Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to support the remarks of my friend and colleague the member for Brisbane. Ms Gambaro would remember back in her earlier parliamentary incarnation as the member for Petrie in 1996 that one of the key priorities of the Howard coalition government was to restore public confidence and commitment to vocational education and training. At the end of the Hawke-Keating era of Labor governments there was the Dawkins review and the rhetoric about the way funding was allocated. Vocational qualifications had been very much relegated to being second-class qualifications. All that the former Labor government could talk about were university degrees, as if those were the only postsecondary education pathway that people could consider.

I was thrilled at the renaissance in vocational education and training. There were innovations in apprenticeships by broadening the base of those qualifications beyond the traditional trades. What a renaissance that was in vocational education and training under the Howard government. I am pleased that that leadership has caught on. It seems to have infected the newer Labor government and it is pleasing to see that this Labor government is turning its mind to issues that seemed all too tedious for the last Labor government in Canberra.

So I am pleased to be able to support the Higher Education Support Amendment (No. 1) Bill 2011. The coalition has no amendments, is supportive of this bill and recognises a number of positive measures that the bill seeks to implement. The bill aims to achieve better outcomes for higher education and for people studying under vocational education and training providers by providing flexibility in the 'principal purpose' requirement for the recognition of bodies corporate as higher education or VET providers. This is a good thing because it is a clear statement that we have no place for those who think they can offer courses, particularly to overseas students, in the guise of education for what are really shopfronts for visa factories. These diminish the quality of education in Australia. Education is still a very key export for our nation, despite it running into very stiff headwinds at the moment, and I will touch more on that shortly.

There are also measures that aim to reduce the risk of undesirable providers through the introduction of a fit and proper persons test for the management personnel of these bodies and the introduction of conditions for their recognition. The bill also aims to simplify and streamline administrative arrangements for VET providers to facilitate access to FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP income contingent loans—a measure of the former Howard government. These loans are a mechanism available to full-fee-paying higher education and eligible VET students in full-fee paying and some government subsidised higher level courses. There is also a measure in the bill to assist the government in meeting its 2010 budget commitment to provide the National Entitlement to a Quality Training Place with the support of a VET FEE-HELP income contingent plan.

We are also aiming to improve access to VET FEE-HELP by removing financial barriers to higher education and ensuring that those who plan to undertake a VET qualification can access student loans to assist in the financing of their course. The minister also has a power in this legislation that can be exercised by regulation to establish criteria for deciding whether the management of a registered training provider meet the fit and proper persons test. So there will be more activity to tease out precisely what that means to ensure that people are eligible to be approved as higher education providers or VET providers. I have touched on the introduction of the contingent loans for the vocational education training sector—a measure from the Howard government years and one that has been carried forward by this bill. This is a good measure because a number of people do feel that the cost of pursuing a vocational education qualification or a higher education course is a barrier to their participation. Here we see an income-contingent loan that would take into account all or part of the student tuition fees. This is important because that income-contingent loan in this financial year only begins to be repaid when the eligible person has an income in the order of—as I look quickly through my notes—the mid-$40,000s, if I recall correctly. That is a point in time where the financial benefits of those that have achieved a qualification are starting to be realised—it is $44,911 for 2011—and it recognises that, as the taxpayer and the broader community make a contribution through government and institutions and providers of vocational education and higher education, the individual who is benefiting from that investment also receives a personal benefit.

There are a lot of statistics around that show that the enhanced lifetime income of people carrying forward qualifications of the kind this bill seeks to address are quite substantial, and a modest return of that personal benefit in the way of repaying an income-contingent loan is, I think, a sensible and measured way of recognising the duality of benefits in that the nation and the economy benefits from a higher qualified workforce and a more educated community but the individual also receives considerable personal benefit, and that partnership is reflected in the funding arrangements of the courses that are undertaken to achieve that position.

The issue that the bill will also hopefully assist with is that not enough Australians have been able to access VET FEE-HELP to date. Some of the figures that have been available through the department communicate that in 2009 only a little over 5,000 students received income-contingent loans under the VET FEE-HELP scheme and only 50 registered training organisations were eligible. So if you were lucky enough to be in the catchment of one of those RTOs then an opportunity would be there. If you were unfortunate enough not to have an eligible RTO within a reasonable distance then there was an impediment to you accessing that benefit and that opportunity.

It is also important to ensure that there is an increasing participation and to recognise what the barriers might be to participation. In my own community, down in the wonderful Mornington Peninsula on the outer urban fringe of Melbourne, our postsecondary education participation is approximately half the metropolitan average. That is quite a striking figure when you imagine there are some outstanding postsecondary education providers in our community—and the member for Chifley is standing on his feet to commend Chisholm and Monash, I am certain.

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