Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Listening to the previous member, the member for Canberra, share her personal story of the opportunity that education provided to her and her family really, really resonated with me, as I'm sure it resonates with many Australians who might be listening today. It resonates with me because of my personal story and the story of my grandfather and his determination to see his three daughters educated. It resonates with my because of my personal story of having the opportunities of going to university and of working my way out of poverty, out of a single-parent pension. But it also resonates with me because I've spent a good part of my life in the higher education sector—in the training sector and in the university sector—and I've spent a good part of my life advising young people about their pathways to an education to realise their dreams, and to realise their potential.

In this place, we rise to speak on a lot of bills. We rise to speak on things that sometimes don't really touch your heart very much—things that sometimes I don't completely understand either. But it's bills like these that really get you. Bills like these really get to the heart of things, because they are really about our future and about our young people. If you deal with a lot of young people, as I have in the past and as I continue to, you get a sense of just how important it is to assess the impact of bills like these before they are introduced.

Just the other day, I was flying back home to Perth and one of the cabin crew came up to me and very quietly nudged beside me and said, 'I've read a lot of your work,' and I said, 'Oh, well, thank you very much'. Michelle was her name, and Michelle is doing a bachelors degree in criminology while at the same time working full-time as cabin crew. She has an aspiration to work in counterterrorism and security. She asked for my advice and I said to her, 'Look, send me an email. I'm really happy to sit with you and advise you on how you can realise your dream and how you can craft your pathway through education to achieve this dream.' Since then, we've been contacting each other and I have been advising her on appropriate postgraduate courses for once she finishes her bachelors degree.

Michelle is just one example of the many young people that I come into contact with—and not necessarily young, some people who are mature-age students as well—who see education as a real pathway, a real opportunity, to improve their lives and to achieve something not just for themselves but also as a way of contributing to Australian society, to the political, economic and social wellbeing of our community as a whole.

It's those stories that make me proud to stand up here today to speak about this bill and to oppose this bill, because in its very essence this bill actually means a $3.8 billion cut to our universities. And these cuts come at a time when Australia really should be investing in education, and particularly investing in our universities. Cuts to education simply seem to be part of this government's DNA. We've seen them do the same thing to schools. They have a track record of not just undervaluing education but actually ripping the heart out of our education system, with no understanding and no commitment to delivering a high-quality and equitable education system.

Importantly, the bill also means increased fees and debt for university students. Australian students already pay the sixth-highest fees in the OECD. Australia is already one of the most expensive places in the world to study, and our university students are already feeling the pressure of having to struggle through their university courses. Let me tell you, as somebody who has worked a lot with university students, they're not going out for avocado on toast every morning. They're struggling with the stress of having to make ends meet while they go to university, as the previous speaker, the member for Canberra, also elaborated on in her speech, and they do this while those who have enjoyed the benefits of a free university education are introducing cuts that are going to force them to pay more.

The fee hikes in this bill will make fees and student debt even higher in this country. It will lower the threshold for HELP debt repayments, meaning students will have to pay back that bigger debt even sooner. So we're not just creating bigger debts for students while they're at university and we're not just putting more pressure on them while they're at university but even after they leave university, if they are fortunate enough to find a job in this current climate, we're putting more stress on them by making them pay a bigger debt earlier. So there is little wonder why the higher education sector unanimously opposes this package.

The government like to call the measures in this bill 'reform.' They like to dress it up as education reform. That's a handy bit of semantics that they like to use whenever they want to make it look like they're actually doing something worthwhile. The higher education sector on the other hand, which, I might add, is full of people who understand this policy and its impacts very well, can see that it is not reform at all; it is simply cuts—cuts dressed up as some kind of reform. All this bill amounts to is $3.8 billion of cuts—just like their tax cuts for millionaires and big business.

In contrast, Labor has always supported higher education in this country, and we have delivered real reform for our universities. When we were last in government we increased investment in universities because we understand that investing in education is investing in the future of both the individual student and Australian society generally. We know that a qualification from a TAFE or a university can set you up for life, as the member for Canberra iterated in her personal story and as I have iterated before in this House with my personal story as well. As I said earlier, I'm sure many, many Australians can relate to the story of just how much the opportunity for an education, whether it is a TAFE degree or a university degree, helped them to contribute more positively to Australian society.

