Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I proudly rise to speak in opposition to the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. I am another MP representing a regional electorate, as the member for Hume purports to do. Unlike him, I am representing the best interests of regional families. This bill is an attack on the opportunity for regional families to send their kids to universities. This bill is all about advancing the interests of a few sandstone universities to compete internationally at the cost of students from low- and middle-income families, who will be forced to compete for the crumbs of a few scholarships. The last speaker liked to quote from a certain book. I will return the favour and quote from a coalition pamphlet, laughingly entitled 'Our plan: real solutions for all Australians'. Anyone listening to this debate might remember this pamphlet. This was the great shield for the Prime Minister. For two years before the election whenever he had a tough question or was asked about his complete lack of policy details, he hid behind this pamphlet, saying: 'This explains all. These are our policies. Unlike anything else I have ever said in my life, this is in writing so you can believe it.' Let me quote from it:

We will ensure the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding.

That is just a broken promise outright. That is a blatant lie. It has deceived the families of Australia.

This government's proposals do three key things: they allow universities to set higher fees for students, they dramatically increase student debt by changing the interest rate on student loans and they drastically cut public funding for university courses. And the Minister for Education has the arrogance and audacity to have stated in this House on at least two occasions that students will benefit most from these changes. Crippling students with enormous debt or deterring them from study is not benefiting them and he should be ashamed of making such an absurd assertion.

Labor's values on higher education are fundamentally different to the Liberal Party's. We believe in fair access and fair funding, and we delivered this when we were in government. The Liberals want to Americanise the university sector, as they want to do in so many areas of Australian life. Education is the great enabler. Like many speakers in this debate, I am proud to be the first on my mother's side of the family to go to university. Not only is education a private good, benefiting the individual; it is a public good, enriching our economy and society. The changes contained in this legislation impoverish our society through their myopic focus on penny-pinching.

Before drawing to the attention of the House the many flaws in this bill, I want to briefly respond to the outrageous claims from the last speaker—in fact, every coalition speaker—about Labor's legacy on higher education. Here are a few facts. On our watch, government investment in universities increased from $8 billion in $2007 to $14 billion in 2013. For the innumerate over the other side, that is almost a doubling of federal funding for higher education in six years. We saw 750,000 students at Australian universities—one in every four of them there because of Labor's increased funding. Through the Education Investment Fund, $4.35 billion was invested in modern teaching and research facilities.

In the regional context, Labor increased funding for regional universities by 56 per cent and boosted regional student numbers by 30 per cent. This was incredibly significant for my area and for the University of Newcastle, which is in the region I represent. It was Labor which made these record investments in our university sector and it is a record which is in stark contrast to the reforms proposed by the Liberal Party.

The truth is that the government's plan for higher education constitutes an extensive cut in funding and support to the sector. The Liberals are attempting to cut $5.8 billion from higher education teaching, learning and research.

This bill provides for $3.9 billion in cuts as follows: funding through the Commonwealth supported places in undergraduate degrees will be cut by an average of 20 per cent and for some courses this will be as high as 37 per cent; almost $174 million will be cut from the Research Training Scheme; and interest rates for student loans will move from CPI to the 10-year bond rate, which is a grossly unfair change.

There are clear economic arguments against the government's proposals. If fewer people obtain university degrees because degrees become more unaffordable, this will impact on Australia's productivity and economic performance.

Deregulation will inevitably result in significantly higher course fees and this will have two significant impacts: students will be faced with huge debt and those considering tertiary education, particularly in regional areas like those I represent, will be deterred from pursuing a university degree.

It is not just the Labor Party which make these points. It is telling to identify some important contributions from the sector on these unfair reforms. Professor Stephen Parker, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra, stated:

… these changes, taken together, are; unfair, unethical, reckless, poor economic policy, contrary to the international evidence and being woefully explained, raising suspicions about how much thought has actually gone into them.

That is a damning quote. And let us point to Belinda Robinson, Chief Executive of Universities Australia, the peak body for this sector—hardly a Labor friend, if you look at their quotes in the past—who stated:

If we're not careful what we will start to see is a situation where students are being deterred not only from participating in university study but in fact taking time out of the workforce to do things like have children because it will be such a financial burden for them once they re-enter the workforce …

These are damning quotes. Look at what Professor Bruce Chapman, the father of the HECS scheme, has said. He is of the view that the government's model is bad economics. It is also important to consider the impact regarding fair access to tertiary education. It is abundantly clear that the Liberal's proposed reforms are fundamentally unfair, as well as disastrous economically.

Again, it is not just the Labor Party saying this; the Vice-Chancellor of Swinburne University, Linda Kristjanson, has criticised the reforms and wrote to her staff, stating:

… deregulation will inevitably lead to much higher fees for our students.

And further:

Over time, full fee deregulation will lead to a higher education system characterised by the "haves" and the "have nots".

And it is not just vice-chancellors who are of this view. I previously referred to a year 11 student, Jacqueline, who attends Callaghan College in my area. Jacqueline wants to study primary teaching at the University of Newcastle. She emailed me and told me how angry she was that, because of these changes, the cost of a teaching degree will now cost around twice as much as it currently does. She also has significant concerns about the interest repayments on her student loan, particularly if she wants to have time away from work for family reasons.

