Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007. This bill deals with a variety of the technical aspects of university operations, such as recognition of new universities and accreditation for their courses, as well as making changes to arrangements for Commonwealth supported students. While this legislation is largely technical in nature, it provides an opportunity to consider some trends in higher education in Australia at the moment.

One very successful element of our higher education strategies has been the encouragement and incentives we have offered to overseas students to come and study in Australia at our tertiary institutions. That has been a great success story and is now providing the Australian economy with an extra $10 billion a year. There are now 240,000 international students studying at Australian tertiary institutions. This is an increase of 350 per cent since 1996, when there were less than 55,000 international students studying here.

In a general sense, the university sector is in a strong financial position. Annual revenue in 2005 was $13.9 billion, up $6 billion since 1996, and the sector’s operating surplus in the same year was $838 million. Total net assets of the university sector sit at $25.7 billion and cash and investments at $7 billion. It goes without saying that Australian universities are running financially sound operations.

It is worth mentioning that this strong position the universities find themselves in has been hard fought for, and has come about with no assistance from state governments. When you take into account the amount of payroll tax the states take from universities around the country each year, you realise that they actually take $148 million more from the universities than they provide in funding.

This is indicative of the state governments’ very regressive attitude towards the taxation burden they place on organisations. Despite now receiving more funding than ever under the GST arrangements, they have allowed indirect state taxes to remain. These state taxes are of course acting as a disincentive for businesses to grow and a disincentive for organisations like universities to grow. But they are still growing. The number of university students in Australia has passed one million, a more than 50 per cent increase from 1996, when we were elected to government. There are 180,000 more undergraduate students than 11 years ago and the number of postgraduate students has doubled to 265,000.

Commonwealth funding for research and development funding to Australian universities increased by 66 per cent in real terms from 1995 to 2005. The higher education sector in Australia is progressing well despite the extra burden placed upon it by state governments around the country. The government strongly advocates encouraging the business community to invest in the higher education sector, and this bill will assist in this goal.

The implementation of the research quality framework, RQF, is one aspect of this bill that will give the business community great confidence. There have been two advisory groups that have recommended the implementation of the RQF to better measure research and development outcomes at Australian universities. The late Sir Gareth Roberts chaired the first group and Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, chaired the second. Both groups supported the RQF and saw a clear need for a way to measure the value of research and development in a more complex fashion than simply counting the number of publications produced.

The current system is, after all, a remarkably simplistic one. The status of a university is entirely determined by the number of their publications. How can the research contribution of a university be measured by the number of publications it has produced without considering the quality of these publications or even the usefulness of the research itself? We know how many papers are being published but we do not know if they are any good. That is why the research quality framework is needed and that is why it is strongly supported by the sector, the experts and the business community. It will help the government and the business community fund better quality research not just a higher volume of research.

The research quality framework will affect only $600 million worth of research block grants out of the $8.2 billion that the government gives annually to the university sector. So only a moderate amount of the funding will come under these new arrangements, which will be implemented next year. That the Australian Labor Party still has no clue as to its position on the research quality framework should be of little surprise to any of us in this place.

Labor’s industry and science spokesman, Senator Carr, said that he would abolish the RQF, but what will Labor replace it with? The member for Perth said in an interview with Campus Magazine only last month that he was ‘struggling with the detail’ of the RQF and that ‘Labor has yet to decide whether or not to endorse the RQF’ and ‘more importantly, if I was going to stand up and say, “We are going to knock it over the first question would be what are you going to put in its place and I don’t have that answer yet either”.’ There are a lot of questions there and not a lot of answers.

It is the usual story from the Labor Party. They are completely unable to embrace reform that is in the best interest of the sector. They are deeply afraid of change and, while they oppose change, they propose no viable alternative policies of their own to deal with the very clear need that exists to measure, in a qualitative fashion, the contribution of research and development in Australian universities. This is the usual, tired approach of the Labor Party. They are more than happy to knock our policies but it is very rare that they put forward any alternative views or propose any constructive policies themselves.

The government has decided to make the much-needed changes in this area. It will spend $87.3 million on implementing the research quality framework. Of that amount, $41 million will go directly to the universities to meet the costs associated with their compliance. The remaining $46 million has been used to meet costs associated with the very thorough consultative process the government put in train several years ago.

The end result of this legislation being passed is that Australia’s higher education sector will produce research of measurable value which will have commercial application and higher community impact. That is what is of most value to the Australian people and that is what is in the national interest. Significantly, as well, that is what the business community wants so that it can have greater confidence in where it invests in the higher education sector.

Another area I would like to touch on briefly is the work of the CSIRO and other scientific research bodies in Australia, particularly the tertiary sector. A recent Productivity Commission report reflected very negatively on the public support made available to this area. The government has consistently provided strong support for science and innovation in Australia. It is now spending a record $6 billion annually on research and development, which is a generous amount to provide to the sector. In fact, the Productivity Commission outlined the significant economic, social and environmental benefits that are flowing from this investment in the sector.

The commission, of course, outlined areas of concern. It is particularly worried about the number of available researchers and professionals in the science and engineering fields. Shortages in this area are a testament to the strength of the economy, so the government should not be faulted in that regard. However, we have been aggressively promoting the study of mathematics and science in schools through our Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics Program, which is worth $34 million. A further $5 million is being provided to the Australian Academy of Science to boost science teaching in primary schools around the country to improve learning outcomes in this area. This program is already being rolled out in many schools across the country.

When the economy is in such good shape and when unemployment is at a 32-year low, we are faced with unique problems. There is full employment in Australia and so many industries find themselves short of workers. We are aware of this problem and are actively addressing it with a variety of initiatives. Can I say, though, that I would much rather have a shortage of scientists as a result of the economy being strong and there being so many new jobs created in the field than to have one million Australians out of work and on the breadline, as occurred under the previous government. That is an easy choice. The fact that we are facing shortages in some areas is a testament to the government’s economic performance over the past 11 years.

We acknowledge, however, that it is an issue that places constraints on the economic performance of some sectors, and we are genuinely addressing the issue. For example, under the Skills for the Future Program, we are investing an additional $56 million from 2008 to fund an extra 500 Commonwealth supported engineering places at university. This is on top of the 510 new engineering places which were announced by the minister last year and which began this year.

The CSIRO is an organisation that is, in my view, unfairly maligned. Despite alarmist commentary that suggests the organisation is bereft of job satisfaction, the staff turnover rate has actually declined by four per cent in the past 10 years. So to say that the CSIRO is in some way an employer of last resort for graduates or that its workforce is unhappy is clearly mischievous. We have increased funding over the past 11 years by 11 per cent in real terms, and the upcoming financial year will be the CSIRO’s largest budget in history. We have just committed to baseline funding of $2.5 billion over four years to secure the CSIRO’s leadership of scientific research in Australia. The Productivity Commission endorsed our continuing support of the organisation, and we will continue to consider it as a major priority.

I wholeheartedly support the aim of this legislation. The research quality framework is a necessary and positive step for the sector to operate under a more measurable system for research and development. This will be to the sector’s benefit and it will encourage private investment in their research. The area of science and innovation will continue to grow significantly with strong Commonwealth support and a range of measures to provide extra training to ease skills shortages. I commend the bill to the House.

See this speech in context