We on this side know that many jobs both now and in the future are going to require post-school qualification. The Liberals seem to think that education is a choice, one that can only be afforded to those with rich parents who can afford to pay for it. But they need to know that, increasingly, education and post-school education—TAFE or university—is not a choice but a necessity. That's why these cuts are some of the worst decisions that a government could make. Labor's not about to take money from universities and students in order to give the big end of town a tax break. That's not who we are; that's not how we do things. As I mentioned, I've spent a lot of years in the higher education sector—at TAFE and at university—and I know from experience the devastating impact that this bill will have on universities, on students, on Australia's research capabilities and ultimately on our capacity to meet the needs of a changing world.

As the previous speaker mentioned, there is a danger here of a brain drain in Australia. Already we are seeing our young people who may be university educated in Australia going overseas to work because they can't find jobs here. What this bill will induce is a mass migration of our students to countries overseas where it's cheaper to study and where there's a better quality education framework. We simply can't afford to be losing our young people in this way.

This government likes to talk big. They like to use words like 'innovation,' 'reform,' and 'action', but in actual fact all they've shown is that they lack an understanding of any of these words. How can you 'innovate' while ripping the heart out of universities, which is where innovation begins? How can you 'reform' a sector when all you're doing is cutting funding to that sector? How can you claim to be taking 'action' when all you're doing is slugging already struggling students to pay for your $65 billion tax cuts to the big end of town? I just don't understand how this government can claim to be innovative, how they can claim that this is some kind of reform and how they can claim to be taking action when they have demonstrated absolutely no understanding of the value of education, the value of innovation or the value of research—particularly research that's undertaken in universities. They've shown a lack of understanding of all of those things, because all they are proposing with this bill is a massive cut to universities and a massive cut to the research sector while, at the same time, slugging already struggling students with higher fees.

If we take a closer look at some of the measures in this bill, there is this idea of imposing a fee on enabling courses. These courses are pathway or preparation courses for some students and for some of the most disadvantaged students. There's absolutely no support for this measure from the sector, and I would echo that. I have advised so many students from disadvantaged backgrounds who want nothing more than to be able to rise out of their circumstances, who want nothing more than to be able to get a university education and make a life for themselves. I've come across these people; I've sat with them; I've had them in my home. I've talked to them about what opportunities might be there for them. I've seen young men who are at risk of following a negative pathway in life. I have seen their lives change and their trajectory change by going through a pathway course, an enabling course, and eventually getting into university. I've seen the change that a pathway course, an enabling course, can make to the lives of some of the most disadvantaged young people, people who are vulnerable, and people who are at risk of becoming involved in criminal and terrorist activity.

I stand here to say that I have personally helped several young men get to university by accessing these very enabling courses and diverting them from a path that could have led them to a very tragic end. To propose a fee on these enabling courses will simply shut that door for all of those young people coming from disadvantaged backgrounds who seek nothing more than a better station in life through the opportunities that a university education can afford them.

The cuts in this bill will also damage Australia's research efforts. Australia already has the second-lowest level of public investment in universities in the OECD, and these cuts are only going to make that record worse. Governments around the world understand that investing in higher education is critical to ensure the futureproofing of their country's workforce, but we don't seem to get that here. We do need to futureproof our workforce. We need to do that through innovation and through research that comes through our universities.

I know how important funding and support for university research is because it was my life before entering parliament. As a professor I had several research grants that I was working on, from the Australian Research Council and from other sources. Through those research grants, partnering with some of the top universities around the world, we were able to do some groundbreaking research into what leads young people down a path of radicalisation and terrorist violence. At one of the universities that I worked at, the cuts to the sector meant that dozens of PhD students lost supervisors, leaving them and their studies up in the air.

In conclusion, we don't support this bill. We don't support cuts to education. Labor will always stand for opportunity. Labor will always stand for a quality education sector.

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