Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Student Reform) Bill 2018. Everyone in this parliament knows the importance of education—higher education and tertiary education—and how quality education can improve the lives of individuals, families and communities. We saw this the other day in a great speech by the member for Chifley, who told us that he was the first person in his family to have a higher education and a university degree and how it affected him and his entire family and how it bettered his life. We know this, and that's why my colleagues on this side of the House will support this bill. In turn, this bill supports increased participation.

We know that universities are a doorway to the world, through their staff, their contacts, their relationships with other universities, their students and the global partnerships that they have. These Australian institutions provide opportunity. They have provided opportunity to many young Australians to better themselves, get a career and go to the cutting-edge jobs that we talk about for the future. I'm pleased that this bill is before the parliament. I'm also pleased to support this bill, just as I was proud to support the then Labor government's introduction of the youth allowance regional workforce independence criteria in 2011. It's so important to break down the barriers to higher education and increase participation, and that is what this bill seeks to do. We know there are many barriers to a higher education. It could be economic barriers or family situations. The fact is that people are seeking pathways to higher education, and we should be doing absolutely everything to break down the barriers for them to be able to access education and gain the increased skills that will be required in this country.

This bill will support our future workforce and those cutting-edge jobs that I spoke about earlier. It was good for the Prime Minister to be out in the 2016 election talking about jobs of the future, which was his mantra, and cutting-edge jobs, but at the same time he was cutting millions of dollars from our schools and universities. We know the vital role that universities play in our country and in the region. Even the Prime Minister himself recognised this in a speech at the University of New South Wales, where he said, 'Universities bring the world together.' It truly was a good sentiment. However, the actions of this government are something different. They've been anything but respectful when it comes to education. We've seen cuts continuously since 2016 and before.

Not long gone are the days of this government pushing for an American-style higher education system. I suspect that that will continue to be its mantra if it can get it through. We saw $100,000 degrees where, if you had the money up-front, you'd get a place at a university. Modelling has shown that these $100,000 degrees were a very real threat to university students. We know that putting financial constraints on university students does nothing to better our education system and makes education something to be provided to a few privileged people, as it was prior to the Whitlam days.

We also know that this government is doing other things that affect students. Penalty rates were cut. Many people in part-time jobs in the hospitality industry and other industries are students who relied on those penalty rates that were cut recently. The government would not support the Leader of the Opposition's private member's bill. These are all people on very low incomes who are dependent on those part-time jobs and who have had real money taken from them.

In 2016, Australian universities cost the taxpayer approximately $12 billion, but a report has shown that $66 billion was returned to the economy. So you put some money in and you get more than quadruple the return on what you spend on education and universities. But what did the Minister for Education and Training and other members opposite do? They froze university funding just before Christmas, making it harder for universities to deliver the quality education that's required. That's exactly what they did. On the one hand, this is a good bill, but, on the other hand, we have to remember those cuts and how they're hurting university students. What is a funding freeze by another name? They called it a 'funding freeze', but it's a funding cut. The reality is that it's a cut and it's been dressed up with a bow tie to be something else. Approximately $2.2 billion in cuts have been delivered by this government to Australian universities. And then there are the Gonski cuts, which are affecting our schools around the country.

It's right to improve accessibility to universities. It's a good thing. It's shameful that the government are only doing so after they made it so difficult. It's estimated that, directly due to those cuts, approximately 10,000 people did not have the opportunity or ability to attend university this year. That's 10,000 people who would have received skills and would have become professionals who generated wealth in the future economy of this nation. So we're seeing universities, such as the Australian National University, not wanting to take on more students, saying that they have reached their natural cap. Why do they say that? It's because there have been cuts. They need the funding to be able to have more students.

In my state of South Australia, we have three quality universities. For the 2018 to 2021 academic years, the cuts to funding of those three universities in my state will be in the millions and millions of dollars. That is wrong. I'm sure my colleague the member for Adelaide, who's here, would agree and won't be supporting any cuts. Flinders University, for example—a quality university—had $48 million cut. The University of Adelaide had $52 million cut. The biggest recipient of the cuts was the University of South Australia, with $60 million cut.

The government want to increase the university completion rates for rural students, so they introduce this bill, which is a good thing. Qualifying students will increase by approximately 75 per cent, but at the same time we're seeing the largest cuts that have been implemented on universities by this government, which means that universities have less funding to be able to take students and provide the services those students require for their education. One of the largest cuts in South Australia is to Uni SA, with two regional campuses. They will be affected by the cuts.

