James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023 and very much commend the second reading amendment from the member for Barker, which lists some very pertinent points of consideration and concern regarding the bill that's being brought into the parliament right now. This, of course, includes reforms recommended in an interim report, where we have not seen the completion of a process which is looking at something pretty significant—the entire reform of the higher education system in continental Australia.

But, evidently, the reforms in this legislation are so urgent that the completion of the accord process cannot be waited upon and we cannot see the full body of work that that process will do that might justify the changes that are being suggested here. That can't wait; we have to make these changes now, apparently, which I've got a little bit of suspicion around. When it comes to higher education, you would think they would be applying some of the thorough, comprehensive principles of investigation—of testing their assumptions and, certainly, completing the body of work—before making any recommendations whatsoever.

Nonetheless, we've got a circumstance where the minister has said there's an interim, urgent set of changes that can't possibly wait for the whole process to be completed so that we as a parliament can reflect on the entirety of that body of work that the Universities Accord is undertaking and then consider recommendations, including the ones that are before us in this legislation, in their totality. There's some irony that, on the topic of tertiary education, we don't have that kind of robustness of process in place around the reform of it.

This is very much captured in this second reading amendment, but I also make the point that we in the coalition are very interested in reform to the sector that is driven by the interests and welfare of students, not necessarily the institutions or the people that work at them or derive their livelihood from them—they are incidental to the tertiary sector. The tertiary sector is there to educate our next generation and make sure that our economy has the talent and skill and that our society has the talent and skill that it needs for the future. So we certainly hold a concern that the approach towards reform is not as well informed as it could/should be for current and prospective students, who the tertiary system is actually there to serve.

I also raise a general concern about a suggestion that comes along at times in these debates, which I think is regrettable. All young people are given the message in our society that to be successful they have to aspire to go to university and that, apparently, that's the only pathway of success in your career. That's complete rubbish—absolute rubbish. Frankly, there are some economies that really demonstrate the value of the robust sector of vocational education and training, which can absolutely provide very fulfilling, worthwhile career paths for people that, I might also add, can be much better remunerated than traditional tertiary education. 'Go to university and get a degree because that's the only way to be successful': I think bringing that principle to the concept of tertiary education should be pushed back against. I certainly take the opportunity to say to young people that are thinking about their career path: by all means, university might be the pathway for you, but it just as soon might not be. Don't get bullied or pushed around by anyone into thinking that you have to go to university.

I don't think we should be designing systems in this country that try to force-feed students into the university sector at the end of secondary school, regardless of whether or not it's appropriate for them or whether they've got the capacity. There are two reforms that are being implemented, thanks to this interim urgent, desperate need to make change before we can see the conclusion of this body of work.

One is my concern that people are being pushed into university who might not necessarily be suited to it. This is the repeal of the issue around people who are failing subjects at university. What this does is say that the reforms we brought in in government, where, if people weren't passing at least 50 per cent—I was a little surprised that it was only at 50 per cent, to be honest—of their subjects in the first eight units, that the universities shouldn't be encouraged and supported, through government policy, to keep people in university who are probably looking like having a very difficult likelihood of completing those studies.

Not to be boastful or arrogant, but when I went to university I had no friends or fellow students who were failing 50 per cent of their subjects. Sometimes someone might not have put in the right amount of effort, and done the famous supplementary exam a few weeks after the finals. When I was there it was certainly not the culture of university that there were people with that kind of failure rate—which is not to suggest that they're a failure as a person; just that they are clearly struggling to a significant degree in the discipline they've chosen to pursue at university.

The real risk, as we point out in this amendment, is that when you fail a subject you still get charged for it. If you're consistently failing, you're probably heading down a path of being unlikely to complete your degree. If you do complete it, you've had to retake so many subjects that, if you continue at that rate, you're getting either a huge HECS debt with no qualification or a HECS debt twice the amount it's meant to be. This is because it's taken you so much longer, in the investment, in the cost of additional subjects, due to that failure rate.

Everyone can think of a particular example of someone who had a rough start at university but then came good and is now winning Nobel Peace Prizes or what have you. It's not unreasonable to suggest that the more common likelihood is that people who are struggling, to that extent, at the start of their university degree are more than likely to have those problems continue or even exacerbated.

