have been noted previously in the House—an increase in the debt that is available to students. There are now almost 100 full fee degrees in Australia which cost more than $100,000. So, even though the changes are significant, the increases will not be sufficient to meet the real cost of the degrees.

The clarification noted with regard to the impact of recredited FEE-HELP on FEE-HELP balances is also a positive step for students. We also note that the new measures allow providers to set different fees for different students in the same unit. There is wide discretion for the provider to set varying fee levels based on any factor they deem appropriate, with only limited scope by the government to determine matters that are not appropriate. It is absolutely right that there should be only limited scope for the government to make those determinations, but we would like to see more detail on the prohibited factors. Where differential fee structures are used to assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds, through targeted fee relief based on location or modes of delivery, the deregulation that results in higher fee levels coming across might be problematic. That is something that needs to be looked at.

According to this year’s Good Universities Guide, we have now reached the situation where five degrees will cost more than $200,000 for full fee paying students and 96 degrees will cost more than $100,000. I think those figures are extraordinary. They represent the transformation of the education system under the Howard government and give us a pretty clear indication of where the education system is likely to go. In the previous year there were some 60 courses that cost over $100,000 and more than a quarter of those were at the University of New South Wales. The University of Sydney and the University of Technology in Sydney each offer about seven of these, but more than a quarter of the 60 courses that cost over $100,000 were in the electorate that I represent. So I am particularly mindful that the Prime Minister had promised in the parliament in 1999:

We have no intention of deregulating university fees.

He went on to say:

The government will not be introducing an American style higher education system.

There is a reasonable amount of anguish—I feel it and I know that members present feel it—about the view the public takes of the promises of politicians, but nothing could be clearer than the words of the Prime Minister:

We have no intention of deregulating university fees. The government will not be introducing an American style higher education system.

He finally went on to say:

There will be no $100,000 university fees under this government.

Let me go through what has happened up until now. In May, figures were released which showed that full fee paying students will have amassed massive debts of up to half a billion dollars a year by 2008. It is an extraordinarily high figure.

I think one factor in this debate that has not been fully explored but that needs to be raised is the consequences students have when they enter the education system and are obliged to pay HECS but do not fully comprehend what the repayment means and how much it is going to be. In July, the VSU legislation came into place and that threatens jobs and services at universities, including 29 staff at the University of New South Wales. It also has meant cuts to volunteer and Students Training Students programs. Those cuts to VSU are particularly important for students who come from moderate or low socioeconomic backgrounds where the income of the household is not as high as it is in other parts of the electorate. This is particularly the case with the services that are provided—for example, the childcare services provided at the University of New South Wales through the original VSU. There was a particularly good childcare centre just off the campus at the University of New South Wales. It provided students, if they had a child, with the opportunity to leave that child at the childcare centre and to get into their study, get into the library, get on with their work confident that their child was being well looked after and that they would be able to concentrate on their study. They are no longer able to do that.

In relation to VSU, I note that there are a number of universities that are already suffering significant losses and where the attacks on staff and the closing down of particular centres have taken place. At the University of Melbourne, for example, the VCE summer school funding is in doubt and orientation week activities have been cut. Some people may say, ‘Well, orientation week activities are just students having a little fun, running around the place and getting ready for uni.’ It is also the time when students are given the opportunity to be properly informed about the services available at the universities—some of which are no longer there—to set themselves up for the coming year. More significantly, at the University of Newcastle 20 staff have gone, the aquatics centre is under threat and the computer centre has been closed. At the University of New South Wales, which I mentioned before, 29 staff have gone. At the University of Western Sydney six staff have gone. At Charles Sturt University, which I know quite well, 10 staff have gone. At Charles Darwin University all seven staff have gone from the on-campus service provider. At the University of Canberra, which you will know well, Mr Deputy Speaker McMullan, nine staff have gone. And at RMIT in Melbourne around 150 full-time, part-time and casual staff are going or have gone and the bookshop has been closed.

