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

I'm speaking in opposition to most of the elements of the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (A More Sustainable, Responsive and Transparent Higher Education System) Bill 2017 and in support of the second reading amendment moved by the member for Sydney. Pensioners, families, small businesses and school students have all been attacked by this government, and now, with this bill, we can add to that group university students. These are the groups of Australians whose lot in life has been made much harder by this Turnbull government. We've seen skyrocketing electricity prices make life more difficult for families, pensioners, and small businesses. We've seen cuts to school budgets through changes to the Gonski principles and that model of funding introduced by this government. We've seen cuts to health care and Medicare and an ideological attack on universal health care in Australia by this government. We've seen low-paid workers have their incomes attacked through changes to the Fair Work Act and, of course, through cuts to penalty rates that have been cheered on by this Turnbull government. And now we have an ideological attack on the university students of Australia through this bill.

At a time when our economy is stop-start—two steps forward, one step back—when the economy has been spluttering over recent years and when we need to improve our nation's productivity if we're going to boost growth and employment in our community, the worst thing a government can do is underinvest in education, make life harder for students and increase fees for university students. That is exactly what this bill does and it is why Labor opposes it. At a time when we should be investing in education for our young people and ensuring that they have the skills necessary to compete in a much-changed and more competitive marketplace, this government prefers to cut funding for universities and make life harder for students across Australia.

As part of this bill, the maximum student contributions will rise by 1.8 per cent for four years from 2018, resulting in a total 7.5 per cent increase from 2021. The first increase will take effect on 1 January 2018 and will apply to all students, including those who are currently enrolled, and Commonwealth contribution amounts will be similarly adjusted each year from 2018 through to 2021 to reflect increased student contribution amounts in those years. An efficiency dividend of 2.5 per cent per annum will apply to grants made under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme in 2018 and 2019. The efficiency dividend is a contribution from the revenue benefits of the demand-driven funding system. Medical students' loading will be extended to include veterinary science and dentistry units under study in 2018 to improve the funding arrangements for these courses. Currently our students pay the sixth-highest fees in the OECD. The fee hikes in this bill will make that situation even worse, and our rankings will once again fall in terms of affordability.

In the community that I represent, in Kingsford Smith, we're quite fortunate to have a world-class university in the University of New South Wales at Kensington. I was fortunate to be a student at this university and it's what all kids in the community that I represent aspire to. They dream of being able to get the marks in their HSC to attend the University of New South Wales and get a world-class tertiary education. This bill makes it harder for those kids in our community, particularly those kids that come from a low-socioeconomic background or are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids, because, quite simply, some of them will not be able to afford the fee increases proposed in these bills. Unfortunately, the coalition has made life more difficult for younger people to participate in our society and to get a good job.

Kingsford Smith has the sixth-highest rates of mortgage repayments in the country and the eighth-highest rents. The cost of housing in our community is bringing many young people to their knees. Many times when I walk down the street, I'm approached by young people and their parents saying they simply will not be able to afford to buy a house or to rent in the community where they grew up and where their family networks are, and go to universities in their community, like the University of New South Wales. Joe Hockey's solution to this was just, 'Get a better job,' and the Prime Minister's solution to this is, 'If you've got rich parents, they can chip in and help you buy a house.' We all know that that is not the reality for most Australian families in this country.

In contrast, Labor knows and understands just how difficult it is for people to get an education, but we want to support them. We want to make sure that there is a clear pathway for kids to undertake a decent education in Australia, from early childhood development right through to emeritus professor at university—a pathway such that education and access to education are based on your talents and on your commitment, not on your parents' bank balance. But, unfortunately, this type of reform reintroduces that sort of system into this country.

Now, when Labor was last in government, we increased our investment in universities. We lifted the investment in universities from $8 billion in 2007 to $14 billion in 2013. It was the largest commitment and investment in university education from an Australian government at the time when we left office. We opened the doors to universities for an additional 190,000 Australians, many of whom were the first in their families to get access to a university education. And why did we lift participation in universities? Because it's good for the individual and it's good for the Australian economy. Every single study, every single bit of research, indicates that the more you educate a person then the more productive they become not only in terms of their own personal contribution to the economy but for the nation's income growth and productivity.

