Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

With this Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill, the Abbott government is launching an unprecedented attack both on our universities and on the aspirations of thousands of students. Cutting $3.9 billion out of our higher education sector and telling universities that they can make up that difference only by charging students more is a direct attack on the equal opportunity that this country has fought so hard for.

The harsh reality of the first anniversary of the Abbott government is that it has shown that it was never the Prime Minister's intention to keep his promise made before the election that there would be no cuts to education, just as it was never his intention to keep his promises of no cuts to health, no new taxes and no changes to superannuation. The Prime Minister is not only letting down everyone who voted for this government, believing in those promises, but also risking the future of young Australians.

Among those young Australians who will be hit the hardest are those attending our regional universities. Over the last 40 years, the reforms of successive Labor governments have opened up our universities, providing those who previously could only dream of going into higher education with the opportunity to do so. Labor successfully ended the cycle of young academic talent being overlooked due to the size of their parents' bank balance. This bill aims to absolutely smash that legacy. Just as the Abbott government did with health and with pensions and with superannuation, they are pursuing a cruel and flawed ideology that directly attacks Australia's sense of social equity, the very framework that has made our country the envy of the developed world.

According to Universities Australia, cuts to course funding will result in degrees in engineering and science increasing by 58 per cent; agriculture, by 43 per cent; nursing, by 24 per cent; education, by 20 per cent; and environmental studies, by 110 per cent. The Grattan Institute's Andrew Norton has predicted 30 per cent of female graduates in nursing, education, IT, commerce and engineering will never clear their debts under this plan. Australian Catholic University Vice-Chancellor Greg Craven has also warned against the government's plan, saying that it would disproportionately affect nursing and teaching graduates.

These increases are only the starting point, as it is anticipated many universities will go further, with independent modelling forecasting that the cost of degrees in science, in medicine and in law will well and truly exceed $100,000. In fact, I met recently with the Go8 deans of medicine and they are already being told that their courses will be the fee leaders at universities. They are already being told that courses in medicine will be the fee leaders—that is, the most expensive, costing the most that can possibly be charged.

To the health sector, this will be devastating. Most Australian universities now require students who wish to undertake a medical degree to first complete a three- or four-year bachelor law or science degree. That means students who graduate with medical degrees will be at university for at least seven years before they are able to seek full-time employment. Starting their working lives with such a massive debt will require graduates to put remuneration before job satisfaction as they seek the jobs that pay the highest amount immediately rather than pursue that which they are most passionate about.

Now, what do you think that is going to mean for the health workforce when, already, for the first time in five years, we are starting to see a substantial drop in the number of medical students who want to become GP specialists? Where do you think a cohort of students, potentially with debts of $100,000 or more, are going to seek their careers? In general practice? Possibly not. They are going to seek careers where they are able to earn the most as quickly as possible so they can pay off their massive university debt. Many students will be forced to go into workplaces where they can earn the most to pay down a debt many could still be wearing decades after they finish university. As I said, this will have very serious consequences for the medical profession.

The government has already attacked general practice in its budget, and these changes, frankly, represent another attack on our health workforce. Do you think our new medical graduates with $100,000-plus in debt are going to want to practise as a GP in Dubbo or Wagga or any place they are not going to be able to get the money that they need to pay that debt down?

These changes also represent an attack on our medical research workforce. Again, the potential for those students, knowing that they will have such substantial debts, to take the decision to go into medical research—and it is often low paid—is going to be well and truly lost. This comes at the same time as the government is trying to justify the GP tax on the grounds that the funds are needed to pay for the Medical Research Fund, which it insists is critical to tackling our future health needs. Well, this bill runs completely counter to that aim. The government hits patients with the GP tax—which drives them away from seeing doctors, making them sicker and adding to the future health burden—so it can pay for medical research but then imposes such a crippling debt burden on our brightest and best students that few will ever be able to afford to participate in that research.

The bill not also risks our reputation but is a massive barrier to our economic future, because it is absolutely vital that we have a productive, innovative and highly skilled workforce. The Australian experience has proven that economic and social prosperity is only achieved through policies of inclusion, not exclusion. Let us be absolutely clear about this: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, inclusive about $100,000 university degrees. There is nothing inclusive about saddling young Australians with a lifetime of debt. These are truly regressive reforms, and no amount of spin or denial from the other side can prove otherwise. The removal of price controls will see the cost of university degrees skyrocket. The prospect of degrees exceeding $100,000 will become reality if the government proceeds with this bill. The $1.9 billion cut in Commonwealth funding for course delivery will force universities to pass this on through higher fees. I note the capacity and the concern which regional universities have expressed about that.

This is a tax on our future. It is a tax on our students who will pay the most, not only through increased fees but through a constantly growing debt burden. For it is not enough for the Abbott government to slug students with cuts to course funding and the removal of price controls; they want to then multiply this already crippling debt through changes to HECS and HELP loans. At Federation University—and I am aware that this is a breach of standing orders, but I have spoken to the Deputy Speaker about doing this briefly—

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