Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise in support of the Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024, as brought to the House by the magnificent, masterful and always amusing Minister for Education. This bill provides substantial support for past, current and prospective students through a variety of forward-thinking and progressive reforms. The Universities Accord is an initiative of this Labor government. We recognise that, although we have a good education system, there are ways to make it better and ways to make it fairer. That's why Labor directed $2.7 million over two years from 2022-23 to conduct a 12-month review of the Australian higher education system. It was the first board review of higher education since 2008, when I made my first speech in this parliament, and it was conducted by an expert panel. The members of the panel, led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC, were thorough in their approach. Their review covered crucial pieces of the higher education picture, including student fees, teaching, international students and research. The panel considered more than 800 public submissions and held nearly 200 stakeholder consultations.

The aim of the review, as Professor O'Kane urged, was to be bold, to think big and to think beyond the immediate challenges. The panel was interested in positioning the higher education sector for long-term security through improvements to quality, accessibility, affordability and sustainability. The Australian Universities Accord:final reportquite a lengthy tome—was released in February this year and includes 47 recommendations. To quote from the summary report:

Its message is simple and direct: if Australia is to prosper in the years ahead, Australian participation, performance and investment in tertiary education needs to improve in order to generate the knowledge, skills and research our nation needs.

To achieve this, the accord recommends changes in these areas amongst others: participation; the relationship between vocational education and training and universities; and student contributions, repayments and support.

This bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and implements the first stage of the planned Universities Accord reforms. The headline reforms were part of the Labor budget in May. Labor is wiping $3 billion of student HELP debt. I'll say that again because those opposite don't seem to be telling their constituents about it: Labor is wiping $3 billion of student HELP debt. We're implementing a Commonwealth prac payment for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students. Teaching was my first career. My mum was a nurse. My next-door neighbour is a midwife. And my wife was a social worker for 25 years—before she saw the dark side and became a lawyer! We're also expanding the fee-free university-ready course program.

The decision to reform the indexation methodology for the Higher Education Loan Program reflects Labor's core value of fairness—a value that has been underpinning the Labor Party for 130-plus years. The changes will apply to HELP, which some people still know as HECS; VET student loans; Australian apprenticeship support loans; student startup loans; ABSTUDY student startup loans; and the Student Financial Supplement Scheme.

This bill changes the way the debt is indexed. It caps the indexation rate at the lower of either the consumer price index or the wage price index. This reform will be backdated to 1 June 2023, which means that three million Australians will have their debt cut. We're also fixing the impact of last year's CPI indexation rate of 7.1 per cent and replacing it with the wage price index's lower rate of 3.2 per cent, something quite significant when you consider the joys of compound interest when it comes to student debt. We will also wipe out the 4.7 per cent increase from this year and reduce it to four per cent.

These numbers speak for themselves. A person with an average HELP debt of $26,500 will have around $1,200 wiped from their debt. Someone with a debt of $45,000—not untoward for lawyers and doctors and the like—will have around $2,000 taken off their debt, and a worker with a debt of $60,000 will have their debt reduced by almost $2,700. Not surprisingly, the constituents who contacted my office after the announcement were very grateful. One constituent described their relief as 'incredibly welcome'. Another said:

This is going to make such a big impact in my life.

And a third student wrote:

Thanks for listening to uni students and alumni across the country! Changing the way student debt is calculated benefits all students for years to come.

As I said, more than three million Australians will benefit from wiping $3 billion of student debt. This is a direct cost-of-living relief for students, new graduates, workers, apprentices and trainees in every community across this nation. Not only does this reform provide substantial financial relief; it protects our student loan scheme, a system that is necessary to provide access to higher education.

The next measure that will substantially help students is the Commonwealth prac payment. It's something the education minister should be particularly proud of. Practical experience is a key element of degrees for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work. You need to go to the coalface and speak to those in your profession when it comes to teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work. I know the former teachers in the caucus, including the whip, understand the important role that a mentor/teacher provides, and I am sure that it's the same for nursing, midwifery and social work. I'm getting affirmation from Ged Kearney about the role of nursing and midwifery. They're important roles. For social work, there are so many different streams to go out and experience.

As I mentioned before, my wife was a frontline child protection worker. She was one of those people who knocked on doors in the middle of the night when everything had gone to hell in a handbasket for a family. It would be good for people to experience some of that mental work to understand what they're going into. We don't want people to complete a degree and then step into the workplace and say, 'This is not for me.' Practicums are a part of that, saying, 'This is a tough job.' We know that teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work are tough jobs. No-one turns up at an ED to say, 'Everything's good in my life.' Social work often involves people at a very bad time in their life. So, for many students, prac placements are the highlight of their studies. It's where they get to put the theory they've learned into practice and to experience firsthand how their chosen studies can positively impact people. All of those professions are caring professions.