We know the pressure and the challenges of student debt in this country. We know what's happened recently because of the dramatically high inflation rate and, therefore, the indexation of HECS debt. It's hard enough for those who have a standard HECS debt. But for those who have an even higher HECS debt because of the subjects that they haven't passed, that they've had to accumulate into their costs—particularly when they haven't ended up with any qualification at the end of that process but have a lot of student debt and a difficult low income earning capacity as well—it would be very daunting, quite cruel and unnecessary to have government policy that facilitates that, rather than the policy we introduced that puts a lot of pressure back on universities not to use people as an ATM. That's just a way of earning money through the Commonwealth subsidy when that person might not be appropriate for the university.

The second measure regards the expansion of the demand-driven program to all Indigenous applicants who meet the entry requirements in the system. This is something that's already in place, but with a geographic delineation. This removes that geographic delineation. I'm open-minded to the principle. I really find it interesting that we have people in this debate contributing about how helpful they think this will be in addressing challenges around Indigenous disadvantage. At the same time, when we sit through question time, we're told that unless we have a Voice to Parliament we can't possibly come up with solutions to any of the challenges that Indigenous people are facing. How in the world is it that we're in here doing something that we could not possibly know anything about because we don't yet have a Voice to Parliament telling us whether or not this is a good idea. Yet we're here making this change that speakers in favour of it from the government say is going to be transformative for Indigenous Australians. That is very confusing to me. Do they have their own Voice already? Apparently, the good decisions, good policy and good reform for Indigenous Australians could only possibly come from this Voice that may or may not be created through a vote within a month or two.

If the Voice is to be created, maybe we should be waiting before discussing this legislation any further to see what the Voice thinks of it. Surely, the Voice would have a view on this change regarding Indigenous Australians' access to Commonwealth support to study at university. I thought that would be very, very significant and relevant for a Voice to reflect on and give us some advice on. So here we are, as a parliament, being told that we should make a major change to the way in which we support Indigenous Australians without a Voice advising us. This might be a good and sensible reform to make and it might be a very good example of how we can in fact, as a parliament, do things for Indigenous Australians without necessarily having a constitutionally enshrined Voice to the parliament.

We are seeking support for the amendment to this second reading which importantly makes it clear that we think we need to look at this much more deeply through the Senate committee process. As I say, we've been given a piece of legislation that seeks to implement part of other reforms that may or may not emanate from this accord process which is not finished yet. The two things I have talked about are apparently so urgent that we can't wait until the end of the inquiry process. We can't see the body of work that is going to be produced by that process. We can't see all of the reforms in their entirety to understand and assess them all together. We can't see the parts the government might recommend, bring forward into the parliament or reject before being asked to consider this legislation.

I'm not necessarily convinced that anything about it is particularly urgent, unless this accord process is running much later than the government indicated. I thought it was around a 12-month process. They're obviously well and truly into it, given they've got interim, urgent recommendations in this bill that we have to immediately pass through the parliament. I'm not necessarily convinced it wouldn't be worthwhile for us to see this whole process in its entirety and consider everything that's being recommended together.

I urge the House to consider and support the amendment to the second reading that has been moved by the member for Barker. I'm sure this bill will pass through this chamber and go to the Senate. I hope the Senate have the opportunity to look more deeply into some of the issues that are being raised in this bill, because I really don't feel that we in this chamber have been given the opportunity to properly understand the urgency of this. I don't think the data has been presented to explain why it needs to happen. The data either doesn't exist or it does exist, and it's going to be in this report that we're not allowed to see yet because they haven't finished it. Those are all good reasons why I think a Senate committee process is very worthy of looking more deeply into the consequences of what's being asked for here.

We've indicated that, hopefully, with the successful amendment to the second reading in this chamber, we are comfortable with the bill progressing into the Senate. They can do what they do best, which is slowly but surely reflecting in great detail, through their committee processes, on some of those questions we are not in a position to get answers on in the debate here in the House of Representatives. With those comments, I commend the amendment from the member for Barker to the House.

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