Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like almost everything the Abbott government has done in its first year, the changes proposed to our higher education system in this bill, the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014, are more about achieving the government's ideological agenda than simply finding savings. This legislation proposes a radical shift in the way our universities and higher education institutions are funded and the ability of all people to access affordable tertiary education. This is no more apparent than in my electorate of Chisholm, where more than 50,000 students currently study at Monash University's Clayton campus—the largest university campus in the country—at Deakin's Burwood campus and at Box Hill Institute of TAFE. All of these institutions will be grossly affected by this legislation, as will the numerous academics who call my electorate home. I have more PhDs per square metre than anybody should have!

This legislation delivers a $5.8 billion cut to Commonwealth funding for universities—a cut of up to 37 per cent for many degrees—and cuts $174 million from research and training programs. Everyone on this side of the parliament understands that university education is not free. I got my first degree without any HECS and I got my second, my Master of Commerce—though if you listened to those opposite it would seem that we do not have anybody on this side of the fence with training in economics—from Melbourne University, which I paid for. I understand HECS and the nuances of it. Nobody on this side thinks that university education is free. But this legislation takes away the aspirational opportunities from many in our community to even aspire to look at going to university.

As someone with a learning disability, I would have had no hope of getting a scholarship to go to university. My older brother and sister went through school on full scholarships, but my parents said to me, 'Don't even bother sitting; you won't pass'—and I would not have passed. Indeed, when I went to sit my HSC, my school told me I was going to fail and I sat my HSC orally. I would never have got entrance into a university on a scholarship. So should I have been denied? This is what people do not look at. They do not drill down to what this will mean.

This legislation will allow student fees for every single course at university to rise. We will see $100,000 degrees. Do not quibble at that—that is what we are going to see. It will allow non-university higher education providers to pop up and get access to per-student subsidies at 70 per cent of the rate in public universities. We already know the impact of this sort of change. We have seen it in Victoria in the TAFE sector. The TAFE sector has suffered because of the same sorts of changes, where funding is provided to full-profit institutions. In addition, these institutions will not be assessed by TEQSA by the time this is up and running. So where is the quality assurance in all this? It has gone as well.

This legislation also applies a real interest rate of up to six per cent for not only new but also existing HECS people. So people who are already struggling to get housing loans—because you have to declare your HECS debt when you apply for a housing loan—are going to find it harder and harder. Everyone with children at home who are currently 22, just imagine—they are going to be there until they are 30. That is because the ability to progress in life will be put off due to them being saddled with this debt—this debt that will be higher than any credit card debt they will ever experience in their lives. It will be higher than the cost of their first home.

These changes are the epitome of unfairness. They rob our universities of much-needed funds and force dramatically higher costs onto anybody who may seek a higher education. That puts us on a path to an Americanised system—a system that does not provide choice; a system that provides a lesser evil. This will not provide competition—and it certainly will not provide competition in regional areas. It will put the big universities against the small universities. Someone from a lower socio-demographic will choose no university—not a cheaper university.

This is not about ensuring and protecting the quality of higher education in this country; it is simply about privatising it. Deakin University Vice-Chancellor Jane den Hollander said:

Our current and future students will be concerned about fee deregulation, what that means for their futures and how they will manage; our staff will be equally concerned about what competition from the private providers actually means, how research funding will fare and what the implications are for the future of the academy if PhD students are required to pay fees. And we need to think of these matters in the context of the other implications for all of us as citizens of Australia. These matters are connected.

She went on to say that being a vice-chancellor at the moment was like being 'a canary going down the mine shaft to test the unintended consequences of this policy.' We are all victims of the unintended consequences of this policy, because education is not only an individual achievement—it is for the benefit of all society. (Time expired)

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