Make no mistake; this government is no friend to universities, nor are they friends to students. They've proven this by the massive cuts they make continuously to schools and universities. The Prime Minister likes to get up, as he did in the 2016, election and talk about us being a great nation with hi-tech jobs, cutting edge jobs and new industries, but to have those you need to fund education. That's where it starts. It starts in our schools, in our high schools and certainly in our universities by training people for those professions that we need so desperately for the future.

The Student Start-up Scholarship has been replaced with the Student Start-up Loan. And they may be changing the accessibility to youth allowance with this bill, but they also have another bill before this parliament—to cut youth allowance, which in turn affects those very same people. The government continue to work on scrapping the energy supplement for all recipients of Centrelink as well. These are all real cuts.

Of course, I mentioned earlier that penalty rates have been cut, which certainly affects many university students who work part-time jobs and depend on those penalty rates. The voluntary HELP debt repayment bonus has been abolished and the HELP debt repayment threshold has been lowered. All these things affect students. All these things affect the livelihood of students; they make it harder to access universities and for students to finish degrees and to go on to be part of our economy.

This government is scoring a trifecta. We have their policies which are affecting students before they apply, whilst they're studying, and when they've graduated. Of course, we will support this bill because it will support university students in regions to complete their degrees. We know how hard it is in a region when you have to travel into the city to attend a university, the economic constraints that are on families and the economic constraints that are on those students. Perhaps they are paying rent and running a separate household from the family household. I call on the government to do more for students, our universities and our future workforce.

We support this bill. As I said, we introduced the youth allowance regional work independence criteria in 2011 as part of our reforms to increase the number of regional students attending a university. This also increases the regional independence criteria and parental income limit for students from regional and remote areas from $150,000 to $160,000.

We know of regional university cuts, as I said earlier. Just before Christmas, there was $2.2 billion cut from Australian universities. They made these cuts bypassing parliament, because they couldn't get it through the Senate. I think they attempted three times, and the three attempts were blocked. That is three attempts to make these cuts since coming to office. If they had their way, we would already have an Americanised university system with $100,000 degrees, which would be shameful in a nation like ours, where we believe in equality and ensure that everyone has the same go. The MYEFO decision to freeze undergraduate places from 2018 to 2019 and the cap on growth from 2020 onwards effectively kills off Labor's successful demand-driven funding policy legacy. It absolutely kills that, and it was a good thing that assisted so many of our institutions.

I'm very proud that on our side we opened the doors of our universities. Right through from the Whitlam era we've been supporting universities. When we were last in office, we nearly doubled university funding. What did that doubling of university funding do? An additional 190,000 Australians got a place at a university, many of whom were the very first people in their families to go to university, to change their entire lives and to go in a different direction to their parents, their grandparents and their great-grandparents. We know that education is so important. We know we can change someone's life by giving them an education. We were very proud of those 190,000 extra places for people who perhaps may not have had the opportunity to go to university, whatever their circumstances were. Opening places is so important.

We hear the other side saying not everyone needs a university degree. I agree. Not everyone needs a university degree, but people, if they choose to get one, should be given the opportunity. That opportunity should be directed through this parliament, through the bills that we put to this place to make it more accessible, to give those students or those people that are finishing high school the opportunities and the pathways to go on and better their lives. It is a fact that, no matter where you are in the world, you can change your entire life through an education. We also know that the higher the education and the higher the degree, the less likely it is that you will be unemployed. That is a fact. If you go to university, it's less likely that you'll be in the unemployment lines.

These are all facts that we all know, but sometimes those on the other side refuse to acknowledge them. They refuse to acknowledge them because of an ideology that they still want up-front fees. They would love to see the privatisation of our universities. If it weren't for the constant campaigning by others in this place, I'm sure that they would have their $100,000 American-style fees. We know what it's like in the US: if you don't have the money up-front, you just don't go—or you can access loans that are extremely high in interest rates. There are methods by which you can do it. But is it fair? No. Does it give the opportunity to every person? No. Does it give people the opportunity to go to university that perhaps they did not have because of their economic circumstances and family circumstances? No. This is what we would have if those on that side had their way. I implore the government to do more for universities and to assist students, because those students will be at the cutting-edge jobs of the future which we will require to drive this economy.

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