Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise—quite enthusiastically, I might add—to speak in favour of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I speak to the bill, the interim report itself and some of the noteworthy aspects of academia the report touches on.

I feel it is worth mentioning one key statistic from the outset. This statistic is the reason behind my enthusiastic support for this bill and why we needed the measures that the Australian Universities Accord interim report recommends introducing to have been adopted yesterday. Within my electorate of Spence, which is located in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, according to recent census data the percentage of persons over the age of 15 years old with a bachelor's degree level education or higher is 9½ per cent of the population. This figure falls well behind the percentage of the South Australian population, which stands at 22.7 per cent, and is dwarfed by the Australian population with a bachelor's education, which is 26.3 per cent. There is frankly no amount of spin that can help those numbers look better by any kind of creative interpretation. A bachelor's degree is not a pathway that will suit everyone, or at least not necessarily straightaway after someone leaves high school.

But, as the years go on, we stumble upon another key figure—that being it has been estimated that, by the year 2050, 55 per cent of all jobs will require some form of higher education. This fits somewhat with another statistic I came across when researching background information prior to speaking on the Jobs and Skills Australia legislation in this place: nine out of 10 new jobs will require post-secondary school education, four out of those being VET qualifications. The picture is slightly less grave when you look at the number of people currently enrolled in some form of tertiary education, but the percentage of our population still falls in the realm of five per cent below the national and state figures. It is plainly obvious that something must be done to correct this and to alter the course.

The story told by both those sets of numbers is that, if this is left to continue as a trend, we are condemning future generations to be locked out for good on well-paying jobs in the future, robbing the future of Spence of economic security and gainful employment opportunities within the competitive employment market domestically as well as contributing to Australia's international competitiveness in the future. I cannot stand idly by and have economic disadvantage be entrenched for generations to come. This is why I was both eager and delighted to attend a briefing with the chair of the Australian Universities Accord Panel, Professor Mary O'Kane AC, to discuss the interim report and the next steps forward in that process. One of those steps is for the government to back in the main recommendations by the accord panel in the handed-down interim report. I can be assured that the Minister for Education is following this diligently to see this process to fruition, and the proof is in the pudding by introducing this bill.

On the interim report's recommendations: part of the next phase was seeking submissions commenting on the interim report. In its own way, it's something that I'm doing in the Chamber this very second. But in real terms I saw this as an opportunity to have a proper conversation within Spence about the need for a tertiary hub located within our borders. My eyes lit up when I saw within the interim report what was listed as priority action No. 1, which is to extend access and create further regional university centres, and, using the same model, adapting it to create suburban and metropolitan locations—teritary hubs in suburban Australia.

After leaving Canberra after the last sitting fortnight I went and visited Gawler and District College, where I met with some very bright year 12 students. The aim of this visit was not just to share my views on the Universities Accord interim report but to share my views on higher education and the need for a tertiary hub in Spence, and also to hear from them on their expectations for their future and what they would want a tertiary hub, if it were established, to provide. The 'what' and 'why' were extremely important components of this process. I am extremely grateful to have our local newspaper, the Bunyip, help us amplify the message throughout the local community so they can provide me with their feedback on something that I feel will be vitally important to those living in Spence over many decades to come. That message was received loud and clear, with scores of local residents alongside the year 12 students I met providing feedback to my office over just a couple of weeks.

We asked our community what the barriers were to entering and staying involved in higher education. Overwhelmingly, much attention was devoted to the long commute from the northern suburbs into the city, where the majority of bachelor level programs are offered,. Round trips, depending on the institution being travelled towards, can be upwards of three hours in our community. This provides to those in our patch, who only want to access higher education, a tiring and alienating expensive. This serves to greatly disenchant those wishing to explore what our great tertiary educators have to offer.

Those who provided feedback have echoed this point. Macey from Gawler East says that significant travel time takes valuable hours out of the day for students in our community. She also says it restricts hours of working in a part-time job alongside study commitments, further disincentivising tertiary study. Exacerbating this disadvantage for my constituents is the lack of existing facilities in Spence, which was also noted in the feedback given to my office. As Nikhil from Evanston South notes, the lack of university-centric centres and study areas in our community means that our students still in secondary education—our budding future—lack any means to continue study once school is finished for the day.

This also goes for those who work part-time or even full-time and those who care for their children or other dependents. We were told that the lack of facilities locally, which are needed once people with other commitments are ready to learn, means another large cohort of our community find themselves either traveling long distances, already exhausted or otherwise barred from obtaining tertiary qualifications. Again, to make this clear, these circumstances continue to entrench further alienation from tertiary study in our community, with even greater consequences on the horizon, given the economic transformation forecast in the interim report of the accord.

