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

I am happy to speak in favour of the bill put forward, the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. This bill makes a number of amendments to the Higher Education Support Act and the Education Services for Overseas Students Act, and while none of them are particularly large-scale changes, they will beneficially impact on a number of students and improve the efficient operation of the acts.

The first and most significant of the changes which I want to focus on addresses an oversight that was not considered during the drafting of the citizenship and residence requirements under the Higher Education Loan Program. Permanent humanitarian visa holders are eligible for a HELP loan under the HESA, the Higher Education Support Act, which assists this vulnerable cohort of students to participate in and contribute to the Australian economy. It helps them to integrate. It helps them to get skills to participate. The travel component of a permanent humanitarian visa ceases after a five-year period. If a permanent humanitarian visa holder travels outside of Australia after that time frame, in order to come back into Australia they must apply for a resident return visa to retain their permanent residency status. Under the current legislation, a former permanent humanitarian visa holder in this situation would lose their HELP eligibility.

It's this situation that's being addressed by the first amendment in this particular bill. It's based on the goal and the original intention that HELP eligibility requirements remain stable for students who have met the citizenship and residency requirements under the HESA and reside in Australia. This measure will allow former permanent humanitarian visa holders who transition to a different visa due to travelling outside of Australia—outside of the travel component of their visa—to retain their HELP eligibility. Correcting this oversight supports a positive outcome for both the student and the taxpayer, as it prevents a student from losing their HELP eligibility part way through their course. If a student loses their HELP eligibility, they might be unable to complete their qualification and work in their chosen field. Notwithstanding that, they would retain liability for their HELP debt, which would have already been incurred. Obviously, this is not a good outcome for the student or the taxpayer.

The minister for education will determine the applicable visa subclasses that retain HELP eligibility for former permanent humanitarian visa holders through a legislative instrument. This will ensure that these amendments remain flexible and responsive to any future changes to the Migration Act so that we don't have to coming back and make further changes to the HESA. In 2019, 4,300 permanent humanitarian visa holders accessed a HELP loan. This is not a large cohort, but it's a significant cohort. Every student is important. Every person is important. This measure will ensure that that cohort will not have to worry about their continued HELP eligibility, and that their continued HELP eligibility is aligned with all other Australian residents. It's also important to note that this measure does not extend HELP eligibility to permanent humanitarian visa holders whose visas have been cancelled. There are other measures in this bill which are more technical in nature but, as I said at the outset, they go to the efficient operating of the bill.

Just before I finish, I want to pick up on a number of comments about higher education in Australia, including the thought that this particular government doesn't support higher education in Australia. I note that a number of my predecessors have talked about the history of higher ed in legislation. I want to look at more recent times. In 20 years, the number of domestic students enrolled in higher ed in Australia has more than doubled. In 1988, there were 400,000 domestic students enrolled at universities across Australia. That is now more than one million domestic students at universities in Australia. Yes, the population in Australia has increased, but it hasn't increased by that number. We have seen a large-scale increase to the number of domestic students enrolling in higher education in Australia. In 2000, less than 16 per cent of Australians aged between 15 and 64 held a bachelor's degree qualification or higher. In 2018, that was 31 per cent. In the course of less than 20 years, the number of people holding bachelor's degrees or higher has almost doubled as well.

As somebody who previously spent quite a considerable amount of time in higher education, I think, obviously, that studying higher education is beneficial. It's optimum. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for people to develop their education, knowledge, skills and passions and to find a profession—all of those things. But I also think that we're at a critical time in our country, where we're facing a period of transition when it comes to further education post schooling.

All universities are looking at different models and different ways of offering qualifications, and that is what this government is supporting—different ways of achieving qualifications, such as short courses, add-on diploma courses to undergraduate degrees and allowing people to undertake lifelong learning so they can upskill and change professions. Gone are the days where somebody goes into the same profession, or even the same job, and stays there for life. I'm not talking about the gig economy here; I'm talking about the real—and the data, which shows that people follow different career paths and make changes. I have come across many of them in my own involvement with universities, with people going back and following a completely different career course after doing something for 10 or 20 years. That is to be welcomed and to be encouraged. But, in so doing, we have to keep reshaping how we offer higher education in this country. This government is seeking to allow universities that freedom to change and explore different models—different models of teaching, different models of delivering and different types of qualifications.

I have just one word of caution on this, before I finish. At the end of last year a number of people in my electorate, knowing my background in universities, contacted me to talk about their children who had been studying last year throughout COVID. As we know, at many universities they had to move a lot of things online in the time of COVID. Online learning is great. Online learning brings education to a whole lot of people who otherwise wouldn't access it. But there are limits to online learning, and not everybody benefits from online learning. There are lots of people who have different ways of learning, and we've got to make sure we engage all of them in the learning process.

The constituents who got in touch with me were very concerned. While they understood that online learning was a necessity for their first-year undergraduate children who had started university last year, they were concerned this was going to continue, because, in their mind, their children had not had the benefit of face-to-face instruction and hadn't had the benefit of everything else that goes with university undergraduate life, which is where you're supposed to learn about life a little bit more—and often it is outside the classroom where most of that learning happens. They were also concerned that their children had not been able to entirely embrace the whole learning experience because of the fragmented nature of and the distance in online learning. Parents raised with me their concern that the universities would continue to implement a fully-online approach for everything across the board.

In response to these constituents contacting me, I contacted all five universities in Western Australia to outline these concerns and to ask for their feedback and their responses. They all responded, and they all re-emphasised to me that their prime goal is to make sure that their students get an excellent education. Yes, they noted that they were going to continue some online education, but they were also mindful of the fact that many students don't benefit from online education and that there has to be more face to face. I was really pleased with the five universities in Western Australia for acknowledging and taking the time to respond to that query about how they were continuing to look after their students, particularly those at undergraduate level. As I said, we're educating a lot of people at the moment and not all of them come as prepared as each other for university study. That step up from school, from year 12, into higher education can be a vast jump, and when you're not doing it face to face, when you're not meeting people around you, that can be a really big hurdle.

I want to commend the five WA universities for their commitment to students and for their commitment to ensuring that the students that enrol with them are getting a high-class education. They are concerned about what is being delivered to their students and that their students get the best outcome.

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