Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I do not want to give the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training opposite a lecture in demographics and statistics, but even he would know that population increases mean significant changes to participation rates, even in education. I would have thought that, if he knew anything about public policy in this country, he would know about the significant outcomes which were achieved by the Hawke-Keating governments in school attainment levels, getting significantly higher proportions of school students to year 12. From memory—and my colleague at the table, the member for Throsby, may recall this—at the time the Hawke government was elected, year 12 attainment levels were between 35 and 40 per cent, maybe slightly higher. By the time the Labor government was defeated in 1996, they were in excess of 80 per cent.

A very deliberate outcome and a consequence of that would be, as the honourable member might note, an increase in the number of people attending higher education institutions—and that is what we want. We clearly want to see more young Australians either benefiting from access to a university place to do a course of their choice or, alternatively, following a different stream and getting a vocational education outcome which provides them with the appropriate skills to compete effectively in the labour market. I would have thought that that would be a proposition which would attract the support of everyone in this place. The difference, of course, is how we go about getting that outcome, and that is the issue here.

My concern, even though the government argues that they are trying, effectively, to, as they describe it, dismantle the Dawkins reforms in terms of higher education, get rid of the one-size-fits-all approach and provide greater diversity and flexibility, is that we are moving—at least, this is what I am observing—into a period when we are going to have different classes of universities in this country. There will be the haves at the old sandstone universities and then the rest, and that concerns me greatly.

Having been a student at the ANU, the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University—I did not have a distinguished academic career but I did have one—I can see the benefits of the infrastructure that is in place in these quite magnificent institutions. But then I look at what is available for people who live in regional Australia and their capacity to undertake higher education. I say this not just of people who live in regional centres like Darwin, where there is in fact Charles Darwin University, or Townsville, with James Cook, but, most particularly, of people who live away from these centres, often in isolated communities where there is no access to higher educational opportunities and where the students are forced, once they have achieved a level commensurate with university entrance, to relocate out of their home environment to a major centre to achieve an education. This is true not only in the higher education sector but also in the vocational education sector.

We are told in the Bills Digest that, in 2005, the then Minister for Education, Science and Training stressed:

... the need for a diverse range of higher education institutions servicing different communities and varied requirements.

The Digest goes on about the current minister and refers to a wide-ranging speech on the need for diversity in which the minister called for:

... the development of a diversified higher education sector, made up of universities which differ from each other in terms of mission, discipline mix, course offerings, modes of delivery, management and in academic structure.

That may be all very well but what we want to make sure of—at least I want to make sure of—is that those young Australians who do not live in major metropolitan centres where there are high levels of competition between tertiary institutions but are more than likely going to attend a regional university where there is little or no competition on a geographic basis, at least, have proper access to high levels of appropriate courses to meet their needs. What I fear is that, as a result of the changes the government is proposing, we are going to see a rationalisation of the courses that are offered in many of these universities so that they will specialise in one or two particular fields. Whilst that might suit the rationalisation that the government requires, I think it provides a significant handicap, and indeed a challenge, for many young Australians. That is what concerns me: not only the cost of access to university education but also the options that are available.

The Bills Digest informs me that critics of the higher education measures proposed in the 2007-08 budget have ‘interpreted moves to diversity and specialisation as pushing the sector to a more privatised, stratified and less equitable one’. That is the nub of my concerns. It is clear that the changes to the CGS and the removal of the cap on domestic full-fee places may well encourage competition for students and an associated development of different course offerings. As the Bills Digest again informs us:

There is a perceived benefit to universities such as those in the Group of Eight whose courses are in high demand and which attract the majority of full-fee paying students at public universities although the uptake in full-fee places will be constrained at some universities by the lack of facilities and a shortfall in infrastructure funding.

The Bills Digest argues:

The ‘one size fits all’ model will be further eroded by the increased student contribution rates for accounting, administration, economics and commerce ...

It goes on to say:

Regional universities will need to devise course mixes that are both attractive to students and meet regional needs.

I am concerned about that because I do not believe that the regional universities have to this point been able to meet that challenge. They have not been able to meet that challenge principally because of the significant cuts in funding provided for tertiary education by this government since it came into office in 1996. This government cut funding to higher education by $100 million in its first term in office. This government cut funding to technical and further education by 13 per cent in its first term in office and then increased it by only one per cent in its second term—an effective real cut from 1995 figures. This government actually reduced funding to universities by six per cent per student place between 1995 and 2003.

The government argues that we should look at the vitality of the university sector and the competition for positions in the great universities of Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane—and, as we have a Tasmanian in the House, we should also refer to Hobart—but there have been significant staff losses and cuts to the course offerings at the Charles Darwin University. I am certain that those staff losses and the restructuring of courses being offered to students at Charles Darwin University and, I am sure, other regional universities can be directly attributed to the cuts in government funding since this government was first elected in 1996. That is a major concern, particularly in the context of this current debate about diversification and competition. We are seeing more and more pressure being placed upon these institutions, and we have to ask whether or not they have the capacity to make the sorts of changes that will see them able to provide the opportunities for university education and research for students within those communities.

I am attracted to two elements of this piece of legislation. The increase in the number of Commonwealth scholarships from 8,500 to 12,000 per year is a positive step. I hope that there is in some way or another an understanding that the bulk of those scholarships will go to people who live in regional Australia. From any observation that you might like to make, it is very clear that, because of locational disadvantage, the nature and cost of access to university education, the economics of relocating from one place to another and the dependency upon income from other sources, it is extremely difficult for young people who live in regional Australia to study at a university in a major capital city. I would encourage the government to ensure that the additional Commonwealth scholarships, when offered, are targeted specifically at young Australians who live in regional parts of this country.

I am also attracted to the introduction of the Indigenous scholarship classification, which will provide up to 1,000 scholarships to Indigenous students. That of course is welcome, but I go back to what I often say in this place—and I am sure that at least some members, certainly some members on my side of the House, will be sick of me saying this—and that is that it is all very well to have these higher education opportunities but, in the context of Aboriginal education in this country, and in Northern Australia in particular, there is a basic and fundamental requirement to provide young people with a school opportunity. Give them a school opportunity so that they can go out and compete in the labour market or move on to a higher education opportunity in a university or another tertiary education provider. This government has dropped the ball and has done very little to ensure that there are proper pathways for a young Aboriginal kid who lives in a remote community in the Northern Territory to go to a university in Sydney or Melbourne. Give them a pathway that provides them with that opportunity. But we need to invest in preschool, primary and secondary education before we are going to get the significant outcomes from the higher education sector that we want for Indigenous Australians.

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