Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports the intention of this bill, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019, and will be supporting this bill. It is of course very important that we have a strong integrity system everywhere: in this parliament, in our general lives and in our university systems.

People struggle at university. We know this. We also know that people from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds particularly struggle at university. Many people go to university as the first person in their family to do so, and it has been a matter of aspiration and hard work and sacrifice to get there. But, for someone who is the first person in their family to attend university, it can be a shock to the system. It can be a difficult place, because they don't come from a family or a community where people know what university is like and have been there before and can talk them through the difficulties. Particularly in some parts of my community, in the electorate of Dunkley, those young men and women who've worked so hard to get to university and are the first person from their family to go to university often come from financial disadvantage. So they have dual burdens. They have to adapt to this new way of life, to the burden of learning in a way that they haven't had to learn before, because it's all about personal responsibility and where they don't have, necessarily, the guidance of the teachers or tutors—though they wouldn't have had tutors because they were at public schools—that they've had in high school. On top of that, they also have the burden of balancing their social life and having to work just to support themselves, to be able to buy the textbooks and the other things that are needed to get by and to pay the rent. So it's easy to see how vulnerable students who don't have a support network around them can be targeted by these professional organisations for cheating.

So this bill is important. But what is also important is that we make sure vulnerable students get assistance so that they're not an easy target for these commercial operations that want to benefit from the cheating, that we target the commercial operations and that we help the students who are, by and large, their victims. I and my Labor colleagues urge governments and universities to work together to make sure that proper support is there.

I urge this government, as it is looking at JobKeeper, to look at two groups who have been left out that are relevant to this legislation—that is, vulnerable students and casuals who haven't been in the same workplace for 12 months. Many of the people I've spoken about are young students who are working to support themselves—not for extra pocket money—to get through university and, of course, the universities themselves. I'll return to that point.

There is no doubt that investing in and maintaining our world-class universities is good for everyone. Education is the ticket. There is no doubt that education is the ticket. We know that a university education adds to Australia's productive capacity about $140 billion in GDP and we know that Australia will require an extra 3.8 million university qualifications by 2025. We won't do that with a government that continues to cut funding to universities and to research and which excludes universities from any support package to get through COVID-19 and the economic consequences. By capping university places, cutting $2.2 billion from the system and locking more than 200,000 students out of the opportunity of a university qualification, this government is doing the current generation and future generations of Australians a massive disservice. Cutting $328.5 million from university research is something to be ashamed of. The minister himself said at the National Press Club that productivity improvements in the higher education sector can deliver $2.7 billion to Australia's GDP per annum. How can that occur when universities are experiencing the cuts that I've talked about?

Universities provide a cauldron for research, for knowledge, for culture and for learning but they're also economic drivers within the community. We know in my community of Dunkley of the economic benefits and opportunities for young people from our community, particularly young people who may well be the first person in their family to attend university, that the Peninsula campus of Monash University brings. The university campus in our community also brings a sense of pride. We can point to it as part of our culture of learning, of striving, of betterment and, in particular, of doing courses that then benefit the community. Studying paramedic medicine, studying nursing, studying early childhood, doing research into addiction and mental health problems, being part of a community with a university that's partnering with the Peninsula Health and Frankston Hospital to build a centre of excellence to do research into healthy ageing and doing research into how to better help people who suffer from addictions and mental health problems bring a sense of pride for my community. The university campus is a source of economic input and will provide an opportunity for people from my community to study and be part of world-class cutting-edge research in our own backyard. But these things won't be able to happen at the level we want them to if universities continue to be left to fend for themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic and coming out of it.

In May of this year, as one of the members of parliament which has a campus of Monash University in their electorates, I received a letter from Professor Margaret Gardner, the president and vice-chancellor of the university. The letter was sent to all members of parliament who have a campus in their electorate. The vice-chancellor was writing to let us know the significant issues that universities were facing then and would continue to face if they didn't get government support. I quote:

The economic effects of the crisis are now being felt by Monash and other Australian universities and there are no signs of recovery on the horizon. For Monash, 2020 and 2021 will be the most challenging circumstances we have ever faced. We have lost a large portion of the financial ability to support the current quality of our education and research. Our loss will be felt throughout the community; for every dollar lost, the community will lose close to two dollars supporting employment in every other sector.

The crisis is creating hardship among our students. It is also hampering Monash's ability to continue to invest in research and infrastructure and to maintain our hard-fought reputation in a hugely competitive global market.

Enrolments for Semester 1 are now confirmed and we can predict the likely financial outcomes for this year. The 2020 revenue shortfall for Monash is $350 million—

because primarily of a fall in student fees. Monash Peninsula campus has experienced a 43 per cent decline in enrolments for business studies, primarily due to a loss of foreign-student enrolments. I'll go on to quote from the letter:

To address the shortfall in our 2020 revenue the University has made reductions of approximately $100 million of capital works, and reduced operating costs by around $200 million. Some $80 million of these cost reductions will come from a freeze on staff recruitment, the reduction in casual and sessional staff (which we have tried to minimise), and a 20 per cent pay cut taken by the Senior Executive.

The university is also drawing on cash reserves and is increasing borrowing. The vice-chancellor wrote:

At present, we face this crisis largely relying on our own resources. The guarantee of Commonwealth Grant Scheme (CGS) funding has no effect on Monash finances since it is payment for the domestic students we currently have enrolled. Less than one-third of Monash's total revenue comes from the CGS and Higher Education Loan Program payments.

Yet the vice-chancellor confirmed:

Despite these challenges Monash remains committed to continuing to play an active role in supporting the community.

That was in May. Despite repeated calls from me, my Labor colleagues, the shadow minister, universities, unions and students, the government has continued to refuse to do anything to support our universities that it says it values, the students it says it values or the research it says it values, to get through this crisis. It's not good enough. It's just not good enough.

We could see 21,000 jobs being lost in the next six months. We know that it's hitting regional universities very hard. We know that for every dollar of revenue lost by universities $2 is lost to the community. The federal government can't explain why a university student working a $100 shift per week receives the full $1,500 JobKeeper wage subsidy but a full-time university worker with kids to support is not eligible. We're relying on our brilliant universities and researchers to find a vaccine for COVID-19, but they can't rely on this government to protect their jobs.

Released just today was a substantial study by Monash University, the biggest study done into the impact of the social restrictions on young people in Australia. It is a really important piece of work that gives us insights into why loneliness and isolation is linked to mental health issues. It's a substantial piece of work that gives insights into how we can help people who have been impacted by social isolation and loneliness to be positive about the future, to help avoid significant mental health impacts and to help deal with the ones they're already feeling.

If we don't have universities like Monash University, then our society, our community, will be diminished. It will be diminished because people from communities like mine—people who don't have mums and dads, grandmas and grandpas, and great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers who are university graduates with white-collar jobs, and who don't grow up in families of lawyers and bankers but are working so hard to have a better future for themselves—won't be able to go to university. They won't be able to go to university if universities end up having to impose enormous fees on students in order to survive. They won't be able to contribute what we know they can with their brilliant minds if universities are not supported by this government.

So it really is great that the government is bringing in this legislation to try to crack down on commercial cheaters. But it's not enough to support this really crucial sector and all of the work that it does.

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