Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak again in opposition to the government's Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014. I spoke in opposition to the bill the first time, and essentially nothing of substance in this bill has changed. Labor's position remains unchanged as well, in opposing it. This bill is a fundamental attack on the right to access a decent education. This bill, like the last one, is in fact another broken promise. Prior to the last election, one of the promises that we heard was 'no cuts to education', yet now that is exactly what we are facing.

I would like to remind the House of the now Prime Minister's promise to Australian families and Australian students. In August 2013, in the last week before the election, the now Prime Minister told the Australian people that there would be 'no cuts to education'. In my area, we had all the National Party candidates running around saying: 'No cuts to education. None of that will be happening here. No cuts at all.' Yet look at what happened. The Prime Minister has broken his promise, the Liberal Party have broken their promise and the National Party have broken their promise yet again.

It is particularly hard for those people who live in regional and rural areas such as my electorate of Richmond. Locals on the North Coast are already under attack by this government's very cruel and unfair budget. We have already seen the government's plans for bringing in the doctor tax, for cutting pensions, for cutting family payments, for cutting very important community grants, for their petrol tax—and now they want to bring in extreme university fees.

I have pointed out many times in this House that, when it comes to representation in regional areas, there are vast, vast differences between members of the Labor Party and members of the National Party. The difference in relation to this issue is a massive one. It really goes to the core of what value you place upon education. Labor believes in the benefits of an accessible and affordable education regardless of where you live or how much your family earns. We think that people should have the right to access a decent education and have all the opportunities in life to follow the career paths that they have the capacity for. At the heart of it, we believe that a person's intellectual capacity and commitment should be the basis for determining their ability to get into university, not how much money they have to buy their way in. That is what Labor has always believed.

Whilst Labor is absolutely committed to making sure that everyone is able to access a decent education, wherever they may live, in contrast in the regions it is the National Party who are selling out rural Australia by supporting this legislation. When those National Party members come into the chamber and vote for $100,000 degrees, they are selling out people in their electorates. It is an absolute disgrace, and this issue will be one of the many that we will fight the Nationals on every day in regional and rural Australia. Make no mistake about it: families in my electorate on the North Coast will hold the National Party responsible for these extreme university fees.

This bill has a range of very harsh measures which will result in increases in university fees, including, firstly, the unrestrained student fees, or fee deregulation. This essentially removes the price controls for students' contributions to the cost of their degrees and allows universities to set much higher fees. Labor totally opposes this measure, as the removal of price controls means that university degrees will in fact dramatically increase—in some cases to $100,000. Currently the fees are capped, and removing the cap will cause the prices to soar. That is the reality we have seen in many examples overseas when similar deregulation has occurred.

We opposed this bill the first time and we continue to oppose it now, because the second version of this bill is still unfair and it is still wrong. It is wrong for the nation, it is wrong for families and it is wrong for students. The bill still contains $1.9 billion in cuts to Australian universities, $100,000 degrees for undergraduate students, $171 million in cuts to equity programs, $200 million in cuts to indexation of grant programs, $170 million in cuts to research training, fees for PhD students for the first time ever and $80 million in cuts to the Australian Research Council. These cuts will rip $1.9 billion from universities. The cuts vary across the disciplines and will come into effect in 2016. According to Universities Australia, the cost of courses like engineering and science will have to increase by 58 per cent to make up for this harsh cut. The cost of courses in nursing will need to increase by 24 per cent, in education by 20 per cent, in agriculture by 43 per cent and in environmental studies by 110 per cent.

We have seen so many people right across the nation opposing the government's unfair attacks on education. Certainly within my electorate many families have voiced their concerns. They oppose cutting public funding to undergraduate courses by up to 37 per cent. They oppose the $100,000 degrees. They oppose the Americanisation of our world-class university system. Australians oppose all these things because they understand the value of education and the value of our universities and they know that these cuts are incredibly unfair. Some of the greatest concern, as I said, relates to the $100,000 degrees. Most of the analysis agrees that student fees would need to go up by around 30 per cent just to make up for the Liberals and Nationals' funding cuts. And, for some degrees, that figure is closer to 60 per cent.

But, of course, this legislation would implement complete deregulation of student fees from January 2016, allowing universities to charge whatever they like. In fact, the University of Western Australia has already said it will charge all students $16,000 a year, more than doubling the cost of an arts degree overnight. Nowhere in the world has deregulation led to price competition and lower fees for students. It has not happened. In the UK, fees were deregulated in 2012 with a cap of 9,000 pounds. For the 2015-16 academic year, there will be only two universities, out of 123, that will not be charging 9,000-pound fees. So we see that nowhere in the world has it worked. We can look to the United States as well, where we know that university fee rises are completely out of control.

This attack represents a plan by this government to essentially make massive cuts to higher education funding and shift the shortfall of debt onto students. It means that the reality for families and young people is that they just cannot go to university. That is what I do not think those on the other side of the chamber understand. It means that families cannot actually get their kids to uni. Families have often told me that university is just not on their radar now for their kids and is just not an option for them at all. It means that fewer people from regional areas like mine, the North Coast of New South Wales, will just not get a chance to access higher education. I believe it is fundamentally unfair and cruel to deny those people from our regional and rural areas the opportunity to attain greater skills and greater employment prospects.