Labor is also supportive of the wonderful research that is undertaken at our universities. At the University of New South Wales, we have world-leading research facilities in photovoltaic and solar research and in quantum computing, where Professor Michelle Simmons and her team are leading the world in developing a silicon based quantum computer. The research world is in awe of some of the results that they have received so far.

One of the world's greatest medical teaching resources is at the University of New South Wales, working in collaboration with the Prince of Wales Hospital. This is world-class leading research that has changed the world. It has definitely changed the world. The fact that the University of New South Wales PV and solar research facility has the world record for conversion of sunlight into energy is something that we all should be very, very proud of. And they are housed in a building that was funded by the Labor government through the Education Investment Fund—the Tyree Energy Technologies Building. It has a six-star energy rating, I might add; it is one of the world's most energy-efficient buildings. When you walk into that building you see many, many students undertaking research. They are doing their PhDs and working with some of the best researchers in photovoltaic and solar research anywhere in the world.

When I was there recently—and the member for Port Adelaide joined me there over the last 12 months to have a look at the research that's going on there—one of the researchers who is working there described that facility perfectly to me. He said: 'If you want to work in space research, you want to go to NASA. If you want to work in solar and photovoltaics, you want to work at the University of New South Wales.' You want to work in that Tyree building, funded by the Education Investment Fund that this government is seeking to cut through its cuts to that particular fund and its cuts to university research.

In his 2014 budget reply, Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Labor Party, set an aspiration for Australia to devote three per cent of our GDP to research and development by 2030. Achieving this will require governments, universities and research organisations to work with industry to boost the development and the resources that go into research in this country. And what we're doing here with this bill is the complete antithesis of that; it's the complete opposite of that. Labor believes that every university in Australia should be doing great research, and we've pledged to help our regional outer metropolitan and smaller universities to get a fair go through the Collaborative Research Networks program. As well as working together, Labor wants universities to work better with industry and other end users to spread the benefits of their research and, of course, to encourage entrepreneurialism in students.

We aim to boost the Industrial Transformation Research Program introduced by the previous Labor government, which would have enabled at least four additional research hubs to be funded in each of the five rounds that were coming up. This would have facilitated more industries in transition to have access to excellent research, to improve their productivity and to create the jobs of the future. The bill before us is the complete antithesis of that.

This bill before us is also quite lacking in detail. There is very, very little detail about how the bill will work. The government's new voucher system for postgraduate places is simply a thought bubble. It's an idea without substance. It's a solution without a problem. There are approximately 35,000 postgraduate CSP students in Australia, and the government is proposing to hand over the funding allocation to the minister or some new private body to distribute it. The unis think that this is a poorly thought out idea, and so does Labor. In fact, according to a poll conducted recently by JWS Research for Universities Australia, almost two-thirds of Australians are opposed to what this government is doing when it comes to universities: increasing fees for students, cutting grants for research, cutting funding and making fees rise. Up to 62 per cent of voters are opposed to the changes, compared with 16 per cent who support what the government is doing through this bill.

As quoted by The Guardian today, Universities Australia chief executive Belinda Robertson said the poll showed that cuts contained in the bill were 'way out of kilter with community sentiment'. She said:

Voters don't want to see cuts to universities, which are key drivers of economic growth because they create new jobs, re-skill Australians and secure $24bn a year in export income.

Universities and their students have already contributed almost $4bn to repair the budget over the last six years. Clearly, the Australian community is saying enough is enough: no more uni cuts.

I couldn't have put it better myself. That's exactly what the Australian people are thinking. They're sick and tired of this government attacking pensioners, attacking young families, attacking workers, attacking school students and now attacking university and TAFE students through initiatives such as this. They want to see a government that is fair dinkum about education and fair dinkum about universities and their research, investing in universities and investing in the future. I urge my colleagues to vote down those particular provisions in this bill.

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