Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am eager to talk about this horrible, horrible Higher Education and Research Reform Bill and the horrible reforms it represents. I had been discussing the impact on regional universities, and in particular my home University of Newcastle. I want to talk about the example of deregulation in the United Kingdom. The UK is often held up by those opposite as a paragon of what can happen if we deregulate. What has happened in the United Kingdom proves that university deregulation is bad public policy. The Conservative-Liberal coalition government in the United Kingdom deregulated fees in 2012. This resulted in massive fee increases, and two recent reviews are absolutely scathing of the reform. The United Kingdom Higher Education Commission found that deregulation has delivered 'the worst of both worlds, where all parties feel that they are getting a bad deal' and 'where government [is] effectively funding [universities] by writing off student debt rather than investing directly in teaching grants'. The commission's second report, Regulating Higher Education, concluded that deregulation has placed at risk the United Kingdom's reputation for higher education excellence, and called for new regulation to give students greater financial protection and to secure quality standards. These two reports are fairly clear indicators that deregulation has failed in the UK, with real consequences for students and the reputation of British universities.

It is also interesting to note that when fees in the UK were deregulated they were capped at 9,000 pounds. For the 2015-16 academic year, only two universities out of 123 will not be charging 9,000 pound fees—again, real evidence that the Minister for Education's claims on fees cannot be believed. They will rise—universities will raise them as much as possible, and the UK experience demonstrates that. Yet the Abbott government wants to follow the example of the UK failure of deregulation.

Another effect of this UK legislation is the impact on part time and mature age students. I am proud of the fact that 50 per cent of students at the University of Newcastle do not come directly from high school—they are mature age students who perhaps did not get quite the marks they needed so they went out and earned an income and then entered university. That is a great second-chance opportunity. The University of Newcastle has three areas of great expertise—engineering, energy research and the training of Indigenous doctors. It is giving mature age students a great chance. Yet the impact of deregulation will be felt most keenly by these students. In the UK, part-time enrolments in universities after their reform fell from 230,000 to 139,000 in only two years. Within two years of university deregulation almost 100,000 students, over 40 per cent of part-time students, dropped out of the system because of the fee hike—yet the minister and his backers claim that this deregulation can be compensated with the scholarship scheme in their reforms. This is the biggest deception in this bill, because this scholarship scheme will receive no Commonwealth funding. It will be funded by students and universities, who will be required to direct 20 per cent of the extra income raised by higher fees to providing these scholarships. So the Commonwealth is not providing extra funding for these scholarships at all. Universities will be given the freedom to charge students significantly higher fees and then will have to use some of this revenue on scholarships. This will also create a have and have-nots approach to universities, where universities such as the Uni of Newcastle, which have a great tradition of taking students from low-income families, students from Indigenous backgrounds and students who are mature age, will have their best and brightest students cherry picked by, for example, the universities of Sydney and New South Wales with these scholarships. This is just another example of the government arguing that students will benefit from a package when the reality of the situation is the exact opposite.

A university degree that costs $100,000 does not pass the fairness test, and this unpopular aspect of the government's reforms has been overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian people. Members of the government regularly talk about intergenerational equity, and how it is wrong for this generation to burden future generations. How completely disgraceful then that men and women on that side, many of whom received a free university education, seek to force future generations to have $100,000 university degrees. There can be no doubt that fee deregulation will lead to massive fee increases. The minister and members of the government are living in fantasy land if they think this is not the case. Having university degrees that are priced out of the reach of ordinary Australian families is fundamentally unfair, and that is another clear reason why this bill cannot be allowed to pass.

This bill, in the minister's own words, is much the same bill as the first bill. It retains all the unfair aspects of the original bill that has already been rejected by the parliament. It is quite astounding that the minister introduced this near identical bill the day after the original bill was rejected by the Senate. Driven by a warped right-wing ideology and an agenda to implement reforms that have so demonstrably failed in other countries, this government's second attempt at so-called reform of higher education is pathetic and is offensive to Australians' belief in equality of opportunity and a fair go.

I am proud to be the first on my mother's side to go to university. I am proud to represent a region where four of the five top university degrees are in teaching and nursing, which are classic gateway degrees for working-class families to enter the university system. I am proud to represent my region, but this reform will not help this region. This reform will hurt my region. This reform will hurt working and middle-income families. This reform will close the door on future generations getting an education. The impact will not just be on these families and students; the impact will be on our economy, where we will lose this potential and inequality will be exacerbated. The impact will be deeply felt. It is a reform that should be opposed, and I am confident this parliament will oppose it.

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