Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to support the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007. While the member for Rankin is still in the chamber I ought to point out to him that I listened carefully to his contribution. I feel for the member for Rankin. I sense in him a highly intellectual gentleman and a well-read fellow unfortunately trapped and unexploited in the Labor Party. I inform the member for Rankin, notwithstanding my high regard for him, that there are in fact 61,000 more Commonwealth funded—or, in the member’s words, Commonwealth subsidised—undergraduate places in Australia this year than in 1995. That is a 17 per cent increase. In contrast to the statement that there has been no growth, I want to point that out. In addition to that, the University of Tasmania prides itself on being one of those universities in Australia that has not taken up the opportunity to increase the HECS payments it requires from students.

This bill is designed to amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to provide funding to support the implementation of the research quality framework. Some features of this bill include giving effect to a revised set of National Protocols for Higher Education Approval Processes. The revised protocols will allow, for the first time, new types of institutions to operate here in Australia. The revised protocols will provide pathways for more institutions to become self-accrediting where they have a strong track record in higher education delivery and quality assurance—a rider which I think reassures all of us in this place. A significant change in the arrangements is the extension of the protocols to apply to all new and existing higher education institutions.

In other, separate measures, the bill allows for the first-time cross-institutional arrangements also to be extended to Commonwealth supported students at non table A higher education providers. Previously, Commonwealth supported students were only able to undertake study in Commonwealth supported places in a cross-institutional arrangement between table A providers. I welcome those changes, as the increasing flexibility being brought into the Commonwealth legislation will reap dividends at the local level and will give students more opportunities to learn and to take hold of their future and their potential. The amendment in this bill will provide greater flexibility not only for students but also for providers and will extend the range of study options available to Commonwealth supported students.

The bill also sets a six-week time limit for the provision of corrected information by a student that affects their eligibility for Commonwealth assistance. It ensures also that higher education providers may determine the campuses at which units of study will be offered to Commonwealth supported students. The bill will allow providers to stipulate that a student may be Commonwealth supported for the units of study only if the student undertakes those units at a particular campus of the provider.

The last thing I want to say about the revised national protocols is that they will encourage new types of institutions to operate in Australia. This is an important deviation from the existing arrangements, where it is required that teaching and research be provided in at least three fields of study. The new protocols, in line with the agreed commitment to increase flexibility, will allow new types of institutions to operate, including those concentrating on teaching and research in perhaps only one or two broad fields of study. These national protocols for higher education approval were agreed to by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs in July last year. So I suppose that, to a large degree, the arrangements which I have already canvassed basically have the endorsement of the House and both sides of the chamber. It seems, though, that that is where the agreement concludes.

This brings me to the research quality framework, which I see as a very important aspect of policy in this area and an important initiative of the government which is clearly needed in the research and higher education sector. The aim of the research quality framework, or RQF, is to develop the basis for an improved assessment of the quality and impact of publicly funded research and an effective process to achieve this. The RQF was announced by the Prime Minister in May 2004 as part of the Backing Australia’s Ability package. Since that time, two expert advisory groups—the Expert Advisory Group and the Development Advisory Group—have considered the RQF and have provided advice to the minister. That advice has been considered by the government, leading to the announcement late last year that the government would in fact proceed to implement an RQF.

The framework is imperative and has three roles. The first is to:

• be transparent to government and taxpayers—

who are investing in research—

so that they are better informed about the results of the public investment in research …

I do not think any of us ought to be satisfied with the notion of taxpayer funding—and we are talking about significant sums of taxpayers’ funds—going to research which is, in some cases, a bottomless pit or a black hole. There ought to be transparency and accountability. The second role of the framework is to:

• ensure that all publicly funded research agencies and research providers are encouraged to focus on the quality and relevance of their research …

This reflects a concern in the community that, at times, both in the higher education sector and in industry, research is not relevant to the wider community and does not demonstrate any real point. The research quality framework will overcome those concerns. The third role is to:

• avoid a high cost of implementation and imposing a high administration burden on research providers.

I would have thought that the benefits of the RQF were fairly obvious, but apparently they are not. It is very concerning to me that even tonight the Labor Party remain opposed to it—or at least I think they are. In talking it down and in showing some ambivalence on the issue, they have provided no suggestion of what better model ought to be supported. They provide no alternative policy, and the much talked about education revolution document—which in itself is an insubstantial document and contains motherhood statements—offers no opinion on it. I heard the member for Perth say earlier tonight that he hopes the Labor Party will be in a position to announce their position in the first half of this year, yet we continue to debate this bill tonight.

Trials of the RQF will continue this year and implementation will occur next year. There will be no funding implications before 2009. Of further concern to me are comments by Senator Kim Carr, who said that, in his view, the Labor Party would abolish the research quality framework despite the considerable funds that are being appropriated through this bill to support its implementation. He has not made it clear what he would replace it with after it was abolished. I put those statements on the record. I think it is very disappointing on the part of the opposition, having had nearly three years to consider its position on the research quality framework. To people who are outside the sector, I appreciate that it might seem a difficult area to understand, but this is very important for Australia’s future because research is important for Australia’s future.

I am disappointed because I do not believe that Labor has a position on this issue. It simply wants to allow the government to take all the hard decisions, to do the difficult work, to make the difficult policy decisions and to once again instigate reforms which are necessary for the Australian economy. The Labor Party will come lagging behind after all of the hard work has been done. Perhaps if, in the coming few months, the government’s initiative is widely accepted by the higher education fraternity, Labor will come rushing in before the election to say that it supports this. Just before commencing my contribution, I read the member for Perth’s amendment. I must say that I find it extremely wimpish and, disappointingly, insubstantial.

