Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Australia) Share this | Hansard source

The government's $2.2 billion cut to universities is equivalent to 9,500 Australians missing out on a university place in 2018 and that number again in 2019. This is an unacceptable hit to Australian students, particularly the young people of Western Sydney and my electorate of Parramatta. The educational attainment gap is pronounced in Western Sydney. Among 25- to 34-year-olds, there's a 31 per cent gap between us and greater Sydney levels. We just enrol at a lesser rate. The impact of these cuts, which are effectively a student cap on the Western Sydney University, will be devastating. Universities Australia Chairwoman Margaret Gardner said the freeze amounted to a 'real cut' in funding, due to inflation, even if universities simply maintain current student numbers. 'And for universities that are still growing their student numbers to meet the needs in their local communities and regional economies, this will be an even deeper cut,' she said.

Let's look at the students who attend Western Sydney University. There are just under 40,000 of them, and 21.7 per cent are of lower socioeconomic status and 60 per cent are the first in their family to attend university. Labor uncapped university places in 2009, and by 2016 an extra 220,000 students around the country had that same opportunity to go to university. This meant 63,186 additional students in New South Wales were able to get a university education, and 2,074 of the additional students were from Parramatta. Because of Labor's policies at the time, the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds was up by 55 per cent, Indigenous student numbers jumped by 89 per cent, enrolments by students with a disability more than doubled and enrolments by students from country areas had grown by 48 per cent. This government's funding cuts mean fewer students from disadvantaged backgrounds getting a tertiary education and fewer kids from Western Sydney going to university. That's why Labor has promised to abolish this government's unfair cap on student places. Almost 200,000 more Australians will benefit from Labor's policy over 12 years.

Western Sydney University is a fantastic university, doing great things to try to close Western Sydney's educational attainment gap—something the government's cuts will hinder. These cuts would reduce WSU's ability to fund critical outreach programs, take part in industry-partnered programs and devote resources to government-partnered programs focused on addressing Western Sydney's pronounced educational equity gap. The flow-on effects to my community would last for years to come, not just for students unable to get a university education but also for employment, innovation and problem solving.

Western Sydney University is an extraordinary place, encouraging new ways of thinking and running programs to solve problems in the community by taking the skills of the university out into the community. It has been at the forefront of stimulating innovation in Western Sydney through start-up incubator and a small- to medium-tech enterprise accelerator. If these programs were cut, it would be an incredible shame, because we're already seeing the benefits of them. It will put an end, really, to Western Sydney's ability to partner with industry and government in proven job creation programs, like, for example, Western Sydney University's co-investment with the Commonwealth in the $30 million Werrington Park Corporate Centre in 2013. Part of the suburban jobs program, this facility brings more than 400 high-value jobs to Penrith in outer Western Sydney, something incredibly important for the region, good for the local economy and good for families that benefit from these really high-skilled jobs.

Western Sydney University also has strategies to prepare the labour market for digital disruption. The university initiates tests and invests in courses that support the changing labour market paradigms. The building across the road from my office is designed to become a thought hub, a place where a community can think, can share its ideas and can recognise its skills deficits and where the university can step in, as they have in many of those new courses, and provide structured training in some of the new job areas.

Now is not the time to cripple our universities' ability to deliver these programs. It's a time to grow. It's a time for our best minds within universities and the community to get together and find ways to position us for the 20 years ahead. But how does a university do that when it faces the kinds of funding cuts that this government has imposed? I strongly urge the government to rethink its funding of universities. I call on the government to reverse its short-sighted, unfair cuts to universities which are closing the door of opportunity to thousands of Australians, including thousands in Western Sydney and in my electorate of Parramatta.

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