Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—In summing up, I would like to thank all members who have spoken in this at times lengthy debate on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009. There have certainly been some lively contributions. I will try very hard not to get too sidetracked in responding to the at times kooky suggestions put forward by the previous speaker, but I might just correct him on a couple of the things he put forward that were clearly incorrect. Firstly, he asks, ‘Why doesn’t the government go out to universities and ask students what they think?’ Well, we think that that is a really good idea, which is why we did exactly that before bringing this legislation to the parliament. In fact, we went out and did a roadshow that went to every single state and to a number of regional campuses to talk firsthand with students, with educators, with university administrators and with all of the local stakeholders about their views on the solution that went forward. Of course, the member opposite would know this because the Young Liberals were amongst those whose views on this matter we listened to. It is interesting that one of the things that kept coming back during those consultations right around the country was people saying, ‘Wow, do you know that for over a decade we have been stripped of our funding, we have been slugged with further debt and not once have we seen the government actually come out and talk to us and ask us about what we think.’ So it was quite newsworthy to many students at universities around the country that the government did indeed take the time to do that.

The one other thing that I will correct the member opposite on which is also clearly very, very wrong is this view that the minister has discretion on the guidelines. The member put forward the question: ‘Why shouldn’t the parliament have to approve these?’ Well, here is a big news flash: it does—with a disallowable instrument. If the government seeks to change it, it has to go through both houses of the parliament. So let us not let facts get in the way of a good story here! Anyway, I did say that I would not be too sidetracked by that one contribution.

Clearly there has been a lot of interest in the government’s balanced, sensible and sustainable plan to rebuild student services at our universities. Unfortunately, though, what this debate has also revealed is that the Liberal Party remains stuck in the old ideological battles of the past. The truth is that there is no reason why those opposite should not be supporting this bill, despite our ideological differences, because this bill is not a continuation of the debates of days gone by. Rather, this is about moving forward in a new way to ensure that the universities of our future are world-class institutions that produce well-rounded graduates and are able to attract and retain overseas students from all over the world. We on this side know that this is absolutely critical to sustaining Australia’s workforce and that our future productivity and economic growth rely upon it.

Of course, supporting this legislation would mean that the opposition would have to concede that there has been much damage done by the Howard government’s extreme laws—that they did indeed go too far and that all of the consequences that those who opposed the laws predicted would happen have indeed occurred. And they will not do that. So instead what we have seen is the Liberal Party demonstrating that they would rather pretend that this is the same debate that we have had in the past, and instead they have chosen to rely upon misinformation, falsehoods such as those that we heard from the previous speaker, and hopelessly outdated rhetoric. The opposition have shown in this debate that they would rather talk about the teacher strikes in Puerto Rico and the communist party of Malaya than how we can sensibly reform our universities to train the workforce of the future.

We saw a rare parliamentary contribution from the member for Higgins, where he waxed lyrical about resolutions that were passed in 1975, a court case in 1978 and the difficulties that he had in 1979 making up his mind whether or not to join a student organisation. What the member for Higgins’s contribution showed was that the Liberal Party would rather reminisce about now defunct organisations from the 1970s than acknowledge the serious misjudgment they made in 2005. Their standing in this parliament and their making an argument based on a resolution passed by a group of students in a now defunct organisation before many members of this House, before many students on our university campuses and, indeed, before I was even born, shows how outdated they really are.

The Senate report on this bill says:

Since compulsory levies were abolished in 2005, the cost of legislating to make an ideological point has bourn heavily on the vast majority of students who remain largely indifferent to campus political activity, but who need to eat and otherwise miss the services formerly provided by student unions.

The opposition have spent a lot of time in this debate complaining about students paying for services they do not use, but they fail to understand that the impact of their approach went far beyond the services alone. The Liberal Party’s approach not only cut $170 million from services, with students paying the price ever since for the loss of health, legal and welfare assistance services, but also has had a serious impact on teaching. The Liberal Party still fail to understand that their changes directly undermine the quality of the teaching that students could receive. It is not just me saying this; it is the Chair of Universities Australia, Professor Richard Larkins, who is certainly no long-haired radical that the opposition like to turn to in this debate. He said earlier this month that the Liberal Party’s approach had ‘directly impaired our ability to deliver quality education and research’. He went on to say:

We had to use money for research and teaching and use it to support the student experience on campus.

So, memo to the Liberal Party: all students suffer when universities are forced to redirect funding away from teaching and research.

It has also been interesting to listen to opposition members talking about their concerns for students from regional areas. Yet the same members remain oblivious to the impact the previous government’s approach has had on regional Australia. We heard the member for Forrest telling us how hard it was for students from her area to find affordable housing if they moved to Perth to go to university. I wonder if she understands that one of the services that we want to help universities provide under this legislation is housing assistance for students. The member for Cowper told us how worried he was about the additional burden on students at Southern Cross University. Again, I wonder if he understands that the previous government’s approach forced the dental service at that very same university to close and that the 2,100 students who used this service in 2005 have now had to find somewhere else to go.

The harsh fact for the opposition is that students attending regional universities and students from regional areas attending city universities were badly hit by the service cuts caused by the previous government’s approach. That is because regional students are generally heavier users of services and amenities on campus, as they sometimes lack the local support networks of city based students. The government’s proposal will help to re-establish services and jobs in and around regional universities. It will also help to ensure that basic services are available for students where they may otherwise be unprofitable because of the remoteness of the campus and limited number of customers. Also, unfortunately for members opposite, there was a lot of misinformation put out during the debate, so it may take some time to get through correcting the record. But, rest assured, I am prepared to stand here and make sure that the truth of all of these issues is put on the record prior to the vote on this debate—that I promise to this chamber.

I will also make mention of sport, which was also seriously impacted by the previous government’s approach. The government received evidence from across the sporting spectrum, from the Australian Olympic Committee to individual sporting clubs, and all concluded that sport had been an innocent victim of the 2005 changes. The submission from Australian University Sport and the Australasian Campus Union Managers Association said that, as a direct result of the previous government’s changes, direct funding for sporting clubs had been cut by 40 per cent, funding for intervarsity sport was cut by half and participation by women in the Australian University Games was reduced by almost 10 per cent. Six universities shut down their elite athlete support programs and eight universities discontinued funding of sports scholarships. The AOC expressed concern about the impact of Australia’s international sporting performance when it said:

Given the importance that the university sports system has on elite level sport, these trends will have a direct and real impact on Australia’s ability to maintain its hard won international standing in sport.

But we know that the Liberal Party have no interest in sport in universities, because they made this clear in 2005 when they said:

Sport and recreation is an adjunct to a university education. It is far from being ‘core business’ …

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