Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Like my Labor colleagues, I support the passage of the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (2016 Measures No. 1) Bill 2016, which makes a number of minor amendments and changes to the Higher Education Support Act and related acts. Schedule 1 will make necessary changes to the allocation and administration of grants for universities and higher education providers that support Indigenous students. There is a great Indigenous population in the seat of Kingsford Smith, revolving around the La Perouse community, and there has been a concerted effort by many institutions, both school institutions and the University of New South Wales, to encourage more Indigenous students through a tertiary education pathway through a number of programs. This amendment bill is pleasing to those who work in that space in the community that I represent. The changes will also remove some of the red tape and back-office processes imposed on universities and merge three separate funds into one.

In 2015 there were more than 16,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders studying at Australian universities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student numbers have increased by 50 per cent since 2009. We talk about closing the gap and increasing opportunities for Indigenous Australians, particularly through education and employment pathways. This is a very pleasing statistic. Unfortunately, it is one of the few areas where, in terms of closing the gap, Australia is making progress on encouraging more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to take up university education. This increase is greater than the increase seen more broadly in Australian university enrolments. It is encouraging to know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are enrolling in university now more than ever.

When Labor were in government we did as much as we possibly could through a number of reforms and new policy areas to open up universities not only for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students but more broadly for people from a non-English-speaking background and those from low socio-economic backgrounds. Labor did open the door to university for thousands more Australians. We boosted Indigenous student numbers by 26 per cent during the period in which Labor were in government.

In my electorate of Kingsford Smith, the University of New South Wales has a number of great programs that actively encourage Indigenous people to study and support them through their higher education journey. The university's Nura Gili program is designed to ensure access for Indigenous students to all that that important university has to offer. Through Nura Gili the university runs an Indigenous science and engineering program that allows Indigenous students in years 7, 8 and 9 to explore the world of science and engineering at university. The university runs a year 12 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander information day and offers enabling programs designed for Indigenous people who have the potential but are not yet prepared for first year or undergraduate studies. These programs generally run for one year and provide the students with a pathway to transfer into a degree program at the University of New South Wales.

I am also very fortunate to be involved in and a member of the advisory committee for the University of New South Wales Matraville Education Partnership. This partnership exists between the University of New South Wales and Matraville Sports High School, which is in the south of Kingsford Smith. Matraville Sports High School has had a very distinguished career producing many great Australians. Many great Australians have graduated from this high school, including the likes of Bob Carr; the Ella brothers, who played rugby union for Australia; Eddie Jones—he is not in the good books at the moment, but he nonetheless was a graduate of Matraville Sports High School—and Russell Fairfax. The list goes on of great Australians who are graduates of Matraville Sports High School.

I think it is fair to say that in recent years the results and enrolments at the school have fallen dramatically. This has raised concerns among a number of people in the community, myself included. A number of leaders of the community came together with the University of New South Wales. I must pay tribute and credit to the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, Professor Ian Jacobs, who has done a marvellous job and actually comes along and chairs this very important committee on a regular basis to improve educational standards at Matraville Sports High School. It involves a partnership. It involves the university's education faculty working with teachers, students and parents of Matraville Sports High School to improve in a number of important educational areas. There are key performance indicators that the school hopes to achieve through this partnership. Basically, what they are doing is encouraging the best and brightest education students at the university to come and experience and work with students at Matraville Sports High School.

Although the program has only been working for one year, they have achieved amazing results on a number of key performance indicators. They include the percentage of year 9 students in NAPLAN bands 8 to 9. Over one year, in terms of reading and literacy, it has gone from seven per cent in the baseline of 2014 to 16 per cent achievement in 2015. In terms of aspirations of Matraville Sports High School students and increasing the number of year 12 completions, we have seen great results already—going from 31 year 12 completions in the baseline of 2014 to 43 achieved after the first year. Building capacity for parents, carers and families to engage with the school: there was no school engagement with the wider community and with parents. From a number of parent events held and the average attendance going from a baseline of zero in 2014 to two events in 2015 and 40 attendees from parents of students at the school. Connecting existing community organisations and individuals with UNSW departments to provide programming and opportunities to elevate the school's community profile: again, there has been great achievement and increases in that key performance indicator. Building the capacity of Matraville High School staff and teachers at surrounding schools to teach diverse learning outcomes effectively through hands-on professional educational sessions: the number of teachers from the school involved in those programs has gone from three in the baseline to 15 over the course of one year. Providing the necessary infrastructure to encourage teachers to encourage more collaborative, critical reflection and improvement of their own practices: we have seen a 50 per cent increase in one year.

