Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to add my voice to the chorus of support, both within the House and within our universities, for the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill 2010. Although it is the first time that I have spoken to the bill in this form, I acknowledge with regret that similar versions of the bill which I have spoken on previously have twice been defeated in the Senate—regret because, by voting against this bill in its previous forms, those opposite condemned students at the University of Newcastle in my electorate to diminished social and recreational services. This is in spite of the university diverting $5.8 million from teaching and learning in order to support student amenities and services because of their commitment to their students and the student experience.

At the recent election, I made a commitment to the university students in my electorate to reverse the decline in university support services that has taken place since those opposite banned non-academic fees. This bill helps me to honour that commitment and goes some way to redressing the injustices of the previous government’s voluntary student unionism legislation. The Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill is a balanced and practical solution to the challenges posed by the ban on non-academic fees. It holds promise to reinvigorate our universities, rejuvenate campus life and re-engage the student body. This is such an important aspect of the student experience, given the commitment that students now have in terms of their work-study balance. It also allows universities to implement a services fee, capped at a maximum of $250 per year—and at $254 in 2011, with indexation. That fee will be used to rebuild the support services and intellectual infrastructure essential to university life.

The bill will also, for the first time, introduce national student representation protocols to ensure that students have an opportunity to participate in university governance structures. The bill requires that universities in receipt of Commonwealth funding under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme comply with new student services, amenities and representation and advocacy guidelines. In the discharge of their obligations under the guidelines, it is important that universities act in good faith and work together in partnership with student representatives to reinvigorate campus life and rebuild the community on their campus. It is this partnership that this bill seeks to strengthen in order to positively foster campus culture and an inspired student body.

The Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Professor Ian Chubb, has flagged the importance of students receiving more than just an education, and I would have to agree. ‘It is partly about socialising people,’ he said; it is as much about ‘getting them to be part of a community as it is about expanding their minds’. I have some other views on that. I have a daughter who was a student union president for over 18 months and I know some of the complex issues she had to deal with—some of the conflict resolution and some of the advocacy she had to do for students. It was highly demanding and critical to the lives of those students. How important those services are should never be underestimated.

Consultations with universities in 2008 revealed that $170 million had been cut from funding for services and amenities as a result of VSU. It is students who have had to shoulder the burden of this cut. Universities have been forced to shift funding from research and teaching budgets to support basic services and amenities that would otherwise have ceased, such as counselling services, conflict resolution services, child care, health services and welfare support. Other universities were forced to increase the costs of parking, food and child care for students. Nine universities shut down their student legal and taxation advice services. The review of the impact of VSU commissioned by Australian University Sport and the Australian Campus Union Managers Association has revealed that students are increasingly having to bear those costs themselves. Increased charges for the use of facilities or access to events is placing greater financial pressure on students, while cost-cutting is diminishing the quality of what it means to go to university.

Universities Australia, the peak representative body for the tertiary sector, like the National Tertiary Education Union, has welcomed the reintroduction of this bill. They said:

Universities have struggled for years to prop up essential student services through cross-subsidisation from other parts of already stretched university budgets, to redress the damage that resulted from the Coalition Government’s disastrous Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) legislation.

The consultations that we undertook with the community in 2008 found that ‘the abolition of upfront compulsory student union fees had impacted negatively on the provision of amenities and services to university students.’ The postgraduate and, in some instances, undergraduate student associations of several universities have since folded. The University of Ballarat student union, for example, collapsed earlier this year, while at Southern Cross University, in regional NSW, students lost their textbook loan scheme, dental service and all but five student clubs. The report also found that VSU has cost 1,000 jobs in the tertiary sector, yet those opposite say that they are committed to jobs. The Australian Olympic Committee in their submission to the government’s review of VSU reported:

… the introduction of the VSU legislation has had a direct negative impact on the number of students (particularly women) participating in sport and, for the longer term, the maintenance and upgrading of sporting infrastructure and facilities and the retention of world class coaches.

I think we should never underestimate just how much of the infrastructure we have that supports so many aspects of the quality of life in Australia is incubated in universities. Before those opposite voted to outlaw non-academic fees in 2005, the University of Newcastle, in my electorate, levied a fee to subsidise and support catering and food, sporting facilities, student development courses, international student services and advice, international clubs, student organisations, travel services, dental services, welfare services, on-campus shops, photocopying services, campus sports, facility maintenance, recreational libraries, computer facilities, art galleries, bookshops, the student magazine, legal services, academic advice and advocacy—a rather rich experience for students.

In 2005, as the VSU legislation passed through the parliament, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle, Professor Nick Saunders, warned that it would ‘mean higher prices and a severe reduction in services and the quality of campus life’. ‘Student fees,’ the vice-chancellor said, ‘allow the University of Newcastle to deliver a range of non-academic services to students, support their wellbeing and enhance their university experience.’ I would also say that they enhance their success. Since the VSU legislation was implemented, however, the university has had to reallocate funding from important teaching and learning to support the student body.