The government has achieved something quite unique with these reforms. The unfairness and inequity of these reforms is clearly identified by a broad spectrum of our society, ranging from university vice-chancellors to prospective university students. It is regional areas such as the Hunter region and the electorate of Charlton, which I represent, which will be hit the worst. A significant number of university graduates in Charlton are teachers and nurses. Around 13,000 people in Charlton have a university degree and, of these, four out of five have studied in education or nursing.

According to Universities Australia—again, the peak body—the cost of a nursing course will increase by 24 per cent and the cost of an education course will increase by 20 per cent. These are incredibly significant increases for professions where wages are only moderate. And that is before you even look at the impact of higher interest rates on these debts.

NATSEM modelling, the modelling organisation that the Prime Minister, when in opposition, said was the premier economic modelling body in this country, predicts that the cost of an education degree will increase from $31,400 to $87,560. That is a huge increase in anyone's books. Universities Australia's modelling is even more dire.

Charlton has a very significant number of nursing graduates and the country will need more nurses as people age and the healthcare sector expands. According to Universities Australia, a female nurse, who works part time for six years in order to have kids—a scenario I am very familiar with personally—will face a debt of $97,680 to have a nursing degree. What those on the other side do not understand is that, when they take time off to have a family, they will not be paying the HECS—or HELP, as it is now called—but because of the jacked-up interest rates their debt compounds very significantly. So a nurse who wants to work part time for six years while they get their kids up to school age will face a debt of $97,000. They will also be paying off this debt to age 46. Despite the protestations of our Minister for Education, nurses and teachers do not earn $1 million more than non-university graduates. They make a great contribution to this country and it is completely unfair, inequitable and contrary to good economic policy to weigh them down with a $100,000 debt.

Teaching and nursing degrees are often the first degrees obtained in families. My wife is a nurse and was the first in her family to finish university. My grandfather was the first in his family to go to university and obtained a teaching degree. These are typically the first degrees that working-class kids are able to engage in to join the professional sector. The government is making that possibility so much harder.

These increases are not just for these degrees. Let us look at engineering, a profession where we face a dire skills shortage. According to Universities Australia, an engineer will face a debt of over $200,000 and will not pay it off until they are 53. This is an incredible impact on both skills shortage areas and it is also going to have a disproportionate impact on women. This is a government that purports to be trying to increase workforce participation through its laughable Paid Parental Leave scheme, a scheme that will reward mothers in north Sydney with $50,000, while women in my electorate will get less than $20,000. But this scheme will do nothing to increase workforce participation, especially when you counteract it with these very regressive changes to higher education.

The impacts on regional universities will be quite massive. The University of Newcastle, which has been ranked the best university in Australia under 50 years of age, has a very high proportion of students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. Over a quarter of the students going to this uni have this background, and these students will be the real victims of these changes.

This is part of a broader attack by this government on education. We have seen them cutting over $1 billion from child care, taking crucial dollars away from early childhood education, which has a marked impact on the quality of people's lives and their chances of succeeding in life. In addition to that, we have seen a $30 billion cut in school funding through the government's abandonment of their commitment to the Gonski funding model. This is a government that have breached every single promise they have made on education. They promised not to change university funding arrangements. They did. They said they were on a unity ticket on Gonski. Well, they could not wait to break that promise and strip $30 billion from school funding. This is a government that will stand condemned for their changes to the education sector. They will have a massive impact across all of Australia but especially regional areas like the one I represent.

Labor opposes the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill because these changes do not meet the fairness test. They are fundamentally unfair and, if the reforms are enacted, they will have a profoundly negative impact on our economy and our society. As the Leader of the Opposition stated earlier in this debate, opportunity in education is a pact between generations. This government is yet again failing the next generation, as it has on climate change, investment in industries of the future and a sustainable healthcare system. This government will stand condemned as Australia's worst government when it comes to supporting future generations.

In contrast, Labor have a proud tradition of investment and broadening access to tertiary education. We will never accept changes that Americanise our tertiary sector, cut funding and make it harder for Australian students to obtain a university qualification. I would like to finish by quoting Labor's leader:

Labor believes in equality of education. Labor believes in affordable, accessible higher education for all Australians. That is why we will vote against $100,000 degrees. We will vote against the doubling and tripling of university fees. We will vote against a real and compounding interest rate on student debt. We will vote time and time again against this government's cuts to university research. We will never consign the next generation of Australians to a 'debt sentence'. We will not support a system where the cost of university degrees rises faster than the capacity of society to pay for them. We will never tell Australians that the quality of their education depends upon their capacity to pay.

This is a debate about economics and equity. On both counts, this government fails. We will hear speakers from the other side talk about needing to reduce debt. Governing is about choices, but why would you choose to cut $5.8 billion from higher education while wasting over $21 billion in a ridiculous Paid Parental Leave scheme that rewards rich women for having a baby and pays a paltry less than $20,000 to the majority of my electorate.

Governing is about choices. This is a poor choice that will close the door on a generation of working class kids getting to uni. This is a poor choice that will mean we have fewer nursing and teaching graduates and vital services for our future. It is a poor choice that will move Australia's economy backwards and make society a less fair place. In the end, it must be opposed for these reasons.

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