Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019. This bill will make it an offence to provide or advertise academic cheating services to, or arrange academic cheating services for, students studying with Australian higher-education providers either here in Australia or overseas.

Cheating is not a new phenomenon. I would proffer a guess that since the modern university has existed there have been occurrences of students cheating—and by 'cheating', I mean putting forward work that is not, either in whole or in part, of your own doing. The ways in which it can occur vary, but typical examples include: copying someone else's work or ideas; getting somebody else to write your essays or do your work, either in full or in part; and copying wades of text from reputable sources, without citing them, with the intent of passing it off as your own work.

Just as cheating isn't new in the university context, nor are the responses or approaches that universities have taken to address it. Maintaining and preserving the academic integrity of a university, given that it goes to the heart of a university's purpose and reputation, has been a primary focus and concern of university governing boards and academics for a very long time. There have always been university statutes and rules setting out penalties for breaches of academic integrity.

In more recent times, and with the guidance of TEQSA and the Higher Education Standards Panel, all universities have invested significant time and resources in addressing cheating. They've implemented new initiatives to educate students about academic integrity and to promote good student conduct. Yes, we're all worried about vulnerable students. Yes, we're all worried about those students who come to university who may not know the rules about how to cite or refer to other texts. Universities all run introductory-level courses, and maintain them throughout the degree's progress, to educate students and make sure that they are aware.

Universities are also taking steps to promote a wider understanding across the sector of the best types of assessment, to minimise opportunities for fraudulent activity by students. They've also invested significantly in new mechanisms to detect cheating and to detect academic fraud. There has been a concerted effort by the university sector where universities have worked together to share best practices, and universities should be highly commended on the action that they have taken.

At the same time, universities have been faced by increasing challenges in the contract cheating area. Contract cheating is the purchase of somebody else's work to present it as your own. While it's not new, the ready availability of sophisticated communication technology and the rise of social media have increased the opportunity to access and/or repurpose another person's work to present it as your own. The availability of essay-writing services is pervasive, with both local and international websites advertising their services. In fact, prior to coming into the chamber I did a quick google search, typing in 'I want to buy an essay on torts'. Immediately, 10 sites came up on the first page. The parliamentary blocker blocked the first site, I'm pleased to say, but I managed to get through to the second website, where I could have purchased an essay on torts had I chosen to do so—I didn't.

In looking into this, the Higher Education Standards Panel noted in a report in 2017:

No Australian jurisdiction currently has offences on the books specifically aimed at deterring or punishing cheating by students or organised cheating services.

Instead, what we've got is an array of laws, civil and criminal, across all of the jurisdictions, which potentially could be used, but there are significant hurdles with all of them. So the Higher Education Standards Panel came to the conclusion that, in order to assist universities and the sector in general in their steps to address the rising concern of contract cheating, additional legislation is required.

The amendments to the TEQSA Act which are being put forward in this bill are based on the advice of the Higher Education Standards Panel. In accordance with that advice, this legislation is aimed at those who provide cheating services and not at the students who might use such services. Students who cheat remain subject to the institutions' own academic integrity policies, their own processes and their own sanctions.

An exposure draft version of the bill was publicly released on 7 April last year for comment, and there has been strong stakeholder support for the legislation. For those providers that offer academic cheating services, criminal and civil penalties of up to two years jail, and fines of up to 500 penalty units—around $100,000—will apply where the cheating service or advertising is for a commercial purpose. Civil penalties will also apply where the cheating service is provided without remuneration. Strict liability will apply to the criminal offence of providing an academic cheating service in order to undermine services' tactics of putting up disingenuous disclaimers regarding the purpose and use of their products.

TEQSA will be appointed to enforce the new law, with its powers to include monitoring, intelligence gathering, investigation and prosecution of identified offenders. TEQSA will have additional power to collect and disseminate information about cheating websites and their users to help institutions combat cheating activity on campus, but with safeguards to protect unwarranted sharing of personal information about those who purchase cheating materials. TEQSA will have the ability to seek court injunctions to force internet service providers and search engines to block cheating websites.

Ensuring academic integrity in our higher education system is of vital importance. The consequences of not having a robust and multifaceted approach to ensuring academic integrity can result in great damage to the domestic and international reputation of Australian higher education. It's also a risk to employers. How do you know that the person that you're employing actually did all of the work that led to their qualification? It is a risk to student mobility. Once our border restrictions are lifted and our students are able to travel internationally to undertake further studies, if the academic integrity of our system has been put under attack and is in question then the mobility of our students, either as students or as graduates, will be greatly harmed. It also undermines the integrity of all of the certifications. Academic integrity is key to universities. It is key to our Australian university sector, and we must ensure that what we do protects and enhances that.

This bill, as I said, reinforces the work that has already been undertaken by universities and by TEQSA to educate students about academic integrity, to promote good student conduct, and to prevent and detect academic fraud. The amendments being put forward in this bill address a missing element of the current steps. I'm happy to commend this bill to the House.

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