Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all members for their contribution to the debate, and I certainly want to reflect on the remarks made by the member for Blair, who pointed out the approach that the government have taken to make sure that we enable our tertiary students to reach their full potential through their education in our universities.

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Bill 2001 and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Consequential Amendments and Transi­tional Provisions) Bill 2011 establish the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, TEQSA, as a single national regulator and quality assurance agency for Australia's higher education sector. This is a key reform of this government's productivity and participation agenda to transform Australia's higher education system. With a strong focus on higher education participation and attainment, our reforms will bring about significant change to the current landscape of Australian higher education.

TEQSA will play a pivotal role in ensuring the overall quality of our higher education system. It will replace the current state and territory based systems of registration and course accreditation and quality assurance arrangements currently undertaken by the Australian Universities Quality Agency. In doing so, it will reduce the number of federal, state and territory regulatory and quality assurance bodies from nine to one. This will provide for national consistency and efficiency in the registration of all higher education providers. Central to TEQSA are the basic principles of regulation which will ensure it uses a risk based and proportionate approach when undertaking its regulatory activity. These principles provide for TEQSA to take into account the scale, mission and history of each provider when undertaking its regulatory activities. Where poor quality is identified, the action TEQSA will take will depend on the risk of the provider and the seriousness of the contravention.

This is an important piece of legislation for Australia's higher education system. In developing the legislation, the government has benefited from the active engagement of stakeholders within the sector. The government also commends the work of interim TEQSA chair Professor Denise Bradley and interim TEQSA CEO Mr Ian Hawke, who have played an important role in planning for the commencement of the agency.

The introduction of a national system of regulation with the establishment of TEQSA is a critical step towards ensuring that the expansion and diversification of Australia's higher education sector does not come at the expense of quality. It will provide the safeguards to ensure that our students are receiving a quality education and assure the reputation of our higher education system both nationally and internationally. It reflects this government's continued commitment to create a quality higher education system that is diverse, innovative and responsive to the needs of its students.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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