Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to support this important but technical bill, the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021, that is dealing with three key things: tuition protection, higher education and permanent humanitarian visa holders. The member for Moreton's contribution just prior to me was such that I feel that I do need to respond to some of the important but perhaps erroneous points that he has made there.

One of the key things that the member for Moreton said was that, in our DNA, we are opposed to higher education. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. If we go back to the days of Sir Robert Menzies, who deserves to be known as the father of modern higher education, you can see that it has been our side of politics, rather than their side of politics, which has transformed the higher education landscape. It's worth just reflecting on the position of the Menzies government and what Menzies himself did to demonstrate that the DNA is not, indeed, what the member for Moreton suggested it is.

When Menzies first became Prime Minister in 1939, there were six universities in Australia and 14,236 higher education students out of a population of seven million. By the time he retired in 1966, there were 16 universities and 91,272 higher education students. In case people think this was just the baby boom, Menzies's achievements in higher education were direct and specific to expanding higher education opportunities more broadly, whether it was establishing the Mills committee in 1950; the establishment of Commonwealth scholarships, undergraduate in 1951 and post graduate in 1959; promoting the opportunity for higher education for non-school-leavers through mature-age scholarships for people aged over 25; taxation allowances for education expenses; or one of the Murray committee inquiries.

The Murray committee was headed by Sir Keith Murray, who was a vice-chancellor from the United Kingdom who had had broad experience in higher education policy throughout the Commonwealth at that time. It's establishment was to ensure that Australia's higher education system, as it developed, would serve Australia's best interests as we emerged from the post-war world and engaged in post-war building of the country to put ourselves in a position where Australia could continue to thrive and continue to ensure that the next generations of students would have the quality education they needed. In 1961, he commissioned Sir Leslie Martin to devise a future plan for tertiary education which resulted in the creation of the colleges of advanced education which existed in our higher education landscape until the Dawkins reforms of the early 1990s.

Menzies, towards the end of his long tenure, said:

My life has devoted itself for years to the development of education in this country. Nothing old-fashioned about it. It's mostly brand new.

He also said his government sparked the 'beginning of a revolution in the university world'. Quite simply, more than any other Australian, it was Sir Robert Menzies—not, as the mythology likes to pretend, Gough Whitlam—who laid the foundations for Australian higher education. Indeed, it is to be remembered that there were more people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who had the opportunity of a university education in the Menzies years than there were in the Whitlam years.

To suggest, as those opposite have done, that there's been a lack of support for universities is just not correct. Today's government, the Morrison government, is providing a record $20 billion investment in the higher education sector this year. Total funding is up more than 37 per cent since we came to government—$903.5 million over four years for more places and support for students.

One of the things that I think the Job-ready Graduates Package—which went through under Minister Tehan's watch—has done is focus students on those critical skills that we need, particularly agriculture and STEM degrees. The cost of an agriculture degree has come down by 59 per cent; the cost of a maths degree is down by 59 the per cent; the cost of nursing and teaching degrees are down by 42 per cent; and the cost of science, engineering and IT degrees have gone down by 18 per cent. I remember Minister Tudge, now the education minister, talking—in response to questions without notice in this place when we were last here—about the effect of those cost reductions in terms of enrolment increases.

As someone who represents a peri-urban area which has horticulture and some small agricultural production, I understand the importance of encouraging more Australians into agriculture as a career and encouraging more Australians into agtech. Agriculture is one of the things that we do so well in this country, yet so few people in recent years have been taking agriculture degrees. The changes that we made have put more funding into the sector and have focused people's opportunities on the things that Australia needs for its future.