We understand how important education is. We see this government making cuts that harm young people, not just cuts to education but cuts across a whole range of different skills and training packages as well. We see so many attacks on our young people. There have been a range of harsh cuts that are really impacting and hurting our young people, from higher education cuts through to so many others.

We also saw in the budget the Abbott government cutting three really important youth unemployment prevention programs—Youth Connections, Partnership Brokers and the National Career Development Strategy. They were vital education and transition services for young Australians. That has had a huge impact in my electorate of Richmond, where a lot of young people relied upon those programs to get the training and the skills that they needed.

So we are seeing his government making cuts in higher education and also in very important skills and training programs. We saw them cut $2 billion from the skills and training sector, when they cut a whole range of programs, including programs like Tools for Your Trade, Australian Apprenticeships Access, Alternative Pathways to Trades, and Step into Skills. They cut $2 billion from the skills program.

We also saw the very harsh cut of $240 million from the Department of Social Services discretionary grants program. This has had a huge impact in my electorate also. We are currently seeing massive chaos and confusion surrounding this particular grants program. Many of those programs provided great assistance for younger people. There is so much chaos around this at the moment that many people have contacted me with their concerns about these vital programs that this particular grants program provided.

In fact, just recently I was speaking with the people from the Family Centre in Tweed Heads. They have a fantastic program in place called REALskills. This is one of those programs that is being cut. There is currently so much chaos and confusion surrounding the cut of this fantastic program. Again, this has impacts specifically on young people. This program—the REALskills high school program—occurred in our high schools. The Family Centre was able to work with a whole range of different professionals in our high schools, providing really important life skills and training for young people.

This government has axed that program—a program that made a difference in the lives of so many younger people. The program had run for 12 years and had recently received an award for the best community group at the Northern Rivers community sector awards. It is a program that is supported by all the principals in all the local high schools, and this government has cut it.

Locals are fighting back in relation to this and many other cuts. Specifically in relation to the REALskills program they have launched a petition on change.org, and I encourage people to go to that site and sign that petition. It is on my Facebook page as well. It is an important service that provides great skills for our younger people, and I will stand with everyone in fighting this government to make sure that we get funding back for that, and many other fantastic community based programs.

We have seen cuts not just to higher education but to skills and training, to important community based programs—all of which are really hurting younger people. I find it really hard to understand how members opposite—particularly those from regional areas—will be able to explain to their electorates that they are supporting and voting for these harsh measures in this bill today.

Members of the National Party represent some of the most disadvantaged areas within Australia, and they will have to go back and face people and explain to them that they essentially voted to stop their children ever being able to go to university. They will have to do that.

My message to the Nationals today is very specific and very clear: you cannot hide out on this one. When you come into the chamber and you vote in support of this unfair legislation, you are abandoning the people of regional and rural Australia, and you will be held to account, because these measures will make it more difficult for students from regional areas to attend university and will also make it a lot harder for regional universities to compete with larger, city based institutions. And these measures will make it harder for regional universities to remain viable in the face of some of these changes.

You can contrast all of the things that the Liberal-National Party government is doing with Labor's very proud record of investment in Australian universities. Overall, Labor lifted government investment in universities from $8 billion in 2007 to $14 billion in 2013. We certainly had a whole range of programs in place, and increased our funding. We boosted funding for regional universities by 56 per cent.

There are 750,000 students at Australian universities today, and one in every four of them is there because of Labor initiatives. We put 190,000 more students on campus. We boosted Indigenous student numbers by 26 per cent. We boosted regional student numbers by 30 per cent—a huge increase—and we have more than 36,000 extra students from low-income families in universities, compared to 2007. That really does make a very big difference.

We made it easier for younger people to study with student start-up scholarships, which helped more than 427,000 Australians with the costs of study. We introduced a relocation scholarship, helping 76,000 people leave home to obtain their degrees. So Labor has a very proud record in our investment in Australian universities and making sure that younger people can access university to get the very best start in life.

As many of us on this side of the House have said, a university education is a path to greater opportunity for individuals. Part of achieving that is through making sure that universities are funded properly. Funding universities properly is a major investment in our nation's future.

But the fact is that the bill we see before the House today is bad policy from a bad government. That is all it is. We have said on many occasions that will be opposing this legislation in the strongest possible terms. I am very proud to be here today opposing this legislation. I stand with my community in my opposition. Many people have approached me about how they feel about this legislation and their opposition to it. I will stand with the community in fighting to make sure that younger people—particularly younger people from regional and rural areas—have an opportunity to access university, because they have a right to be able to do that. They should not be disadvantaged because they live in regional and rural Australia. But this government, with this measure, and with so many other measures, are making it so much harder for regional families to get by day to day.

This bill takes away the opportunity for the children of rural and regional families to access universities and access opportunities into the future. That is why I am opposing this bill. That is why the Labor party is opposing it. Essentially, it is bad policy from a bad government.

See this speech in context