Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

By investing in higher education, we are truly investing in Australia's future and that of our workforce. It means that we can ensure we have the skills not only for today but also for the future and working within our economy. And we all know that the world is pivoting in the 21st-century economy to a knowledge economy, so universities are now more important than ever. This bill, the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Category Standards and Other Measures) Bill 2020, will help futureproof Australia's higher education system by cutting red tape and simplifying regulation.

The Morrison government wants to ensure we support school leavers, international students and those looking to obtain new skills or to reskill through higher education in Australia. Sadly, many have lost their jobs through COVID. Many will be seeking to reskill, and they need those tools to succeed in the area of future job growth. We all know that, when there is a recession, universities and higher education are countercyclical, and that is because people know that, in order to be competitive, they need to upskill. Pleasingly, Australia seems to be coming out of the COVID-19 recession faster than anticipated, and that is because of the great work by all Australians in keeping our country safe and following the guidelines of the states and territories with regard to COVID-safe approaches. The Morrison government knows the strength of higher education and has made a record investment of more than $18 billion in Australia's universities during 2020.

I need to pick up on something that a member opposite said earlier. He said that we locked universities out of JobKeeper. This is misleading and is actually false. There is absolutely no doubt that universities can access JobKeeper if they then can show that they had a decrease of either 30 per cent or 50 per cent in turnover. The fact that they didn't access JobKeeper is evidence that they have managed to keep going through what has been a very difficult time, and some of that has been because they've continued to be significantly subsidised by the government. Under the recently announced Job-ready Graduates Package, the government's current funding of $18 billion a year will grow to $20 billion by 2024. We continue to back in universities.

I know universities are always wanting more funding. I have been a university professor both here in Australia and in the United Kingdom. I know how difficult it is in the area of universities. That is because it's a very privileged position to be in a university, to be able, in the area of research in particular, to ask important questions that the community needs answering. As such, it can seem very difficult and very competitive for the sector. But, as a government, we support universities—not only the great work they're doing in teaching but also the wonderful work they're doing in research.

There are already around 1.5 million students studying in Australian higher education, and the new arrangements under the Job-ready Graduates Package will create 100,000 new university places by 2030. In September the Morrison government also announced it will provide $326 million to deliver an additional 12,000 undergraduate Commonwealth supported places from 2021, just next year. This will provide additional support for students, in particular in regional and remote Australia. I would like to comment that this is incredibly important, because we know that students who spend time in regional and remote Australia often put down roots. They meet people that may become their future partner. They understand how rewarding it can be to work in small community towns. It's very important that we invest in and support our regional and remote communities so that families can support their children locally but also so that it encourages people from the cities to explore and seek new ways of having a great life in different parts of Australia.

This bill amends the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011, colloquially known as the TEQSA Act, to implement the recommendations of the Coaldrake Review of the Higher Education Provider Category Standards. It will introduce a measure to preserve and protect the academic records of students whose higher education provider has ceased to exist. It also contains a small number of other measures intended to improve the regulation of Australia's higher education sector by strengthening the TEQSA Act's administration and the TEQSA's regulatory role. The review was completed in 2019 by Emeritus Professor Peter Coaldrake AO, who recommended amending the provider category standards to clarify and streamline the regulatory framework to ensure it is fit for purpose for all stakeholders, including students, the regulator, and current and future providers.

The Morrison government has accepted all 10 of the Coaldrake review's recommendations. The key recommendation of the review was to both simplify and enhance the categorisation of higher education providers through a number of measures: firstly, reducing the number of domestic university categories from three down to a single category, called an 'Australian university'; secondly, reducing the number of overseas university categories from two down to one, with the definition 'overseas university'; and, thirdly, enhancing the categories for non-university providers by introducing a second category for those providers with a track record of the highest quality delivery and learning outcomes, called 'institute of higher education', and also a new category of provider to be called 'university college'.

The university college category will introduce a mark of quality and better signal diversity and differentiation in the non-university sector. These signals are very important in the marketplace—I know this as both a university professor and a mother of four young adults who are entering the higher education sector as we speak. It will provide an opportunity for the highest quality providers to operate in regional and thinner markets without the burden imposed by the need to undertake research in the university categories. It will also offer an achievable and practical transitional pathway for institutions seeking to work towards university status. This is very important for the sector, as we encourage new providers and a free market to ensure that these categories are opening up diversity and providing new educational models as we go forward.

Importantly, the changes to this act will provide a new pathway for the future establishment of greenfield universities. The university sector is changing—it's changing gradually, but it is changing—as it responds to the needs of students and the needs of society. As society changes, as it becomes more digitalised, as the economy changes, as we move to a knowledge and service provider economy in the 21st century, universities too need to pivot and provide market products that are fresh, innovative and good for the students who require them so that they are job-ready for the future. Should a state or territory government or significant Australian or overseas entity wish to establish a new university from scratch, the changes to this act will enable that.

