Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is a land of opportunity and a fair go. I support the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014 as I believe that it proposes a well-considered solution to the problems facing higher education today. It will usher in a fairer and more secure system that provides greater opportunity to a greater number of students than ever before.

Around this time of year, the thoughts of year 12 students around the country turn to what they will be studying next year. On top of Australian students, countless others from abroad will also be looking to continue their studies. In a country with over 40 universities and many more private colleges, they should be spoilt for choice. After all, we hold Australia to be at the cutting edge of higher education. We like to think of our universities as having a world-class standard. In many ways they do, though in others our universities have come up lacking. A look at how we stand in international rankings paints a startling picture of how we are going. The 2014 Times Higher Education world university rankings puts our highest-ranking university at 43rd in the world, while the 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities puts our highest-ranking university at 44th. In previous years, we have hovered around that range, hardly a place for a country that prides itself on educational excellence. The relative decline of Australian higher education can be put down to many things; however, costs, increasing debt and excessive regulation stand out as major culprits in this situation.

These reforms aim at stopping the rot in higher education and deliver a strong, secure, sustainably competitive international university sector. This bill serves to create more opportunities for people to commence further study, as people from disadvantaged and rural and regional areas have greater access to higher education than ever before. Students from rural and regional areas will now have greater choice, as education providers innovate and compete in a deregulated market. Courses that once would have required mandatory attendance in one of the capital cities could soon turn online, giving many students the opportunity to study from their homes. How great it will be when the sons and daughters of Australian farmers can study beyond secondary school without leaving their families and homes behind. The benefits for these students would be immense.

The benefits of higher education are already well documented. On average, students who have higher qualifications earn more and live longer and healthier lives than those who do not. And yet the disadvantages of living in remote areas are also well known. With these reforms, we will see more rural and regional people get higher quality educations that will reap benefits for all concerned. How sad that Labor wants to stand in the way of such opportunity for country Australians. Labor is supposed to represent the average Australian, yet it stands in the way of reforms that would clearly benefit fellow Australians from the bush.

True to form, Labor opposes this bill that would see the creation of the largest ever Commonwealth scholarship scheme for disadvantaged students. I find the scheme to be one of the most exciting developments in education in recent times. The brightest students from disadvantaged backgrounds will be able to study free of charge. The scholarship scheme will be the greatest in Australian history. It will ensure that the best and brightest students from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to free education. This goes on to benefit the families and communities of scholarship recipients and Australia as a whole. This is a nation that believes in the importance of the fair go. With these scholarships, we will give those that need and deserve it the best shot available. These scholarships are funded not by the taxpayer but by the educational institutions themselves. It will soon become the responsibility for every institution with more than 500 Commonwealth-supported students to contribute one dollar out of every five of additional income. The prospect that my constituents may have access to such a scheme is a truly exciting thing.

The difference between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party when it comes to education—and there are many, but the primary difference—comes down to fairness. Labor like to talk fairness, but Liberals deliver fairness. The seismic reforms of which I speak are the foundations of that new fairness in the higher education system.

How is this so? Well, fairness comes from the principle that the person who receives the benefit pays for it, not someone else. How can it be fair that the vast majority of the benefits accruing from enrolling in higher education go to the students but the vast majority of the bill goes to the taxpayer? How is it fair that today students pay approximately 40 per cent of the burden of their university education and taxpayers 60 per cent? But the students will eventually see 100 per cent of the benefit. How is that fair? This package of measures will bring the student-taxpayer balance back to fifty-fifty burden sharing. Research indicates that those who go on to complete third-level, or university, education will, over their lifetime, earn up to 75 per cent more than those who do not.

However, it is not merely a question of the share of the burden and who pays what amount vis-a-vis the taxpayer and the student. It is also a question of fairness and the rate at which students will pay. Why should it be the case, as it is today, that students receive moneys borrowed by the taxpayer at rates less than the taxpayer borrowed at? It is right, proper and fair that the government, acting on behalf and in the best in interests of the taxpayer, asks students to pay the same rate on their share of the amount as the government borrowed the money at. After all, the money was borrowed to pay for that student's education, and all of the benefits will go to that student. It is only right that they pay the rate the government pays, when they reach the qualifying threshold for that repayment. The government will lend to students at a rate that reflects the cost of government borrowings to fund their student loans, with a maximum of six per cent.

