Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Higher Education Support Amendment (FEE-HELP Loan Fee) Bill 2010. In my reading of it, it looks as though it contains relatively small administrative changes. It changes the FEE-HELP loan fee from 120 per cent to 125 per cent. I understand that that brings it into line with HECS-HELP but not with OS-HELP or VET FEE-HELP. My reason for getting up to speak is that, in the post-Bradley environment, you will hear from me on every piece of legislation relevant to this kind of change coming through this place, no matter how small or big. For the last 16 months, I have represented the electorate of Lyne on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales. This electorate has been in existence for roughly 60 years, and only 12 per cent of year 12 students go through to tertiary education. That is roughly one in six students making it through to tertiary education in some form. I think, and I hope this House thinks, that is appalling. We are a long way short of the aspirational targets of 40 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds having bachelor degrees by 2025. That is part of the Bradley target, and it is a wonderful target. For a growing region such as ours, to get from 12 per cent to 40 per cent in 15 years means a call to arms within my community and a call for those within the ranks of government to do some serious structural work and really do some heavy lifting in turning that around.

I see two points as critical. The first is lifting the aspiration for education at a community level. When generation after generation has not accessed tertiary education, that is a very tough nut to crack. I know many people within the area who are trying to go through the practical steps to be the first in their family to go on to higher education. It is a daunting prospect when members of your own family do not even understand what you are doing and why you are doing it, let alone your broader community not really throwing support behind you for what you are doing. That aspiration for education is not given the airtime it deserves in this serious structural reform of trying to lift the number of students with a bachelor degree or higher.

The second point is the issue of length of stay in education. Whilst it is still in the ballpark of anecdotal evidence, I think we are starting to get to the point where, if we are serious about issues of long-term unemployment in this country, we can draw some direct correlations between lengths of stay in education and the ability to change jobs, stay out of the unemployment queues and, in particular, not be caught in long-term unemployment.

There is almost a direct correlation between length of stay in education and the inability of many people to get off the unemployment queues. So all of us, particularly the executive and the minister, need to promote the very general but very substantial point to many people who are flirting with the education system that a value should be placed on staying in education for as long as possible. It does matter. In a modern economy, the ability to be flexible and to move from one job to another is important and does have value. I hope that we see more and more of those two concepts over the next couple of years in this post-Bradley environment.

The reason I make those two points is that the 12 per cent figure of students from the electorate of Lyne who are going through to higher education, the very low level of tertiary engagement, is almost mirrored by some of the lowest income levels in Australia. I know many people in this place think of my electorate as having wonderful beaches and being a great place for a summer holiday—and, by all means, I welcome you—but we have some real challenges. We have some of the lowest income levels in Australia, some of the highest unemployment levels in Australia and, in particular, some of the highest youth unemployment levels—and you can almost add another five per cent on Indigenous unemployment within the local area. There are entrenched issues, and many are now starting to realise that Bradley—and this aspiration for education as a community—is the meal ticket to address some of the entrenched disadvantage within our area.

That is why whenever one of these bills comes before us I will do my best to get on my feet and promote its importance to an area such as mine—a lower SES area. We are sensitive to reform and realise the importance of the benefits of reform, but if it in any way makes it harder for our community, who want to overcome some of these entrenched challenges, I will certainly be fighting it tooth and nail. But the government generally have my support in the targets they are setting from Bradley and they generally have my support in the funding shake-ups for the university sector. But, as various recent discussions with the minister’s office have, I hope, made clear, these targets will not be reached unless we get down and dirty on some of these issues with regard to the university sector and its inability at the moment to engage with many regions such as mine and the importance of that changing alongside funding models.

In response to the figures that I have found, we have now established an education and skills forum in the local area. I was surprised at how difficult it was to get all the various education providers—public sector, private sector, secondary and tertiary—from the Hastings Valley and, in particular, Port Macquarie to sit around a table and talk, to show a bit of trust and a bit of openness and put together a combined battle plan to address some of these targets. I am pleased that that is now starting to kick some goals of its own. We are starting to see some issues dealt with just because this group is meeting. It is also a group with intent, and that broader intent is to address and lift significantly this figure of 12 per cent. To the credit of the local council—which are also involved in the education and skills forum—they have quite ambitiously adopted the government target of 40 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds having bachelor degrees by 2025 as the local area’s target. Whilst it is ambitious for government to set that target, it is even more ambitious for a region such as ours to set that target. So we are nailing our colours to the mast with regard to Bradley, and we hope government assists us in going down this path.

What we are seeking now in a more substantial sense is some engagement from the federal government with respect to the next step. The concern that I have is that we are repeating the problems with funding models that only provide federal government funding for a post-Bradley environment through existing institutions—so that it is the universities themselves that are being given the autonomy to decide where and how they spend their money. As a region we are probably not that attractive for an existing institution to spend money on. We bring with us all the challenges that low SES and the need for social inclusion bring. If the process that government is going to follow into the future is just to tip money into the universities and say, ‘You’ve got to have a social inclusion agenda and you’ve got to engage low SES; work it out,’ I do not think that is going to be enough to hit these targets and get this issue across the line.

Government has to push harder and take more of an ownership role. For example, where some lovely, prestigious sandstone universities may not want to go, they have to be forced to go if we are serious about changing the game of higher education in Australia. So, while this is a small administrative change, I think it will help an area such as mine, where people have to leave their homes to go to universities because, fundamentally, we do not have a bricks-and-mortar campus anywhere in the area. Any tweaking of HECS or FEE-HELP that can assist is appreciated.

The issue that is stuck in the Senate at the moment sits neatly alongside this issue and was raised by the previous member. It would be remiss of me to stand in this place and talk about education without talking about the most embarrassing example of policy development in my 16 months in this place. I think the youth allowance issue is critical for future students and for this issue of the aspiration for education and I would ask both sides to resolve that issue as quickly as possible—preferably this week so that some students and their families can start to make some genuine decisions about their financial situations and how they are going to tap into education and higher education in the future.

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