Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill 2009. A previous bill, in similar form, was defeated in the Senate in August. I say that with sadness and regret because this bill is necessary to assist in the proper running of universities, to give students access to the kinds of services they need. Regrettably, the defeat of the previous bill showed that the coalition has not moved on since the battles so many of them fought in the sixties, seventies and eighties at universities across the country. Their opposition to this legislation is ideologically driven and not evidence-based. You can see that from the words that dripped from the mouth of the member for Indi, from the sarcasm and satire that came from her when she was talking about this issue.

This opposition is really not about student needs; it is about the coalition being ideologically driven by an opposition to one word. That word is ‘union’. The coalition’s attitude to the university sector was clearly evident with its absolute desire to impose Work Choices on the sector, linking university funding entirely to the imposition of AWAs on lecturers, tutors and administrative staff. That is the coalition’s response to the challenges and difficulties in funding and maintaining a viable tertiary sector in this country.

So the legislation here is not being opposed because it is bad legislation. It is being opposed because of the extreme conservative position that has been held for decades by so many opposite. The legislation is about restoring equity, accessibility and accountability to the university sector and is about helping students, particularly those in regional and rural areas. It is an absolute shame that at various conferences the National Party passed resolutions to support the compulsory nature of assistance to university students and opposed this type of legislation earlier this year. They know full well that the services provided by student unions in universities located at Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Ipswich, Toowoomba and elsewhere are vital in the areas of physiotherapy, child care, sport, recreation, culture and legal services. They are critical.

The coalition was driven by conservative ideology in its imposition of voluntary student unionism in the university sector. That came to a head in 2005 when we saw the coalition’s Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005. It effectively resulted in a university association, union or guild being prevented from charging a compulsory fee for facilities, amenities and services that were not of an academic nature. Students go to universities to do tutorials, attend lectures and engage in research but there are other aspects of university life. Many of them are at colleges and come from rural areas like Cunnamulla, Charleville, Birdsville, Mount Isa and Weipa in rural Queensland. They also attend universities at places like Rockhampton, Cairns, Townsville, Ipswich and Toowoomba.

Many of those students live on campus or live with other students in rented accommodation close by and they use the university for all aspects of their recreational, sporting and cultural lives and in pursuit of the arts. They need assistance because often they are away from mum, dad, family and friends who would normally provide that kind of assistance. They might have played football, basketball, netball or hockey, or might have sung in the local choral society or the local rock band. It is university which gives them the opportunity to be involved in these types of activities.

The Howard government knew when it passed its legislation back in 2005 that there would be problems. To assuage the National Party and Senator Fielding, transitional assistance of about $100 million was given to universities through three competitive funding programs. If the Howard government believed its voluntary student unionism obsession was not going to have an adverse impact upon university services and student services at regional and rural universities, why did it provide transitional assistance? Why did it listen at that stage to the National Party and provide that kind of assistance? They knew. The former Prime Minister John Howard and those people who sat at the cabinet table knew. They knew that student services in rural and remote areas, particularly in places like WA and Queensland, which are the most decentralised states, would suffer. That is why they provided that assistance. So do not come into this House and say, ‘It would make no impact,’ because the truth is it made an impact.

We took to the last election a policy that we were going to restore campus amenities, restore services and make the system much better than it was. We are going to ensure that Work Choices is eradicated from the tertiary sector. But we are also going to ensure that student services are restored to what they were. That is what it is about: restoring the kinds of necessary services, such as medical and health assistance, physiotherapy and occupational therapy, sporting and cultural facilities, that universities once enjoyed and student unions provided free of charge to many of the people there. I think university unions do a great job. If we are going to say that we live in an independent, democratic and free society, they should be allowed to function in that way, free from interference and the dictates of obsessed, conservative governments who have an ideological opposition to them. Those sitting on the opposition benches must have very sad experiences at university because so much of their vitriol is aimed at, and so much of their time is spent attacking, student unions. Students in higher education need to get access to those amenities and services. They are crucial. They also need to get access to the kind of democratic student representation which is critical.

The legislation we are discussing here, despite what the member for Indi had to say, is not about a return to compulsory student unionism. The legislation makes it clear. I wonder whether she actually bothered to read it. We are not changing, for example, section 19.37(1) of the Higher Education Support Act, which prohibits a university from requiring a student to be a member of a student organisation. That is not happening. We also have detailed guidelines, and it is very clear what they are about. We talk about such politically motivated activities as child care, legal services, clubs and societies, sport and recreation facilities, food and beverage provision. How can these things be considered to be politically motivated? How can they be considered to be the kinds of things that student unions should not provide? What is so wrong with those organisations providing them? The guidelines make it crystal clear that this fee cannot be used to support a political party or support a candidate for political office. They say it very clearly. The guidelines state that they ‘impose a similar prohibition on any person, including an organisation, who receives any such funds from the provider’ for doing so. It is there in black and white. The member for Indi must not have been looking at those guidelines clearly because she has not made reference to what the guidelines actually say in writing. The guidelines make the case clear.

I think the university sector needs greater support. The government, unlike the previous Howard government, are engaging in greater support. We are delivering tremendous support through our Better Universities Renewal Fund. We provided universities with $500 million in 2008 to support infrastructure in key, priority areas. We are doing that with better libraries, laboratories, information technology, student places and student amenities. We have also increased childcare assistance to parents who are studying at university or TAFE—$23.9 million. The jobs, education and training childcare fee assistance has been extended from one year to two years and provides parents who are undertaking study, training and job search activities with flexible and low-cost childcare support.

What did the coalition do in relation to those sorts of things? Did they invest to that extent? Did they give support in that way? They did not. A study has been undertaken, people have been consulted and an assessment has been made of the impact of the coalition’s obsession with voluntary student unionism. On November 2007, after one year of voluntary student unionism, we had a report prepared. It was done by the Australasian Campus Union Managers Association and Peter McDonald, a very important demographer. The report, entitled The impact of voluntary student unionism on services, amenities and representation for Australian university students: summary report, was based on evidence, not ideological obsession.

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