For too long students in these fields have been left to work out how they can make their pracs happen while trying to minimise the detrimental impact on their lives. Many students have been negatively impacted by having to move away from home to complete their mandatory placements. This means paying out of pocket for transport to and from the prac location, paying for accommodation while there and often buying the required uniform for the prac. Remember, sometimes these students still have to pay their own rent for the place that they are holding for the university. Many students have to give up the part-time or casual jobs that help support them at home in order to meet the requirements of their degrees. For some, it is not a choice. They simply cannot afford to undertake the prac component of their degrees—the so-called 'placement poverty'. This can result in a delay in completing the degree or not finishing it at all.

A first-year nurse told me that she had the opportunity to do two rural and remote placements during her degree. This is a young woman I've known since she was a little girl and who's now at university. I have obviously been here a long time. These placements often inspire graduates to move to these areas, where they're always crying out for more staff. As we know, there are lots of bush hospitals calling out for staff. Whether for nurses, teachers or social workers, there's plenty of work in the bush at the moment. Due to the lack of any financial support to undertake a placement away from home, but with the desire to experience a Western Queensland setting, this nurse self-funded her four-week prac in Charleville. She said that a prac placement payment would have made a huge difference for her. She is optimistic that the new scheme will motivate and enable many more students to have the enriching training she received and go on to inspire them to move to the bush to work.

I'm sure the Nats will get behind this idea of sending people to the bush with a small payment. When you consider the number of weeks that students must do of unpaid mandatory placement, you can see how the costs add up. Student teachers must do 16 weeks of prac. Student nurses must do 20 weeks, and social work students must do 26 weeks. Australia cannot afford to let these students slip through the cracks. We desperately need teachers. We need nurses, we need midwives, and we need social workers. The new Commonwealth prac payment is designed to ease the financial pressures for eligible students to undertake pracs and support these students to finish their studies and their vital degrees. The payments will start in July next year and be benchmarked at the Austudy rate of $319 per week. It will be means-tested to ensure that those who need it most will have access. The new payment has been welcomed by higher education providers, and it will support more students to finish these degrees and move into these crucial fields of work.

The third part of this bill's reforms concerns assisting more Australians to get into university. The bill establishes a new Commonwealth grant scheme for fee-free university-ready courses. These courses have been described as a bridge between school and university to give the students the skills that they will need at university. The Albanese Labor government is investing $350 million over four years from 1 January next year to deliver this new scheme. This includes funding for additional student places. It is estimated that the number of students participating will increase by 40 per cent by 2030. This means that around 30,000 students will be studying in fee-free university ready courses annually by 2030. The scheme will be targeted at students from under-represented backgrounds.

All of these reforms contribute to Labor's broader goal of increasing the proportion of our workforce that has completed higher education. It speaks to Labor's commitment to education and the transformative opportunities it brings. Our target is to have 80 per cent of the workforce having completed university or TAFE studies by 2050. That's quite a goal. It's good for Australians. It will be good for our economy and productivity. It feeds into a Future Made in Australia with the skills, training and opportunities for all Australians.

As the minister indicated, we also need to remove the artificial barrier that exists between vocational education and higher education. It benefits students and the economy if we align these sectors. This means measures such as recognition of prior learning at TAFE being counted towards a degree at university. I know the minister at the table is very enthusiastic about these challenges and opportunities.

The May budget directed $27 million into developing a more aligned higher education sector, including recognition of prior learning and more efficient regulation for dual providers, and we're working with the states to develop up to 20 centres of excellence where students can work towards certificates, diplomas and degrees together. The accord recommended oversight of the alignment of the university and TAFE sectors with the establishment of an Australian tertiary education commission. We are consulting with the sector as to how this will look and how it will operate.

There's a lot of action taking place to set the Australian higher education system and the students of the future up for success. We're looking at a revised funding system that better meets the needs of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, enabling them to complete qualifications, and we're focusing on additional investment in public schools to ensure that more children finish high school.

Labor understands that the pathway to better educational outcomes doesn't start at TAFE or uni. It starts with the 1.8 million Australian children who are aged zero to five, those crucial years for brain, language and social development. These years are the building blocks for good health, good education and wellbeing later in life. Labor is supporting the educators who work with this age group with a richly deserved 15 per cent wage increase over the next two years, something that I know will transform so many lives. For the people who were full-time workers who had no chance of getting into the housing market, now we can at least set some on that pathway to being able to put a roof over their head.

The Albanese Labor government knows that making our education system better and fairer for all requires initiatives, funding and programs across all ages. I've always seen education as the great transformational policy in this multicultural, egalitarian society. It's about kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and tertiary education. It's about breaking down barriers to entry and removing blocks to completing qualifications. With this bill, we're tackling some of these barriers and creating more opportunities for young Australians and for all Australians in the cities, in the towns and in the bush. I commend the bill to the House.

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