Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill presented to the House by the Minister for Education. Let me take you to something that I have been reading, which I find interesting. It is the report, Australia's competitiveness: reversing the slide, by Professor Tony Makin of Griffith University. It states:

The 2013-14 Global Competitiveness Report has Australia ranked 21st, outside the top 20 most competitive countries in the world for the first time.

It further states:

The WEF measure scores and ranks countries across a range of economic indicators for a set of so-called 'pillars' that are thought to drive economic growth. These pillars are individual economies' institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and education, product market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

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Australia's economic ranking has seriously deteriorated since the turn of the century.

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In the early 2000s, Australia was ranked in the top 10 most competitive countries in the world.

The report also says that we have now been overtaken by New Zealand, who has come in at 18th on that ranking in the 2013-14 report, up five places from the previous year.

If we are serious about the economic wellbeing of this country and the skills that are required, then the education reform proposed by the minister in this bill gives us the opportunity to allow universities to have some unfettered freedom to look at the market forces that prevail in terms of courses. I find it fascinating that, when you read some of the higher education material, to have 29 schools of nursing, across this nation, there are niches that need to be considered in the way in which we skill and develop the young people for the future.

In my first speech in the House I spoke about a couple of things that go to the heart of these reforms and I want to take a moment to quote that speech:

I used education as the way to change my life to get to where I am now and I believe that a quality education is the key to success for any young Australian.

I went through higher education at a time when it was not funded. I used a Commonwealth scholarship. As a country kid I enrolled, after receiving a Commonwealth scholarship, and then, through that process, developed a career pathway that gave me opportunities.

Higher education is important, but it is important in the sense that, if Australia is going to shift its rankings in the economic climate in which we sit, then it is important that we develop the courses that will enable the skilling of young people to push this country to another level in a way that positions us far better economically in the world. All of us have become so used to the lifestyle that we have, and our universities, themselves, support it. When I read about the universities in Australia, the peak body representing Australia's universities calls on the parliament to support the deregulation of Australian universities with changes to the government proposals that will ensure affordability for students and taxpayers.

I would hope that all of us would transcend the politics, the scaremongering, and the exampling that I have heard from speakers because, whilst higher education is important, it is equally important that the reforms enable us as a country to provide the diversity of career pathways that will be needed to take us into a future in which there is a need for adaptability, and a need for us to develop the talent and skill of young Australians who are still coming through. If we reflect back for a moment to 30 years ago, the jobs that existed 30 years ago no longer. We cannot continue to teach today for tomorrow with yesterday's practices. We have to consider the opportunities that reforms will give universities to position us in the competitive market.

When I was overseas I had the privilege of looking at the university world in the United Arab Emirates. The key message I got from each of those universities, in talking with those who were heading the universities, was the freedom for diversity and opportunity to do some unique things outside the constraints of their home countries and to provide courses that enabled young people to go into the next century.

This is a bill that I commend the minister for, because it is time that we had reform. The Crossroads report of the previous government some two parliaments ago did not achieve the full reforms required. As a pro-chancellor at Edith Cowan University at the time I had hoped that we would have gone much further.

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