Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on today's bill, the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014. My electorate of Macarthur in south-west Sydney spans an area that has some of the finest agricultural land in the country. It is also one of the most economically significant and fastest-growing metropolitan regions in Australia. Even though we have much to be thankful for in Macarthur, there are still many people in my electorate who struggle to make ends meet and simply cannot afford to go to university or who live too far away to realistically commute. The reason I support this bill is that it implements reforms to higher education that seek to spread opportunity to more students, especially disadvantaged and rural or regional students.

A large section of the Macarthur community will benefit from this bill because hundreds if not thousands of people will reap the rewards of higher education who otherwise would have been unable to. When I finished school in 1975, soon after university fees were abolished by the Whitlam government, it was considered free to go to university. The notion that a student's merit rather than a parent's wealth should decide who benefits from tertiary education was fine in principal; however, in reality, there were so few places on offer for my generation that going to university was nothing more than a pipe dream for any but a very select few.

In 2015, I am happy to say that participation rates at university are much higher but there are still many people in Macarthur and throughout Australia who are denied the opportunity to go into higher education. Of course there are a number of existing programs aimed at addressing the divide between those that can go to university and those that cannot. The University of Western Sydney, for instance, which has a campus in my electorate of Macarthur, is participating in the Bridges to Higher Education project. This $21.2 million project, funded by the Commonwealth government's Higher Education Participation Program, improves participation rates of students from communities under-presented in higher education by breaking down the barriers to entry for anyone looking to receive a tertiary education. This bill significantly bolsters HEPP to create a new scholarship fund within this program to assist disadvantage students into higher education. I am delighted to notify the House today that the University of Western Sydney will be eligible to participate in the new scholarship fund through HEPP because of its high intake of low-socioeconomic students.

In addition, the government will create a Commonwealth Scholarships scheme, the greatest scholarship scheme in Australia's history, so that universities and higher education providers can provide tailored, individualised support to disadvantaged students. Through this scheme, higher education providers have the potential to offer needs-based scholarships to help meet costs of living as well as cover fee exemptions, tutorial support and assistance at other crucial points in their study. In an opinion piece published in the Australian Financial Review last year, Professor Alex Cameron, the deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Western Australia, said that a person's proximity to a university campus is a major determinant in setting an individual's expectations and aspirations of attending university. As Professor Cameron says:

In the absence of financial support the compounding of low socioeconomic status and a lack of a local campus can represent an insurmountable obstacle to moving and meeting the costs of living away from home.

Professor Cameron qualifies this statement by saying that although a lack of income support is a major access barrier for disadvantaged students, deregulation will give universities the opportunity to address this problem. This is not lip-service to the benefits of deregulation. Professor Cameron explains that the University of Western Australia's planned tuition level of $16,000 a year will give them the capacity to provide substantial scholarships at their student residences for all of their rural students on top of their current scholarship programs. Equally, the University of Sydney has pledged to create a fairer and more diverse institution if the government's higher education reforms succeed. In October last year, vice-chancellor Michael Spence made it clear that deregulation of fees would allow Sydney University to double its existing $80 million scholarship program.

With the establishment of the South West Growth Centre in the heart of Macarthur, which has the capacity to create over 22,000 jobs, not to mention the thousands of jobs that will be created through Badgerys Creek airport and the Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan, it is now more important than ever that we get more people into higher education so that people in Macarthur and New South Wales can take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. This reform will allow the next generation of residents in Macarthur to benefit from the Western Sydney infrastructure boom that this government has already set in place.

Those currently denied the opportunity to receive higher education because of where they live or how much money they have will now have more choice and more pathways into higher education than ever before. This reform will also provide equity throughout the higher education sector by extending Commonwealth funding to all Australian higher education students studying bachelor courses in non-university higher education institutions. This reform will-mean that we will no longer discriminate against students who want to undertake vocational education and training by removing all FEE-HELP and VET-HELP loan fees which are currently imposed on some students undertaking higher education and vocational education and training. This is a fair and long-overdue change. Why should someone wanting to be a bricklayer or a plumber pay a 20 per cent fee on a VET loan when a person studying to be an accountant or a lawyer pays no fee on their HECS loan? Under these reforms those wanting to study higher education at a TAFE can do this and receive financial assistance. Those wanting to study a higher education diploma can do this and receive financial assistance as well. Anyone wishing to study an accredited undergraduate qualification will be able to do so with Commonwealth support.