We were also told by our community that financial factors are producing a significant barrier for those in our community, which is already a known disadvantage for residents in Spence. The need to travel long distances just to study in turn racks up an excessive bill in public transport costs, in fuel and even in taxi and ride-sharing fares, should they be needed. It should not cost our students anything, let alone the hundreds of dollars per month required to travel from my electorate on a daily basis to merely access education that they are not only entitled to but are encouraged to receive. Many others who responded to our request for feedback echoed this sentiment in the response. The community made clear to me that the north, already faced with financial difficulty as it is, is made even more distant from university study because of the cost involved. This needs to change.

A huge leap towards that change can be made through the tertiary hub, as listed in priority 1 of these recommendations. Most importantly, my community has agreed that the establishment of a tertiary hub in Spence would be beneficial. According to the feedback my office received, over 80 per cent of respondents were in favour of the establishment of a tertiary hub. The majority of the other 20 per cent of respondents showed interest in the idea also, but emphasised that a hub needs to go beyond a regular study space.

This brings me to the final question asked of our community, which invited feedback on what a tertiary hub in Spence should look like and how it needs to assist our community. Respondents in my community have effectively called for, in the words of James from Munno Para, a 'bite sized version of what they have at the universities in Adelaide'. This included staff support, in both administrative and tutoring capacities. This could give students the ability to ask questions and seek assistance with their assignments in real time—a drastic improvement from waiting for emails or from spending an hour and a half on the train just to ask questions. Gordon from Craigmore suggested also that such a centre could feature subject-specific resources, like shared textbooks and facilities tailored to different areas of study. As my community noted, this would create an even greater gateway for our community into the tertiary space.

The response to our request for feedback was so good that I do not have time to go through all the suggestions listed, but I would like to thank each and every respondent for their valuable feedback, as I am determined to turn their hopes and needs into real change. Giving people in Spence—or anywhere across the country, for that matter—access to university education is its own benefit. Australia is a country that is home to some of the leading universities in the world, from educating the minds of both its domestic students and those who travel from abroad to undertake part of their journey in higher education within Australia, all the way to our universities' contribution to research and development in a number of fields—oftentimes collaborating with leading educational and research institutions from around the globe.

I know that my colleagues the members for Bean, Canberra and Fenner have very likely made a more knowledgeable contribution on the universities in the ACT as part of this debate. However, in my short time in Canberra, I have observed the intrinsic public good that universities, particularly the ANU, foster by their engagement with parliamentarians. I became very aware of this when I was asked to represent the Minister for Communications earlier this year at Tech Policy Futures, an event hosted by the Tech Policy Design Centre at the ANU. It saw parliamentarians of all stripes engaging with academia, leading industry figures, innovators and those who will be shaping how we navigate ethics and develop policy frameworks around emerging technologies into the future.

I'd also like to give a particular mention to the National Security College at the Australian National University. The National Security College has facilitated the NS23 program, which has provided first-term members of parliament—including me and several others from across every side of this House and the other place—with invaluable mentorship, training and briefings on a number of key and emerging matters relating to Australia's strategic and national security interests and the challenges we face on those fronts.

Though I have never attended university, it is easy to see the inherent benefits these institutions provide to Australian society long before a student sets foot on a campus. Despite the fact that, as I mentioned, higher education was not something that was really an option for me along my journey, I always feel that option should remain open if I want it. I share a similar sentiment about higher education for others. You might not start a bachelor's degree straight out of high school, or you may not even finish high school, but the pathway should be open to someone to upskill themselves if they decide to. It is up to us to get policy settings right to facilitate this and not make the decision to study at university one which feels like venturing into the breach. There are enough changes to one's circumstances that go along with taking up study, whether that be vocational education or higher education. The role of government, in this case, is to facilitate this occurring. This isn't so much about barriers of entry but, rather, barriers of access.

I'm extremely pleased that, through this bill, the accord process and a number of other means, the Albanese government is committed and is acting on ways to open the door of opportunity for more Australians to gain a university education. I've pointed out a number of statistics here today, particularly one stating that only 9.5 per cent of people living in Spence hold a bachelor's-degree-level education or higher. I'm supporting this bill to be part of the process that corrects this. On census night, there were over 50,000 people in Spence under the age of 20. That number balloons to nearly 93,000 for those under the age of 35, an age bracket that will see the truth in the prediction made concerning the sheer number of jobs requiring tertiary education qualifications. This interim report and its priorities move us one step towards ensuring that, by the time we look at the numbers, they have the best chance of being employed in secure, well-paying jobs because they will have been assisted by having greater access to an education that will enable them to unlock the best possible chance of a better tomorrow. That is something that I feel that, even in an abstract sense, we go into this place to do. But, with this legislation and the accord process moving forward, the abstract starts to become significantly more tangible. I look forward to engaging with this process as it continues along. In the meantime, I commend this bill to the House.

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