Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The future of higher education is certainly a matter of public importance, and it deserves to be debated here today. But it is simply absurd to suggest, as members opposite today have done, that we as a government are somehow undermining higher education when, on the contrary, we are setting it up for success. So it is even more outrageous that members opposite would make these claims, flanked either side by their own scare campaigns and misinformation. I am proud to say that I support this government's proposed reforms, including our amendments in the Senate this week, and I will fight alongside my colleagues, including the Minister for Education, for as long as we need to see our reforms become a reality, because they will help to secure a stronger and better future for our next generation.

These reforms have got enormous benefits for students. You just have to ask any of the higher education peak bodies. All of them support the reforms with the amendments. Despite this, the Labor Party is threatening to tear down a stronger future for higher education students of all ages and all backgrounds, and even school students, who dream of a world class education not in London or New York but right here in Australia—in Sydney, in Melbourne, in Perth and, dare I say, even in areas in regional Australia, particularly the Central Coast of New South Wales.

My drive and my passion to see these reforms succeed come from my own experience growing up as a teenager on the Central Coast around 25 years ago—although perhaps I should not admit that. I could study a bachelor of arts at many universities around Australia, but I could not choose to study locally at my local university because the choice simply was not available. Twenty five years later, this issue of choice is still a reality for more than 4,600 students who still leave the Central Coast daily to commute to Sydney to their chosen metropolitan university. There are also about 3,000 who leave to attend a technical institution. These reforms will free up the university sector and will mean that the reality of tertiary educational opportunities for people in my electorate of Robertson today may not remain the reality for people in my electorate tomorrow.

We know that higher education study leads to more opportunities, higher wages, pathways for further education and careers and to genuine aspirations. We know that university graduates earn, on average, 75 per cent more over their lifetime than non-graduates and typically earn around $1 million more over their working lives. Further educational opportunities are also made possible by encouraging pathways programs like those from the University of Newcastle, who have a Central Coast campus not far from my own electorate at Ourimbah. More than 900 students were enrolled through the pathways program in 2013, and 40 per cent of these were from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Over half were mature age students.

Directly as a result of these reform proposals, I have had the privilege to be able to work closely over the last six to eight months or so on a shared dream in my electorate to see a university campus in Gosford. We have worked with the world-class University of Newcastle, the Central Coast Local Health District and Gosford City Council, and recently I have been lobbying the New South Wales government for capital infrastructure funding. As a result of this collaboration—made possible because of, not in spite of, our reforms—we have developed now plans for a globally connected, fully integrated Central Coast health and medical research institute. Because of these conversations, made possible by this government's reforms, we have been presented with a unique opportunity to deliver a shared vision of a centre of excellence in tertiary education right in the heart of a city that definitely needs rejuvenating. It is a plan that would help tackle emerging health issues on the Central Coast, as well as attract high-quality students, clinicians, researchers and healthcare professionals to Gosford. It has got the potential to become a base for world-class health care and medical research and education to deliver real hope, real aspiration, growth and opportunity, and there is no reason why Gosford students cannot, one day, enjoy a world-class education in medicine or medical research if these reforms could pass.

Are these not the sorts of conversations we ought to be having instead of this matter of public importance? Instead of denying the need for reform, should we not be unlocking the potential for world-class higher education in regions like the Central Coast, considered by some to be regions of disadvantage today? Thanks to the opportunities made possible by these deregulation reforms, it could potentially become a region of advantage in the future. Today, let it be known to the House how these reforms can transform an area like the Central Coast.

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