Under these reforms, no student needs to pay a cent upfront for higher education and no one needs to repay anything until they are earning over $50,000 a year. This will guarantee that higher education is affordable and accessible to all. As you can see, the guiding principle of these reforms has been to widen opportunity and give everyone a chance at finding a place in higher education who wants it. As the Minister for Education explained late last year, the government wants universities and other higher education institutions to compete with each other including on price. The government wants each institution to be accountable to their students for the type and quality of courses they offer. Fee deregulation will enable our institutions to set their own direction and serve their students and communities as well as they possibly can and compete with the best in the world.

Signs of this positive transformation can already be seen at the University of Western Sydney. After last year's Budget, UWS vice-chancellor Barney Glover recognised that the university is firmly part of the Greater Western Sydney community, and that there is a need to provide students in the Macarthur region with high-quality, accessible higher education. Accordingly, UWS became the first institution in New South Wales to freeze fees for the rest of the year, ensuring that all enrolled students at the university would have their fees capped for the duration of their courses.    This fact flies in the face of Labor's scare campaign that the university sector would introduce standard $100,000 degrees. We hear that scaremongering every day of the week. Incidentally, Geoff Sharrock investigated Labor's $100,000 degree claims for TheConversationand found them to be misleading. Sharrock explains that Labor have arrived at these artificially high estimates by assuming worst case scenario tuition prices, applying a six per cent interest rate which is not applicable and then presenting a graduate's total repayment in nominal dollars without adjusting for inflation. UWS's response to fee deregulation—making their tuition fees more competitive—proves that the measures in this bill can and will work.

When Labor were in office, they cut $6.6 billion in funding to higher education. They keep denying that. Yes, they cut $6.6 billion in funding to higher education. People out there in my community are aware of the fact that Labor were prepared to make significant cuts, including cuts that they are now blocking in the Senate. Labor's cuts were ultimately a desperate grab for funds to help their ballooning deficit, which led them to borrow the equivalent of $9,500 for every man, woman and child in Australia.

Under Labor, international education went backwards. Export income fell by billions from its 2009-10 peak, due to Labor's neglect, policy weakness and bungled handling of what is now Australia's third largest export. The number of international student enrolments paints an equally damning picture, falling 130,000 between 2009 and 2012. This represents a decline of 16 per cent over the 2009 to 2013 period, which was bad for the university sector and ultimately bad for our economy. Now in opposition, Labor offer no credible alternative to our higher education reforms and yet they continue to reject the advice of prominent Labor figures like Gareth Evans, John Dawkins and Maxine McKew. If Labor do not support reform or at least engage in constructive dialogue with the government, and this reform bill is not passed the Senate, then the consequences could be dire.

If the bill does not pass,    an estimated 80,000 students will miss out on Commonwealth support each year until 2018; around 50,000 higher education students and 80,000 vocational education and training students will face a 25 per cent loan fee for FEE-HELP and 20 per cent loan fee for VET FEE-HELP loans; thousands of disadvantaged higher education students will not receive assistance to access a place at university and they will not receive support for their living costs through the proposed new Commonwealth Scholarship scheme or through the new scholarship fund within the Higher Education Participation Program.

Debt, the deficit legacy left to us by the Labor Party, the political irresponsibility of the current opposition—these are all the kinds of issues that we are dealing with on a daily basis, so I call on the Senate to put an end to this impasse, support our reforms and allow the government to get on with the job of fixing Labor's debt and deficit. Labor are in debt-and-deficit denial. They continue to bury their heads in the sand and are prepared to pass their debt and deficit on to future generations without even blinking an eyelid.

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