Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Griffith University has a campus in my electorate. Sadly, it announced last week that it would be cutting almost 300 university jobs—300 households hit hard by a hard-hearted government's culture war. Griffith University is just the latest university forced to make staffing cuts. Universities Australia estimate that, by the end of this year, 21,000 university jobs will be lost. What a Christmas gift this will bring to the nation! Universities, like many other businesses and organisations, have been hit hard by coronavirus. International students were locked out by the Prime Minister—in fact, he told them to go home—resulting in a loss of revenue of around $4.8 billion for this year alone. Then the Morrison government deliberately locked the public universities out of JobKeeper, changing the rules three times to ensure they couldn't access the $130 billion wage subsidy program. Prime Minister Morrison could have stopped the job losses—academics, tutors, admin staff, library staff, catering staff, ground staff, cleaners, security—but he did not.

Regional universities, in National Party seats, will be hit hardest. Regional universities support 14,000 jobs in regions being hit by trade embargoes, but the Morrison government chose not to help a sector that is our fourth-largest export industry. To rub salt into the wound, the Job-Ready Graduates reforms have now been passed by the Senate, cutting $1 billion from universities already struggling—'reforms' that make it harder and more expensive for students to go to university. The stated aim of the Job-Ready Graduates reform is to get more students studying maths, science and engineering, but it won't achieve this noble aim. In fact, it will have the opposite effect. The reform will incentivise universities to offer more humanities courses and fewer maths and science courses, because they will receive more funding for the non-priority courses, including humanities, than they will for the priority courses, like maths and science.

Currently, universities receive $28,958 resourcing to teach a science course. Under the new reforms, they will receive $24,200 resourcing for that same course—a cut of $4,758. Many students will be worse off, and some will pay double for their degrees. It's unlikely that making courses cheaper will create an incentive for students to study maths, science or engineering. Students should not be making their future study choices based on the cost of the degree. Saddling students with a mountain of debt before they commence their career will potentially create a disincentive to study—this, when our nation needs our best and brightest to step up, now more than ever.

By 2025, Australia will require another 3.8 million university qualifications. We need our universities to be skilling up students for jobs for the future. Universities need government support, not constant cuts, and students need to be inspired to study the course of their choice without the burden of crippling debt. The government has promised to fund 39,000 new university places by 2023, but it is cost-shifting university education to students by ramping up student debt, with individual students paying an extra seven per cent of the total cost of these courses.

The class of 2020, those graduating next week, has had an exceptionally difficult year. They have not had the benefit of spending as much time with their peers, due to COVID-19 restrictions. Sport, cultural events, formals, schoolies et cetera have been cancelled or changed terribly. Many classes have been undertaken online, which is not always ideal. The usual stresses of year 12 have been exacerbated by anxiety about an invisible enemy that has so far caused more than a million deaths around the globe. Families have been separated by travel restrictions. Grandparents are isolated or dead. To top it off, the Morrison government is making it harder and more expensive for this graduating class of 2020 to go to university.

I ask the minister at the table: is it fair that, after the year 12 from hell, this government should saddle 40 per cent of university entrants from the class of 2020 with higher university fees? Is it fair that, after the year 12 from hell, the Morrison government should shift the cost burden of providing more university places to our students?

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