Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024, implements the first stage of the Australian Universities Accord, focusing on measures which will have an immediate impact on students in higher education, including: changes to HECS indexation, the introduction of the Commonwealth prac payment, the introduction of fee-free uni-ready courses, and changes to student services and amenities fees.

Since I was elected in 2019, I have engaged thoroughly with our university sector here in Canberra. My electorate is home to the most universities of any electorate in the country. The Australian National University, the University of Canberra, the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, the Australian Catholic University and Charles Sturt University all have campuses here in the Canberra electorate. We're also looking forward to UNSW opening their Reid campus in the next few years. What they're planning looks amazing, and there are already a lot of great things happening there. It is safe to say that Canberra is a university town.

Almost 53 per cent of Canberrans in my electorate hold a university degree, which is around double the national average, and 43 per cent of Canberrans are currently either studying at a university or in vocational education. Higher education is the third biggest employer in the electorate, following the government sector and defence. It's clear that reform to the sector is important for my constituents, and I'm very proud to be part of a government that's committed to making our universities stronger for their students, for their staff and for the research they produce, which makes our nation and world stronger.

Today, with this bill, we progress some of those core reforms recommended in the Universities Accord. The Universities Accord provided us with a blueprint to reform higher education over the next several decades. It's a long-term plan to make the sector even stronger. Funding and implementing it will take more than one single budget cycle. This bill is the first phase of the implementation of the recommendations. A key part of this is reforming the Higher Education Loan Program, which used to be known as HECS—and I note that, although much better, the acronym 'HELP' has never seemed to have caught on so much as 'HECS'. The changes mean that the indexation of HELP debts will be based on either the consumer price index or the wage price index, whichever is lower. This change applies to HELP loans, VET loans, Australian apprenticeship support loans and other student support loans. We've listened to people who are paying off their student loans, and we've acted.

Last year, with CPI as high as it was, millions of Australians saw a significant increase in their student debts at tax time. For many, the indexation essentially added back onto their debts the payments that they had made on every payday over the year. Some saw indexation push their debts even higher than that, and many wondered if they would ever be able to pay off these debts. The changes to indexation will be backdated to loans that existed on 1 June last year. In essence, what that means is that the indexation that occurred based on the CPI rate of 7.1 per cent will be replaced with the lower wage price index of 3.2 per cent. For this year's indexation, instead of the 4.7 per cent it would have been, it will now be four per cent. This will wipe about $3 billion worth of student debt for three million Australians across the country. For someone with an average debt of $26,500, they will see around $1,200 taken off. For someone with a debt of $45,000, their debt will be lowered by $2,000, and, for someone owing $60,000, their debt will be reduced by $2,700. This is what happens when you have a government that listens and better decisions are made. We've taken this action to support students and people with student debts because it is undoubtedly the right thing to do.

This bill also establishes the Commonwealth prac payment. It was wonderful to join the Minister for Education at the University of Canberra Hospital recently to talk to nursing students about the huge difference it will make to them. For students studying nursing, midwifery, teaching or social work, the Commonwealth will support them as they undertake their previously unpaid prac placements. The accord recommended that these are the courses we focus on first, and that's what we're doing. I know I've heard from others in my community wishing to include other courses, and this is a starting point for this scheme.

We know that a huge barrier in accessing higher education for many is the costs, and, for particular courses, hard decisions need to be made. When students are undertaking prac placements, they're essentially undertaking full-time work, and many will need to move away from home to undertake the prac in a different location. They need to decide whether to give up their part-time jobs. They may even need to rent in two places at once. For too many students, these decisions will mean either they have to delay their degrees or they don't finish them at all—or they don't start them at all. This payment will support them through their degrees so that our future nurses, teachers, social workers and midwives are able to graduate and enter the workforce, filling those critical skills shortages in some of the most important professions.

This will be practical support while people are doing their practical training. As we heard from the students at the University of Canberra Hospital, this will mean a lot to them and will make it much easier for them to be able to undertake these practical placements, particularly when they are unable to do any paid work while they are doing them. We also heard about people who had not been able to enrol in those courses at all because of the inability to cover those times without an income and that this will make a big difference to those people.