Education in Australia is our fourth largest export. It is the largest in Victoria, and certainly in my electorate the University of Newcastle has a very high enrolment of international students. We need student services to support that growing industry. The International Education Association of Australia has flagged future drop-offs of at least 100,000 in international student enrolments. We need to provide more and better services to students to make the student experience a competitive advantage in order to attract and retain international enrolments, and this bill goes some way to achieving that.

Rural and regional students, many of whom flock to the University of Newcastle in my electorate, were most affected by the Howard government’s prohibition on non-academic fees. As a result, regional students face particular disadvantages—ageing infrastructure and declining university services. According to the National Union of Students, regional students are around 70 per cent less likely to attend universities than students from metropolitan areas, yet in the past we have seen the rug ripped out from under them once they get there.

As a government we need to remove barriers for students from regional areas to come to university, and this bill goes some way to achieving that by improving services and support activities for students, services that students moving from regional areas particularly rely upon. Dr Glenn Withers particularly highlighted the implications that increased funding for student services could have for employment opportunities for regional students. He said:

It would make a huge difference to regional students if we could obtain and properly fund expert employment advice, maintain good relationships with local employers, and try to link work with studies, so the two can work well together in terms of timing and content.

To ensure that the fee is not a barrier for students entering into tertiary education, any university introducing the fee must also provide eligible students with the option of taking out a HECS-style loan under a new component of the Higher Education Loans Program, SA-HELP. Universities Australia’s Australian university student finances surveyhas found that this loan program will remove any difficulties that students may experience in paying the fee.

Students turn to health and welfare support services when most in need, and often that is an unexpected event. Funding for these services can make the difference between students continuing their studies or dropping out because they cannot afford the costs of services such as child care or legal advice. Recent research from the United States has shown that boosting expenditure on student services and amenities leads to an increase in completion rates, particularly for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. As we increase university enrolments in line with the participation recommendations of the Bradley review into higher education in order to sustain our national productivity and social justice agenda, on-campus services cannot be allowed to decline, or else so too will the quality of education in this country. Yet the shadow minister for universities and research, Senator the Hon. Brett Mason, has touted this legislation as a return to compulsory student unionism. What a cop-out! He has said:

… if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

But this is not a return to compulsory student unionism. Section 19.37(1) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, which prohibits a provider from requiring a student to be a member of a student organisation, remains unchanged. The new provisions also prohibit the fee being spent by a higher education provider in support of a political party or candidate running for election in a Commonwealth, state or territory parliament or local government.

The opposition that is coming from the other side is not evidence based; nor is it based on reasoned argument or the reality of this legislation. It is just political; it is just ideologically driven. Those opposite are not interested in the practicalities of their opposition. Instead, they decry this legislation as a return to compulsory student unionism and say that they oppose it because they support freedom and a student’s right to choose—that word ‘choice’: look after yourself first. They say it is a ‘big new tax’ on students. It seems that in those opposite we have our own Australian brand of the United States Tea Party.

But we have seen what those opposite consider freedom. We saw it when they introduced Work Choices and we saw it when, while Minister for Health in 2005, the now Leader of the Opposition refused to approve the use of the abortion drug RU486. When those opposite voted to outlaw non-academic fees in 2005, the now Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, crossed the floor to vote against the legislation. When he did he remarked:

… take the ideology away from this and just think about … the actual effect of it.

That is probably the smartest thing Barnaby has said! He recognised then, as I hope he will now, that opposition to funding for our universities and financial support for our students are neither sustainable nor sensible. I would ask those opposite where they expect universities to find the $170 million that has been cut from universities as a result of VSU, but compared to the $11 billion black hole in their recent election costings I suppose $170 million is small change.

Australian Labor governments have always been the governments of opportunity, and a services and amenities fee is an important component of our commitment to building the intellectual infrastructure of our nation. We refuse to continue the tradition of disinvestment in higher education that those opposite began. Already we have reformed youth allowance and delivered support through our Better Universities Renewal Funding, which provided universities with $500 million in 2008 to support vital infrastructure. This has meant better libraries, better laboratories, better research facilities and better amenities.

In the most recent grant allocation rounds of the Education Investment Fund announced last month, we provided $550 million to 19 projects to improve tertiary education and research. This forms part of a larger package of around $3 billion to fund the intellectual infrastructure necessary for our universities to prosper. It was that great Labor stalwart Gough Whitlam who said in 1972:

… education is the key to equality of opportunity. Sure—we can have education on the cheap … but our children will be paying for it for the rest of their lives … We believe that a student’s merit rather than a parent’s wealth should decide who should benefit from the community’s vast financial commitment to tertiary education.

The Gillard Labor government remains committed and true to these values almost 40 years later. This legislation is supported by universities and, more importantly, it is supported by students. I commend this bill to the House.

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