I want to come to some of what the bill that is before the House is designed to do, having addressed some of the more broad points. People on permanent humanitarian visas have often faced extraordinary situations in their country of origin before coming to Australia. For many of them, educational opportunities were non-existent because of the nature of the country that they'd come from. Some of those countries have been in strife and war, and many of those people who are in the permanent humanitarian space have been persecuted because of immutable characteristics and so have not had access to education. For those people who have been granted permanent humanitarian visas, having access to the HELP, the Higher Education Loan Program, can be transformative for them. It gives them access to higher education opportunities that can change their life, ensuring that their experience in Australia is such that they can make a greater contribution to the economy, that they can get on with their lives and that they can have fulfilling lives. This is a really important measure for the way in which we settle permanent humanitarian visa holders, ensuring that they can contribute fully to Australia.

A quirk of the legislation that has operated and that this particular legislation seeks to address is that, for the first five years that someone is on a permanent humanitarian visa, they are able to leave the country but, after that time finishes, they have to apply for a different visa. Under that different visa, a resident return visa, they are no longer eligible to access the Higher Education Loan Program. This has a number of serious adverse consequences for the permanent humanitarian visa holder. You can imagine some of them. The first is that they may not complete the degree that they have been undertaking in the higher education space and, therefore, they might not be able to contribute to the country in the same way that they had been hoping to. They might not expand the opportunities that they were hoping to benefit from as a result of their degree. They might not be able to contribute to society, and they might not have the educational and work opportunities. Secondly, they might end up being laden with debt that they just cannot repay, because of their meagre circumstances, given the nature in which they came to Australia in the first place.

This legislation seeks to right the ship. It seeks to say that, if you are a permanent humanitarian visa holder and you've been here for more than five years and you leave the country and return, you can continue to access the Higher Education Loan Program. That is so important, particularly for those people who are midway through a program, but it is also important for people who may be commencing a program. This does not apply where somebody's visa has been cancelled, of course, but it does apply to many people. It is a good amendment; it's a good bill. It's a good technical measure which I think corrects an oversight that wasn't considered during the drafting of the citizenship and residency requirements for HELP. I want to commend Minister Tudge for addressing this and acknowledge the support of both sides of the House for the key provisions of this bill.

I think it's worthwhile noting how many people have taken up the HELP program and are permanent humanitarian visa holders. Four thousand, three hundred and forty-six permanent humanitarian visa holders accessed a HELP loan in 2019. That's not a huge cohort, but this measure ensures that those people can continue to be eligible, along with other Australian residents, to access the Higher Education Loan Program. One of the other technical amendments in the bill that I think is worthwhile drawing attention to is the technical correction to clarify that Indigenous languages are included in funding cluster 3 of HESA and are not foreign languages. This is very important, and I say this as the chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs. It's very important that we encourage more Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians to study Indigenous languages. It gives us a deeper appreciation of Indigenous culture and a deeper understanding of their history, but, also, language is very important for Indigenous people in terms of their connection to tradition, their connection to land, their connection to their history, and so on. The proper acknowledgement in this amendment bill of the status of Indigenous languages is absolutely vital.

The final elements to this bill that I will touch on are the measures in it that are designed to bolster the Tuition Protection Service. I've spoken in this House on previous occasions about the importance of the Tuition Protection Service and amendments that were made previously to the Tuition Protection Service that were suggested by the Broken Bay Institute. That is a higher education provider that operates in Pennant Hills, in my constituency. In fact, it's just across from my electorate office. The measures in this bill further bolster the Tuition Protection Service and remind us that it's a funder of last resort. They ensure providers who cease to be registered or go into liquidation continue to meet their obligations and ensure overseas students don't rely on refunds or placements from the Overseas Students Tuition Fund, administered by the TPS director. The TPS is a critical pillar of our international education legislative framework. These amendments bolster the sustainability of the Overseas Students Tuition Fund and reduce the likelihood of taxpayer funds being needed to replenish it in the future.

These are good measures. These are sensible measures. These are measures that support people who have come to Australia to take advantage of educational opportunities and, through quirks of their own travel and circumstances or quirks of issues that have befallen the higher education provider who is providing them with educational opportunities, it provides the necessary protections. I commend the bill to the House.

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