The Productivity Commission’s report Public support for science and innovation was released today. It highlights some interesting points. At over 800 pages, it will take some time for all concerned to digest. It does highlight that there are widespread and important economic, social and environmental benefits which are generated by Australia’s $6 billion of public funding support for science and innovation in this country. It also points out—and this is an important point coming from the Productivity Commission—that the benefits of public spending are likely to exceed the costs. It states in its report that it is very difficult to quantify and very difficult to find a model where the inputs and outputs can be measured with any great certainty, but that, on balance, it is fairly clear that the benefits of this $6 billion of annual public spending by the Howard government are worth while. These are investments that we need to make. They are important for securing our future and important for securing our economy.

The Productivity Commission makes the point, though, that major improvements are needed in some key institutional and program areas. This brings me back once more to the research quality framework. The whole point of this initiative, backed by something like $80 million of investment from the government to support its implementation, is to boost the quality and the impact of research. It stands to support university and higher education providers as research organisations; it stands to support industry itself, which can then turn those new ideas into commercial returns; and it stands to benefit the community generally. Of course, the bounds of that are as limitless as the bounds of research itself.

Since its introduction in 1986, the UK version of the RQF, the Research Assessment Exercise, has seen good improvements in research quality. This has been widely acknowledged. Between 1994 and 2002, the proportion of UK entries in the top one per cent of the world’s most cited research papers increased from around eight per cent to around 14 per cent. This was a very significant change and reform which resulted in definable benefits in the research community in Britain. The prestige of its research has clearly been acknowledged, and the relevance to its community, and indeed to the world research community, has been recognised. Clearly it has been a worth while exercise. It is time for Australia to do the same, and we ought to do it better. As I said, the Australian government is providing $87 million for our exercise, the RQF, including $41 million which is directly available to universities to assist them with implementation in this transition period.

The Productivity Commission also notes:

The benefits from the 2008 RQF round could be improved if its funding scales provide more significant penalties for the poorest research performers than apparently currently envisaged. In the long run, a transition to less costly approaches, such as those that target poor performing areas, should be considered.

While I do not presume to be able to critique that statement, I think it ought to form an important part of the government’s consideration of that report and the government’s response. I would invite the minister to closely look at that suggestion from the Productivity Commission. In discussions with the minister to that end, I was very pleased to hear from her that there will be a close and ongoing consultation with the higher education sector and universities and that the government will take the findings of the commission’s report into account in this process.

In the moments still allowed to me I wish to put some statements on the record with regard to my local higher education providers, two of the institutions that we as Tasmanians can be very proud of because they lead the nation. They are very good at what they do and they deserve some attention. The city of Launceston in my electorate of Bass is the proud home of the Australian Maritime College. It has distinguished standing not only throughout Australia but indeed throughout the world. The campus in Launceston offers programs in engineering, maritime operations, maritime logistics and maritime management. The Beauty Point campus offers courses in fisheries, marine resource management and small vessel operations. It is a stunning organisation. It has gone through in its few years, relatively speaking, immense change. In 2007 we have seen 434 Commonwealth funded places. The federal government is also supporting the AMC in other ways. In 2006 the college was awarded $108,000 for a workplace productivity project for the Beauty Point campus. It is also receiving $3.5 million each year in national institute funding under the federal government’s Backing Australia’s Future reforms.

It also has a great track record in excellence. Eighteen months ago I was very pleased to announce on behalf of the Australian government that the college would receive $1.1 million from the Australian government’s new initiative—I am not sure if it was supported by Labor—the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund, in recognition of its achievements in undergraduate teaching and learning. That was met with some chagrin from some of its competitors. It was one of only 14 tertiary education providers around Australia to be recognised in this way. I think this is something that the AMC Council and staff, and indeed students, can be very proud of and that they should be congratulated on. After all, the fund is purely merit based and it rewards teaching excellence.

In 2005 came speculation and later confirmation of an affiliation, or what some people have called a merger, between the AMC and the University of Tasmania. I have been concerned throughout the years that the AMC ought to in any future affiliation retain its unique qualities and certainly some strong aspects of its identity as well. It has an excellent brand across the maritime industry all around the world. At that time I communicated that to the then minister, Minister Nelson. I have seen since then a strong willingness from the AMC and the University of Tasmania to proceed on a basis that gets the best from both institutions. They give strengths to each other. I thank the vice-chancellor of the university as well as the AMC president for their commitment that the integration, which is subject to Australian government approval, will strengthen the overall provision of maritime education and training in Tasmania.

Finally, I would like to make a comment about the University of Tasmania. The University of Tasmania has an excellent staff and an excellent leadership team, headed by Vice-Chancellor Daryl Le Grew. He is one of the most proactive people in the higher education sector that I have ever met. Mr Deputy Speaker Kerr, I am sure you would agree he is a visionary person and he has been able to take the university from strength to strength. He has overseen in partnership with the Australian government the boosting of Commonwealth supported full-time students. The number has come up to nearly 10,000. The University of Tasmania is the university from which I graduated, so I take a good deal of pride in it. It is looking very good for the future, having recently received more than $2 million from the government’s Learning and Teaching Performance Fund, which demonstrates to one and all that, like the AMC, it has an excellent track record in teaching and learning and in preparing its graduates for the world of work. In closing, I support this bill. I do not support Labor’s amendments because they add nothing to the substance of this issue and they do nothing to advance higher education in this country. I support the bill and commend it to the House.

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