The new provider categories also clarify the obligation of institutions in both the Australian university and university college categories to be active participants in their communities and enhance the employability of graduates through civic leadership and engagement with employers and industry. I have to stress how important this is. Universities cannot just be ivory towers. The best universities are the ones that understand that giving a good education in the 21st century also includes providing civic leadership and engagement with future employers and potential industry partners because it gives an opportunity for students to prepare for their future, not just be spilled out into the workplace with no skills and no opportunities. Providing that when they are in the university environment is, I think, a very empowering obligation of these higher education providers.

The new categories also clarify how the quality of research activity will be assessed in the Australian university category, giving more certainty to institutions about the expectations for research quality. As a medical research professor, I really do welcome these changes. It's so important that the universities' research is of the highest quality; we know that that drives university rankings. More importantly, nowadays, university research needs to have a target in making sure that it is relevant, that it's useful and that it's going to make a difference to the world.

The amendments to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act in this bill are consequential to the amendments to the standards themselves, which will be remade through a new legislative instrument once this bill has been passed. The changes to the standards have been drafted by the Higher Education Standards Panel, as required by section 58 of the TEQSA Act. These amendments will present the threshold standards as a single unified framework instead of four distinct types of threshold standards. This will enable the structure of the threshold standards instrument to be simplified, making it clearer for providers, students and others to read and use.

Other measures include reference to the new Australian Qualifications Framework qualification type of 'undergraduate certificate' in the definition of 'higher education award'. These measures will also allow TEQSA to extend the period of a provider's registration or course accreditation more than once, which will help TEQSA manage its regulatory workload better and provide low-risk providers with additional flexibility, including in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will also allow a review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of a decision by TEQSA not to change a provider's category if this was requested. Finally, these changes will ensure protection of the word 'university' in Australian internet domain names in a similar way to existing provisions that protect the use of the word 'university' in company and business names.

The Morrison government recognises the importance of research to Australia. I think all Australians, through the COVID pandemic, have become armchair epidemiologists. I welcome this. It's wonderful to be having conversations with people about things like sampling frames, prevalence, case indices and how to respond to the COVID crisis. I think we've all been glued to the press conferences by the Prime Minister, by the chief medical officer and by the states' and territories' premiers and state leaders or state ministers. It's very important the Australian public is on board with understanding the empowerment that science brings to our response to COVID and that, as an evidence base and an expert informed government, we've been listening to the power of science.

The Australian community expects science to help deliver technology and innovation to provide a better life for all of us and to provide better products to the rest of the world, because that's what Australia is good at: being resilient, resourceful and smart. There is recognition that research is also fundamental to the role of universities and in sustaining Australia's reputation for world-class research. This is why the Minister for Education has worked closely with the university sector, through CEOs, forums and the Research Sustainability Working Group, chaired by Professor Deborah Terry, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland, to develop a plan to support this important sector, especially as international student income has taken a significant hit from COVID. I note the Minister for Education has also been working very closely with regard to the future for international students returning to Australia and supporting universities in this very important outcome.

The Morrison government continues to invest in research infrastructure to support improved management. I'd particularly like to welcome a recent announcement made by the Minister for Education. In addition to investing a further $1 billion in research to the university sector, which I understand has been welcomed by the sector, there are further announcements that the Minister for Education has made recently. This includes looking at the use of Indigenous data collections. The government will provide $8.9 million to create a data network that will transform how Australia's social and cultural data is accessed, curated and analysed. The project will support the development of e-research platforms and tools for visualisation, transcription and entity recognition. This investment will improve the reliability and consistency of data for Indigenous Australians to better support evidence based Indigenous policymaking. This project will complement the additional $1 billion for university research in this year's budget and the $5.8 million to design a scheme to accelerate turning research into new products, job creation, productivity gains and economic growth.

Our government recognises the strength of research. It recognises the strength of science. It recognises the strength of an evidence based approach. It's absolutely clear, looking internationally, how our COVID response has been informed by our scientists and by our researchers. The national-scale infrastructure investment will provide significant benefits for all Australians and drive the development of systems and tools for capturing new and emerging data. This funding will build on existing research infrastructure to enhance research in a broad range of fields and improve the capacity of researchers to access, preserve and disseminate quantitative and qualitative social science data sources. This investment is part of the 2020 national research investment plan, which provides almost $160 million for national research infrastructure projects. I know how important these infrastructure projects are to the university sector.

Furthermore, with regard to this bill, Professor Coaldrake recommended that standards for Australian universities should include a quality benchmark of world standard research. This is incredibly important going forward. I have to say I know the member for Curtin has some comments to make about research standards in her speech, but it's important that Australian researchers hold themselves up to the highest standards. I think there's a lot more work that needs to be done with regard to global standards and global rankings of universities. The government will also ensure that research of national standings in fields specific to Australia— (Time expired)

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