Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to second the Higher Education Support Amendment (National Regional Higher Education Strategy) Bill 2018 and to support the motion of the member for Indi, and to congratulate the member for Indi for the work she has done to further the cause for regional universities. I support this bill because I understand how important it is for the future of our regions and the future of our country that we have a strong, growing regional educational sector.

Regional universities are vital to the success and prosperity of Australia's regional centres. The economic benefit that universities provide to a regional town is immense. For example, the University of New England is responsible for 12.6 per cent of the total employment in the New South Wales town of Armidale. Similar stories are replicated across Australia in towns like Burnie, Launceston and Albury-Wodonga. Just last Friday I was invited to Geelong to speak at a coastal conference. When I met with local government there, they said it was Deakin University that was the anchor point in changing the prosperity of the community of Geelong. I am working very hard to make sure that we can have campuses in Mayo. We need university campuses, like we have in my home state in Whyalla and Mount Gambier. The benefits of having a university campus in a regional area are, indeed, immense. Universities provide employment opportunities for locals and they collaborate with local businesses on research that will directly impact the area, but, most importantly, they provide a genuine opportunity for rural and regional students to obtain higher education without needing to leave their communities—their home towns.

Universities Australia has equated the shortfall in funding as the equivalent of 10,000 university places. While this is a major concern across the nation, the impact of the MYEFO cuts is disproportionately felt by regional universities. These universities, by virtue of their location, will struggle to attract full-fee-paying international students to meet the funding shortfall. They often struggle to attract the same level of research investment as the traditional universities in the capital cities. They simply do not have the ability of the larger metropolitan based universities to draw on alternative funding sources.

The statistics are damning. For people aged between 25 and 34 in major cities, 42.4 per cent have obtained a bachelor degree. Compare this to those in regional areas and the number falls dramatically to just over 20 per cent. It is still lower in remote areas, where the rate is less than one in five. I'm on the record as saying that university is not for everyone and that many people would perhaps be better served by undergoing VET courses or apprenticeships, but to have such a divide between regional and metropolitan education levels in our country is staggering and something that I believe the government must address. As the member for Indi says, this is something that the National Party should be picking up with both hands.

Finally, it is worth recognising that the government has a clear decentralisation agenda. I recognise the excellent work that the member for Indi has done in her role on the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation—not just being part of the committee but making sure that committee happened. There is significant evidence that shows the only way for decentralisation to truly work is for the region to contain a skilled supply of labour supported by a university. Not having a regional higher education strategy puts the government's decentralisation agenda, I believe, at risk, and it puts the future of Australia's regional areas at risk. The member for Indi's bill identifies the need to increase the representation of regional students in higher education. It identifies that the future of the regions lies in encouraging students to stay and study in their local area and receive a good-quality education, and it identifies that the federal government is not supporting our regions by providing them with the tools necessary to succeed. We need to do this. We need to keep our young people in the communities that they want to live in, and not all of us, indeed, want to live in a capital city.

Once again, I congratulate the member for Indi and encourage all members of this House, particularly those from regional areas, and, again, I call on the National Party: show some leadership in this area. You represent the seats where these universities are needed and the regions that, where universities already exist, are struggling. (Time expired)

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