Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Coalition MPs are claiming that $100,000 degrees do not exist. If they seriously are saying that these degrees will not become a reality under their overhaul of the higher education system, then they should release their own modelling, the modelling that they have refused to release for over a year. I have said previously that today's young people have the misfortune to face an axis of financial evil: job insecurity, housing unaffordability and student debt. It is their particular misfortune to have an education minister who does not give a continental about their financial hardship. Nor does he care about maintaining academic standards and the reputations of our universities.

If the Liberal government succeeds in its plan to deregulate university fees, we will have achieved the complete opposite of the system in the 1970s, when places were allocated on the basis of academic merit. Academic merit and performance will count for nothing. Your financial capacity—or, more accurately, your parents' capacity—to pay large fees will count for everything. Under that system, what point would there be in working hard during year 12? Of what value would be the marks of students past who have worked hard and did well in year 12? Good luck to the year 12 teachers, and secondary teachers generally, trying to encourage their students to do the hard yards and finish secondary school!

This is no scare campaign. With higher university fees, uncapped places and the reliance on overseas students, we are already seeing universities stray far from their original, noble purpose of being seekers after truth and educators of young minds. Now many of them regard making a profit as their core objective and behave like Coles and Woolworths.

The University of Wollongong bought a table at a Liberal Party fundraising breakfast in Sydney in 2011, paying $1,000 to do so. The New South Wales Auditor-General reported in 2015 that three universities had made political donations since 2008, and the Auditor-General describe this as an 'inappropriate use of public moneys' and recommended policies to prohibit political donations from universities.

Uncapped places and deregulated fees are just another free-market dream that will give us declining academic quality and increasing social inequality. Indeed, the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption says that universities are now so financially reliant on international students that they are unable to fully confront academic incompetence and poor language skills, plagiarism or even bribery. ICAC says in its report:

There is no simple solution that will effectively eliminate the gap between the capabilities of the students and the academic demands of the universities, and no easy way to eliminate the corruption pressures created by the gap.

It says:

Students may be struggling to pass, but universities cannot afford to fail them.

It also says:

For students entering universities with low levels of English, false entry qualifications or financial pressures to work rather than study, cheating in some form or another will often be seen as an easy solution for passing the course.

This cheating has included the use of ghostwriters, stealing exam papers and hacking lecturers' computers.

ABC's Four Corners program reported in April 2015 that education agents in China, which supplies one-quarter of Australia's international students, advise on how to get around enrolment standards. It also quoted current and former academics, who said that plagiarism was being ignored in universities and that there were strong internal pressure in universities to pass failing students. University of Queensland Professor Paul Frijters said:

'We've got to pass the vast majority of our students no matter what their level is, no matter what their prior knowledge is, no matter how much or how little effort they put in.'

Zena O'Connor, a lecturer in the architecture, design and planning faculty at the University of Sydney, said the university's response when told that plagiarism had increased sharply was, 'Thank you for your feedback.'

It is regrettable that students are now under such pressure, with high fees and a shortage of graduate jobs, that they are driven to cheat. It is a clear sign that we have taken a wrong turn in relation to tertiary education. If we deregulate student fees, as the minister proposes, this government will be shamelessly selling out our young people and fitting them up for unprecedented levels of student debt. It is a scandalous way to treat our young people. Despite all the bluff and bluster on the government benches, there is absolutely no doubt that fee deregulation will lead to substantial fee hikes, as has occurred everywhere else it has been done. (Time expired)

See this speech in context