This common-sense, prudent, timely and fair measure will bring indexation in line with the cost of borrowing to the government, saving $3.15 billion over four years. This change is necessary to ensure the sustainability of the HELP program. We are absolutely committed to maintaining HELP so that no student pays up-front, which is why we are making these changes to secure its future.

These changes are also necessary to fix the fiscal mess left by Labor. Labor are all about living for today. There is no vision. There is no moral clarity or rectitude. There is no discipline, and no fairness. In government, the Labor philosophy was very much, 'Borrow from tomorrow to live for today.'

When it comes to international and global competition, most nations are absolutely ruthless, and, while Australia may be among the best in the world now, that does not guarantee a place amongst the best in 10, 20, or 30 years time. A great and timely reminder is the rise of Chinese universities through the ranks. The point is that complacency leads to decay. Hubris is not a policy. Not having a long-term plan to secure Australia's place amongst the nations of the world is not smart or fair. How could it ever be fair to wantonly allow the Australian higher education system to fall into mediocrity? How are future generations yet unborn to compete in a global, interconnected business environment? How can they then continue to enjoy the same high standard of living that we enjoy in Australia today?

But don't just take my word on it. How about taking the word of Michael Gallagher, Chief Executive of the Group of Eight universities? He says:

The 2014 Higher Education Budget reforms are necessary. They are logical, coherent, sustainable, equitable and inevitable.

Mr Gallagher went on to say:

My guess is that the detractors of micro-economic reform in Australia’s higher education industry will find themselves on the wrong side of history in resisting efficiency improvement and innovation …

It is no longer acceptable to bury our heads in the sand and pretend our universities are not falling behind when compared to those of our neighbours and the rest of the world. Global university rankings have struggled to include an Australian university in the global top 50 for years. The number of quality further education providers in the Asian region continues to grow, while more and more students seek to study in less traditional ways such as through online courses or through private colleges. Yet Australian universities and private institutions are unable to capitalise on this new trend and are instead held back by burdensome regulations that are ill-suited to the 21st-century global education market.

As such, I applaud initiatives that seek to equip tertiary institutions with the ways and means to take advantage of the circumstances and deliver the best outcomes for students and the nation alike. The benefits of deregulation and the free market are well known, so there is no need for me to labour this point.

However, with these reforms, we will free higher educational institutions from the shackles of regulation and give them the freedom to compete with each other in the education market. By being able to set their own fees, universities will soon have to compete with private colleges and other educational institutions, which will drive all players towards further innovation in areas such as service delivery and student support. With this, students only stand to benefit from the improvements and innovation in the further-education market that is driven by free-market competition. This will help guarantee the future of education in this country.

Education is opportunity. Through these reforms, Australia will see 80,000 extra students enrol in Australia by 2018. There will never be a better time to commence further study in this country, and many of these extra students will be the first from their families to continue studies beyond a secondary level.

Finally, these reforms are poised to bring substantial windfalls to Australian science and research as well. Australia has a proud record of contributing to the scientific community at home and abroad. Yet, under the previous government, nothing was done to ensure the future success of our research sector. I welcome the substantial extra funding the government seeks to provide for research in Australian universities such as through the Future Fellowships scheme and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. These schemes were largely abandoned by the previous government and had no proper planning for operation in the following years. By committing increased funding the government will ensure the success of programs such as the Future Fellowships scheme well into the future. Specific research areas also stand to benefit under these reforms as universities become more competitive and attract higher calibre researchers and increased private funding. This all goes towards a brighter and more efficient research sector with benefits for all of us.

This reform bill will enable universities and other institutions to rise to the challenges of the 21st century and ensure that Australia is not left behind by global competition. The passage of this bill will see a greater number of disadvantaged and rural and regional students commence studies when they might not have been able to before.

Somewhere in the middle of this debate is the rub of the thing, which is: who really knows what is best for Australian universities, the universities themselves or some grey, unknown bureaucrat in Canberra? The coalition believes that we have too many Canberra bureaucrats. Why does Labor not trust the university sector to know what is best for their industry?

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