John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today it is an honour to rise and speak to the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (A More Sustainable, Responsive and Transparent Higher Education System) Bill 2017. Education is a passion of mine. My wife is a qualified teacher. All of our six children either are currently studying or have undertaken higher education in recent years. And I'm a proud graduate of undergraduate and graduate studies at Australian universities. In my home electorate of Groom, back in Toowoomba, the University of Southern Queensland, my alma mater, has just seen the appointment of its new vice-chancellor, Professor Geraldine Mackenzie. Professor Mackenzie returns to USQ from Southern Cross University, where she was deputy vice-chancellor (research). I look forward to catching up with her shortly to discuss higher education in our city and in our region.

This year, the coalition government is investing a record $16.7 billion in higher education. This means, for the University of Southern Queensland, base funding of $206.7 million in 2017. This is projected to rise to $239.7 million in 2021—a rise of $32.9 million, or 15.9 per cent—and that is a tangible investment in the future of regional Queenslanders from anyone's perspective. This figure is also just base funding. It doesn't include research funding, or other additional revenue from resources such as the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, and, when it comes to research, USQ is attracting plenty of notice for the work that it does in agriculture and agribusiness and in the creation of environmentally sensitive building materials, for example.

We know that Australia must continue to improve the commercialisation of such research. Toowoomba's Wellcamp airport is a fantastic example—the world's first and largest application of modern geopolymer concrete, saving 6,600 tonnes, or 90 per cent, of carbon emissions. This product and its development and the work of the university highlights the value of regional universities.

As a part of the Higher Education Reform Package, the government will provide $15 million of funding over four years to assist in the establishment and maintenance of up to eight community-owned regional study hubs across Australia, to improve access to higher education for students from rural and remote communities. Regional study hubs will provide infrastructure such as study spaces, videoconferencing, computing facilities and internet access, as well as pastoral and academic support for students studying via distance at partner universities. I certainly will be encouraging the government to consider Queensland as the base for such hubs in the future.

The Higher Education Reform Package has been developed after substantial consultation and discussion with a broad range of stakeholders and will continue to support the best features of the current higher education system, underpinning a vibrant education export industry, supporting student career aspirations and ensuring that industry as a whole has access to a skilled workforce. We are encouraging, for example, more and more of our young students, particularly women, to look at a future in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics—an effort which, I'm pleased to see, extends back into high school and primary school education spheres as well. We are doing this because this is a government that supports work for Australians, jobs for Australians and a future for Australians in the future industries of Australia.

In terms of technology, I refer to the Toowoomba Technology Park, which consists of a number of market leaders in their respective fields, including FK Gardner & Sons, who are project managers and the site developers; the University of Southern Queensland, which is the technology and education collaborator; and Energy Queensland, the electrical and fibre infrastructure provider. The tech park will represent Australia's largest facility of this type, with capacity for retail and wholesale data centres, an incubator, disaster recovery facilities, and, of course, industrial and office space. The total investment for the overall project is estimated to be $573 million over a 20-year period. Over this 20-year initiative, the tech park will employ more than 2,600 people directly in this new economy, and they will be in high-value-added jobs. The multiplier impact will see an additional 6,600 positions in my community, created through our broader economy.

As this new tech industry continues to emerge, we need skilled Australians to take up the positions on offer, and, as these jobs of the future come online, our universities—regional universities in particular—will need to provide courses to train students in these new technologies. There is an exciting time ahead for our education sector, and this government realises that and is seeking to make the system sustainable for future generations of Australian students.

Since 2009, taxpayer funding for teaching and learning has increased by 71 per cent—twice the rate of growth of the economy as a whole. The current funding arrangements are not sustainable, and reform is needed if future generations are also to enjoy the benefits of an affordable, world-class higher education. A key element of the higher education system is the Higher Education Loan Program, HELP, which supports universal, merit based access to higher education in Australia and is one of the most generous student loan schemes in the world. We are keeping that loan system in place. We will improve the sustainability of the HELP scheme by introducing a new HELP repayment system of thresholds and rates for all current and future HELP debtors from 1 July 2018.

As I touched on earlier, Toowoomba is the heart of the Darling Downs and the service centre for all of southern Queensland, and to the west and into northern New South Wales. Many young people in those regions may not have seen university study as an option in the past, and they may not see it as an option in the future. The Turnbull government recognises that students from rural, regional and remote areas are underrepresented in higher education, often facing obstacles such as a lack of financial resources and, of course, distance from campuses. The government aims to improve access to these students by providing rural and regional enterprise scholarships to students from regional and remote areas to undertake, in particular, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and certainly in the areas of agriculture and most health courses. The scholarships will be valued up to $18,000 each and will be available for certificate IV courses right through to PhD courses. The first 600 scholarships will be awarded for the 2018 academic year, and there will be 600 more in 2019.

The Australian government will also change the fee arrangements and allocation of Commonwealth supported places for enabling courses. An enabling course is a course of instruction provided to a person for the purpose of gaining entry into a degree program, and that is particularly important for regional universities such as my own University of Southern Queensland. The provider will be able to tell a student if they are in an enabling course, which is sometimes also known as a foundation study or pathway program. From 1 January 2018, students enrolled in such courses will be required to pay a student contribution amount, and the amount that a university can charge a student will be based on a maximum rate set by the government. The average enabling course is less than half a year, full-time, and equates to around $1,400, which eligible students can defer through a HECS-HELP loan. Additionally, from 1 January 2019, a fixed number of Commonwealth supported places for enabling courses will be allocated to universities on a three-year basis. These allocations will be made to universities which demonstrate high standards of academic preparation and deliver high-quality student outcomes. This will improve the quality of enabling courses that are offered under the program and will enable a better match, if you like, to place students' needs and to meet those needs.

Overall, the Commonwealth government is supporting Australians living in rural and regional communities through a range of programs. Rural students, Indigenous students and students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds will benefit from the government's higher education reform package. Regional students will benefit from enhancements to the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program. The reforms to this program will help remove the barriers that many regional and remote students face in seeking high-quality education and, of course, in accessing support.

The reform to deliver three funding streams to universities—a loading for each eligible SES student, performance funding based on success rates of low SES and Indigenous students and a national priorities pool to give a greater focus on rigorous evaluation research and to encourage collaboration between universities—will also be a feature. This is essential as our knowledge economy continues to grow in capital cities and across regional Australia. Education is our third-largest export. It was worth $21.8 billion to the Australian economy in 2016 and supports more than 130,000 jobs nationally.

International students studying in Australia, along with visiting friends and family, also add significantly to the tourism industry over and above our education sector. They enrich our campuses and our communities—that's certainly the case in the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba—as do our students, of course, who travel overseas to other communities under programs such as the New Colombo Plan. This reform package means so much to the entire country, particularly to young students who want to make their way in the world to the benefit of regional Australia. I commend this bill to the House.

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