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

He said, 'Go home.' I take that interjection. He actually said, 'Go home.' It's about $16 billion of cuts from international students, but the tail of the damage could linger longer and damage deeper for years to come.

That's on top of the $2.2 billion in cuts that have already been made to university funding by the Liberal-National government. And now that the job-ready graduates bill is passed, universities can expect an additional funding cut of $1 billion a year. The government claims the job-ready graduates reform is to encourage students to study maths, science and engineering. That is a noble goal; I do admit that. But mark my words, the policy is not going to do that. In fact, I bet it will achieve the opposite. The reforms will actually incentivise universities to offer more humanities courses and fewer maths and science courses because they'll 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, universities will only receive $24,200 resourcing for that same course. That's a cut of $4,758, irrespective of what's going on with the cuts delivered by international students not arriving.

To make things even worse for universities this year, the Morrison government has deliberately blocked them from access to JobKeeper payments. Three times the Morrison government changed the rules to deliberately exclude universities from the $130 billion wage subsidy program. This government has absolutely neglected universities during this pandemic—this health and economic crisis. Not surprisingly, more than 12,000 jobs have been lost across the country already, and it's estimated that, by the end of the year, 21,000 university jobs will be lost. That's 21,000 households hit because of the neglect from the Morrison government. Just last week, Griffith University, who have a campus in my electorate of Moreton, announced they'd be cutting almost 300 university jobs. This Morrison government could have stopped the job losses—academics, tutors, admin staff, library staff catering staff, grounds staff, cleaners, security—but it didn't. All of those workers have families, and they're just trying to get through this challenging year, put food on the table and keep the roof over their heads. Instead, the Morrison government hasn't lifted a finger to help them.

Sadly, regional universities are the ones that will be hit hardest. Regional universities support 14,000 jobs. Go beyond the cities, and see how that will play out. When Prime Minister Morrison attacks the bush, where are the voices of the Nationals, to stick up for their universities? Regional universities are huge employers in places like Cairns—a town that's actually doing it very tough because of tourism—Townsville, Rockhampton, Toowoomba, Wollongong, Armidale, Bathurst, Newcastle, Ballarat, Bendigo, Whyalla, Port Augusta, Launceston and Burnie. They are huge employers in those towns. These districts have had a horrendous year. Many of them have had to shut down campuses; they've had jobs cut. And that's often, in some places, coming on top of 12 months of fire, flood and drought—all those other things—as well as COVID-19.

In May, we saw Central Queensland University—Queensland's largest regional university—announce that it would close three of its rural campuses, in places like Yeppoon, Biloela and Noosa. At the same time, Central Queensland University was forced to cut 182 jobs. Did we hear anything from the National Party? No—nothing. This not only affects the university staff and students; it has a wider impact on the nation. We know that seven in 10 regional university graduates take up work outside of metropolitan areas and that those universities and students reinvest more than $2 billion a year in those regional communities with university campuses. Once students put on the Akubra, seven out of 10 of them at a bush university will graduate and won't take that Akubra off. They'll stay in the bush. So the impact of these closures will be felt for many, many years.

The incredibly talented researchers at our universities are doing remarkable work during this very difficult year. Researchers are working around the clock to find a vaccine, with some promising trials occurring right now. Just this week, the University of Queensland in Brisbane announced they've produced locally made coronavirus proteins in their state-of-the-art laboratory which are proving useful in a sophisticated new blood test for COVID-19. Our universities may end up saving humanity, but they can't rely on the Morrison government to protect their jobs. Education is actually our fourth-largest export industry. I saw the Prime Minister, in a former life, bring in a lump of coal, but he's never brought in a university degree and recognised our fourth-largest export industry.

The Morrison government made a deliberate choice not to help universities during this crisis, and students are also going to be hit by the Job-ready Graduates reforms. These reforms are going to make it harder and more expensive for students to go to university. In fact, some students will be playing double for their degrees. The reforms are unlikely to create an incentive for students to study maths, science or engineering just because they may be slightly cheaper. Either students want to study maths, science and engineering or they don't. I don't think any educator would agree that students should be making their future study choices, something that will determine the rest of their life, based on the cost of the degree. Saddling students with a mountain of debt before they've even commenced their career could potentially create a disincentive to study at all. That can't be good for students or for our nation at a time when we need our best and brightest most.

We know that by 2025 Australia will require another 3.8 million university qualifications. Australians need our universities to be skilling up students for jobs for the future. Universities need support, not constant cuts, and students need to be inspired to study the course of their choice without fear of the great burden of debt. The Morrison government has promised to fund 39,000 new university places by 2023, but the truth is they're cost-shifting university education to students by increasing student debt. Students overall will be paying an extra seven per cent of the total cost of their university courses because of decisions made by the Morrison government.

That is in the context of the class of 2020, who are coming to the end of their school year right now—what an exceptionally difficult year! As politicians, we spend a lot of time with our graduating classes. This year has been incredible. They've not had the benefit of spending as much time with their peers due to COVID-19 restrictions, be it on sports or social activities. Many classes have had to be undertaken online, and that is not always ideal. It does suit some kids, but most have suffered because of it. The usual stresses of year 12 have been exacerbated by anxiety about a virus that has caused more than a million deaths so far across the globe. Families have been separated by travel restrictions, grandparents have been isolated, and then, to top it off, the Morrison government is making it harder and more expensive for this graduating class to go to university. What a gift!

I understand the minister will be moving an amendment to his bill to ensure that the process around limiting the use of the word 'university' in internet domain names is possible in a practical sense. But Labor calls on the government to explain how this change will be enforced. We would expect regular checks to be made to ensure providers are not illegally representing themselves as universities through their domain names, because my understanding is that you automatically are given a domain name if no other entity has that domain name, so practically it will require oversight. We need to do all we can to protect the excellent reputation of Australian universities; we should not let people undermine that.

Labor will not oppose this bill in the House today, but we have referred it to a Senate inquiry to better understand the impact that these changes will have on the sector, and we will await the report of that Senate inquiry.

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