There are many other examples. I note that at James Cook University in Northern Queensland six staff will be gone by the end of the year, and at the University of Queensland the $3.5 million sports precinct at the Gatton campus has been shelved and the Schonell Cinema closed. I must make a quick remark about the Schonell Cinema being closed because that particular cinema has significance to that community—significance as a small sized and older building where people can go and see movies, films and documentaries. It is regrettable that the disappearance of small cinemas of this kind around Australia is taking place as a consequence of the decisions of the Howard government in relation to the cuts to VSU.

The question arises as to what Labor would do. In this instance there is absolutely no doubt that Labor has the only strong and positive plan that is being delivered, which addresses some of the issues that have been raised in the House and which Australians are concerned about. The fact that education is universally recognised as the key to our future and that Mr Blair in 1997 said ‘education, education’ means that we have to have a plan that will address the problems faced by the university sector. In this regard I commend the second reading amendment that has been moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. I point out that Labor does have a plan. It will introduce a compact with our universities that will establish new funding systems which recognise their different strengths and that will promote excellence in research. It is a plan which releases universities from the Howard government’s approach, which has seen them strangled by red tape and, frankly, blackmailed into undertaking the policy agenda of the Howard government. That is really what we have seen over the past six months.

Labor’s plan will link research student places to research quality. It will foster excellence in specialised areas. Staff from all public universities will be able to do research. Labor’s plan, enumerated in the white paper presented by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Labor leader Kim Beazley earlier this year, by establishing a number of initiatives which address the issues of higher education, will actually reverse the slump in public investment in higher education and, more importantly, will reintroduce the necessary focus and emphasis that we need to have on investing in the future and on investing in building our knowledge base.

After 10 years, Mr Howard has given us a skills crisis. There is a TAFE system which has a parallel system which no-one goes to. Despite some of our material buoyancy, we do not have the doctors, the engineers and the nurses that we need. We do not have the IT workers in some places that we need to have. If you compare our own record with that of equivalent countries in other parts of the world, you will see that we significantly underfund education. In fact, the OECD’s Education at a glance report has shown that OECD countries—that is, the European countries—are increasing their public investment in education and training by nearly 50 per cent. We do not do anything like that, and we should.

Regrettably, nothing will happen until we have a Beazley Labor government. A Beazley Labor government will be profoundly committed to education, and to public education. It will be a government that recognises that the sector is undergoing change and that there need to be new approaches. It will be a government that recognises that you have to reform the Australian university sector in order to build a strong economy and a smarter future for Australia. If we do not invest in our brains, in our capacity and in our intellectual resources, we will not be able to seriously address the challenges of the future. If you create a university system where university education is open to those who have money and denied to those who do not, you are creating a system which I personally do not want to have any part of.

I am very proud to stand here as a Labor member and draw attention to the policies that we will bring to bear on public education and on universities. In particular, I want to spend a moment addressing the innovation blueprint No. 7 which Labor leader Kim Beazley has brought into the public light, and let people know about a number of key and clear initiatives, including the reform of research and development investment arrangements and a commitment to rebuild our primary research institutions, especially the CSIRO. Mr Deputy Speaker, when you consider what the CSIRO has gone through over the past five or six years, and when you also consider the clear hand of political pressure that has been applied to that premier scientific organisation, you get a sense of the way in which this government runs its education and research agenda.

The challenges are immense. They are challenges that do not require us simply to be able to take advantage of our natural advantage in mineral wealth and our natural advantages in agriculture, where they exist. They are challenges that require us to take advantage of our human capacities—the intellect, the innovation and the intelligence of Australians, particularly young Australians; they are the ones who have the most to contribute to this nation’s future, and they are the ones who are most denied by an education system which sees expenses and fees increased at this rate and investment going down. So I commend the Deputy Leader of the Opposition’s second reading amendment to the House.

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