The university has also got something from this program. In terms of better equipping UNSW preservice teachers for work with students, parents and community members from diverse backgrounds, there has been a 50 per cent increase in the number of those students that are involved in that program.

Again, this is an example of the University of New South Wales working with a local school that has a very high proportion of Indigenous students—around 70 Indigenous students in a total enrolment of around 230, which is quite a large number. The university has been working with those students, their teachers and their parents to improve educational outcomes. It is a program that is paying dividends and something that I am very proud to be involved in.

Of course, Kingsford Smith has a very strong Indigenous culture and heritage. It is an Indigenous community that is active with many outstanding individuals excelling in art, music, business and so much more. Recently I commissioned an artwork for my office by two of the Indigenous students at the school. They presented that artwork to me last week at a ceremony at the school. It is a fantastic depiction, in an Aboriginal dot painting, of Botany Bay. The different cultures that come together and are depicted in the artwork are very, very special. It is something I cherish. It is a great symbol of the work of those young Indigenous students, and I have to congratulate those students who were involved in putting together that particular artwork for me.

We have a proud local Indigenous heritage and community, and I am pleased that this bill does something for them and has something in it for them. Importantly, the more streamlined and flexible approach to grants to support Indigenous students that is detailed in this bill will allow universities like UNSW to better meet the needs of their Indigenous students. Schedule 2 of the bill will ensure that data about students who utilise VET FEE-HELP schemes can be readily shared between the Department of Education and Training and the Australian Taxation Office. This change will ensure that VET FEE-HELP has the same provisions as other loans under the Higher Education Loan Program.

Unfortunately, I think it is fair to say that the Turnbull government has shown a complete lack of ability to properly manage VET FEE-HELP. As the government has sat idly by, the sector has been filling with shonky providers who, rather than provide valuable educational experiences for students across the country, have been dishing out pain and suffering through crippling debt to thousands of Australians. VET FEE-HELP loans have blown out from about $700 million in 2013 to a staggering $2.9 billion in 2015. But, in the face of such wastage and human suffering, for years the government sat back and let the chaos continue, before belatedly adopting Labor's course of action that we announced in the lead-up to the last election.

Before that election, Labor's VET spokesperson, Sharon Bird, announced a very positive suite of reforms to make good changes to the operation of this scheme and weed out some of the shonks. Those have, thankfully, been adopted by the government, and we have discussed those changes in recent weeks in this chamber. They involved capping student loans to stop rip-offs, cracking down on brokers, linking publicly funded courses to industry need and skill shortages, requiring providers to reapply under new standards so only high-quality providers could access the loan system, linking funding to student progress and completion, and a VET loans ombudsman. Thankfully, the government has copied a lot of those reforms and introduced those proposed measures. I understand that the Senate will amend the legislation, to adopt all of Labor's proposals.

Meanwhile, the future of TAFE does remain in the balance under Liberal governments—particularly the combination of Liberal governments at a federal and state level, such as in the state that I represent, New South Wales. TAFE, as we know, is the backbone of the apprenticeship system in Australia and, unfortunately, under the combination of federal and state Liberal governments, apprenticeships have been decimated in Australia, with $2.5 billion cut from skills training, including $1 billion stripped from apprenticeship programs and the Tools For Your Trade program since 2013. The $1 billion cut to apprentices has seen apprentice numbers across Australia plummet from 417,700 since September 2013, with 122,400 fewer apprentices in training. In Kingsford Smith, in our community alone, apprentice numbers have fallen from 3,211 in June 2014 to 2,137 in March 2015. That is over 1,000 fewer apprentices in training in our area. We talk about growing the productivity of the nation and we talk about providing high-quality skilled jobs for people, but we are going backwards in doing that, in terms of apprentice numbers throughout Australia.

On higher education, we support this bill. We believe that Labor has a positive story to tell. In terms of access to education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, this bill does go some way to improving that access, and it is something that Labor supports. But we do have a long way to go if we are going to improve our training system and our apprenticeships system, and if we are going to right some of the wrongs that have been occurring in VET FEE-HELP over recent years.

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