To give an example of what this will mean, a mature-age midwifery student from the University of Technology Sydney, who is a mother of two small children, told the Minister for Education that this reform will be life-changing for her and that it will help her better balance her studies, her practical work placement and looking after her children. She said that it will also benefit future mature age students who might want to enrol in courses but who previously couldn't afford to. That's what this reform is all about.

The Albanese government is also uncapping fee-free uni-ready courses right across the country so that more Australians can get the skills they need to start their degrees. These courses, often known as bridging courses, help people to succeed when they finally start their tertiary studies. The changes we're making to these courses are expected to increase the number of people completing these free bridging courses by about 40 per cent by the end of the decade and double that number in the decade following that.

Jennifer Barker from Newcastle is a prime example of how these courses can change lives. As a young mum at 19, Jennifer had worked long term in hospitality and didn't have the opportunity to undertake university study. She saw an ad in her local paper for one of these fee-free courses. She went and enrolled and she now has a science degree, an honours degree, a PhD and was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship. Today she works as a computational medicinal chemist.

This government wants to ensure that higher education is available to everyone who wants it and that every person in Australia is able to pursue those dreams and is not held back by the relatively minimal costs which can be such a barrier to people undertaking a bridging course or something like that. We don't want people's chances in life to be decided by their bank account or their parents' bank account or their postcode.

This bill also mandates that higher education providers allocate at least 40 per cent of the student services and amenities fees to student led organisations. This will strengthen student led organisations in their ability to act in the best interests of students.

Universities are a major part of our economy. They educate our citizens, conduct groundbreaking research, drive innovation and employ many thousands of workers. Unfortunately, however, our university sector is not currently fit for purpose and requires serious reform. Fortunately, we've got a government and a minister that are up to the task.

How refreshing it is to be standing here talking about reforms we wish to make to the university sector, rather than having to defend the sector from attacks from those opposite. For a decade we saw ideologically motivated attack after attack on our universities, often because they told the government inconvenient truths. We saw the previous occupiers of the education minister's office wage war on the humanities. They picked and chose the disciplines that would be so lucky—not to receive extra funding but to not have their funding levels cut. We do things differently on this side of the House, and this bill is one example of that.

Australia's education system is already world-class, but it could do a lot better and it could be a lot fairer. The reforms in this bill are just the beginning. We've got an ambitious agenda for higher education, and work is already underway. Some of the big recommendations we're implementing include removing the 50 per cent pass rule that was part of the Morrison government's Job-ready Graduates Package, expanding demand-driven funding to all First Nations students who are eligible for the course they apply for, expanding the number of regional university study hubs across the country and setting them up in the outer suburbs, extending the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee for a further two years to provide funding certainty to universities as the accord process rolls out, and working with state and territory governments to improve university governance.

Two years ago we announced a review of the Australian Research Council, the first in more than 20 years. We're implementing all of the recommendations of that review, including the most important one: the establishment of an independent ARC board responsible for the approval of grants instead of the minister. This is getting the politics out of ARC grant funding, where it shouldn't play any role. Since then, both of those reports have been turned into legislation, have been passed by the parliament and are now law.

Our government is also acting on the appalling rates of sexual violence on campuses around the nation. Shockingly, one in 20 students have been sexually assaulted since they started their university studies, one in six have been sexually harassed, and 50 per cent of those feel their voices are not listened to. We've agreed with the states and territories to establish a National Student Ombudsman. The ombudsman would be an independent body to investigate and resolve disputes, giving students a stronger voice. I acknowledge the really important and groundbreaking work of some students right here in Canberra at organisations such as End Rape on Campus and the STOP Campaign, who put in incredible work to protect students from sexual violence. You spoke up when your institutions failed you, and the government has listened.

Labor has always been the party of education and higher education. When Bob Hawke came to government the number of Australians finishing school stood at 40 per cent. At the end of the Keating government, that number had increased to 80 per cent. The Universities Accord has set us a target that by 2050, 80 per cent of our workforce should be not just finishing school but also going on to study at TAFE or university. It's an ambitious goal, but it's one that we are fully committed to.

I acknowledge the work of the Minister for Education, Jason Clare, his staff and the hardworking public servants at the Department of Education for their work putting this bill together and for the broader reforms already enacted and yet to come. Education is so critically important to the health of our nation, and that's why this bill is so important.

See this speech in context