Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Today, I will focus mainly on two aspects of the Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024: the Albanese Labor government policy proposals for paid practical placement and for channelling more money into student unions.

Labor proposes paying students on practical placements in select industries just one-third of the minimum wage, an inadequate measure during this cost-of-living crisis that fails to address the real challenges faced by these students. Under Labor's plan, students undertaking practical placements in teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work will receive the equivalent of around $8.40 per hour, compared to the national minimum wage of $24.10 per hour—about one-third. And the money is not paid directly to the student; it's paid to the university. What could go wrong? $8.40 per hour is not a living wage; it is barely pocket money. Our settings for our future nurses, social workers, midwives and teachers have not shown how much we value them, and many of them literally hold our future in their hands. $8.40 an hour will not make a significant difference in their lives. It actually insults their efforts and sacrifices.

This proposal will not adequately support students juggling the demands of their studies, unpaid placements, family duties and paid employment, often at the expense of their health and wellbeing. Placement poverty is the elephant in the room for students in Australia. Students, particularly those studying in regional areas like my electorate of Mallee, face significant barriers when it comes to completing mandatory practical placements. In many cases, these placements are unpaid and can last for weeks or even months, forcing students to take time off from their paid jobs to fulfil their academic requirements.

In my electorate of Mallee, universities such as La Trobe University and Monash University play a critical role in providing higher education opportunities to students in regional areas. These institutions offer essential programs in fields such as education, nursing, midwifery and social work—professions that are vital to the wellbeing and development of our rural communities. For students who are parents or primary caregivers, this situation is even more dire. Labor's cost-of-living crisis has exacerbated this problem. The cost of housing; groceries; utilities; child care, if it's available; and transportation have skyrocketed under this government.

I remind the House that my electorate of Mallee not only is regional but has a larger lower-socioeconomic demographic. Many students, particularly those from low-income families or those supporting dependents, simply cannot afford to stop working and take on unpaid placements. Will $8.40 make a difference for them? Perhaps, perhaps not.

According to the 2022 Universities Australia student finances survey, around 58 per cent of full-time domestic undergraduate students were concerned about their finances, and over 15 per cent reported frequently going without food or other necessities because they could not afford them. With Labor's cost-of-living crisis making everyday life more expensive, how can we possibly expect students to continue their studies and fulfil their placement requirements without adequate financial support? This is not just about fairness; it's about ensuring we have a pipeline of skilled workers ready to meet the demands of our growing population.

While paid practical placements for students is a step in the right direction, we have questions about how this bill will be implemented. Will these payments be means tested? Will all students undertaking practical placements receive financial support, or will there be eligibility criteria that could potentially exclude those who still face significant financial hardship but fall just outside the defined thresholds? This is particularly important for students in regional areas like my electorate of Mallee who often face higher costs associated with travel, accommodation and other expenses during their placements.

More questions are raised when it comes to how the funding will be distributed and managed. If the funding for these paid placements is being allocated to universities, how will universities ensure that this funding is directly passed on to the students who need it most? We need clear guidelines and accountability mechanisms to guarantee that the intended financial support reaches the students rather than being absorbed into university administrative costs or somewhere else. Without a robust framework for distribution, there is also a risk that benefits of paid placements could be unevenly applied, creating disparities between institutions, students and, indeed, regions. Universities in major cities with better resources and funding management systems may be able to offer more substantial support compared to those in regional areas, further widening the gap between urban and rural. Most urban universities have accommodation onsite or within very close distance to their universities—that is absolutely not the case in regional areas, and that needs to be considered.

I'm also concerned that this bill mandates that at least 40 per cent of student services and amenities fee revenue be directed to student-led organisations—effectively, one can only read, student unions. Starting from 1 January 2025, this initiative appears to be a thinly veiled attempt by Labor to redirect funding towards student unions, a move that raises serious concerns given the history and nature of student unionism in this country. The Howard government abolished compulsory student union membership in 2006 and replaced it with voluntary student unionism, liberating students from being forced to pay for union memberships that they may not support or benefit from. We see, wherever they can, Labor trying to repay their union masters by channelling people into union membership, channelling public funds to unions, and handing sectors of the economy over to unions. When Labor introduced the student services and amenities fee in 2012, students paid fees directly to universities, which were given discretion over how to allocate these funds. This was a balanced approach that ensured funding could be used for a range of services such as mental health support, career development and child care, benefiting a broad spectrum of students, particularly in an era when many students studied remotely and accessed campus services less frequently.

Now, with this bill, Labor is attempting to reintroduce a form of compulsory funding for student unions under the guise of supporting student services. The mandated 40 per cent allocation of SSAF revenue to student-led organisations risks becoming a subsidy for hard-left activism. Considering that student unions tend to be dominated by Green-left ideologies rather than reflecting the diverse political views of the broader student body, it appears to be a payoff to a historical recruiting ground for Labor and the Greens. Can the minister guarantee that the 40 per cent SSAF won't go towards supporting protests against Israel? Protesting alongside supporters of terror is neither a student service nor an amenity. How much of the 40 per cent SSAF will be channelled into promoting identity politics and prioritising spending on a minority of students instead of welfare for all students? With the student unions in charge of 40 per cent of the funding, the hard-left agenda will get a funding boost from a majority of students that don't support it. Students should not be compelled to fund organisations they do not wish to support, especially when many of these funds could be better allocated to vital services that directly improve student wellbeing and academic success. In the current landscape, where remote learning is prevalent, mandating this allocation is akin to imposing a tax on students who may never access those particular services. The SSAF measure not only undermines the principle of voluntary association but also prioritises funding for partisan student activism over essential support services that benefit all students.

This bill is a missed opportunity to grow our regional health workforce. In communities like Mallee, GP waiting times are unacceptably long, and the lack of nurses and midwives only adds to the strain on our healthcare system. These sorters are exacerbated by the current distribution priority area classifications, which Labor undermined when they came to government. They now deprive the regions of GPs where they are needed most.

To address these workforce shortages, we must also focus on the practical training requirements that are essential for building a skilled healthcare workforce. Currently, nursing students in Australia are required to complete 800 hours of practical placements to gain their qualifications. However, some in the healthcare sector want to reduce those hours to 450, the level they have in the United Kingdom currently. Why sacrifice valuable hands-on experience that is crucial to preparing nurses to enter the workforce, particularly in high-need regional areas? We should be moving in the opposite direction, towards maintaining or even increasing the number of practical placement hours.

To support this, paid practical placements become essential. Providing adequate financial support would allow nursing and midwifery students to afford the hours required to develop the practical skills that are indispensable in healthcare settings. In short, aligning paid placements with regional workforce needs could be a game changer in addressing not only student financial hardship but also the chronic shortages of healthcare workers in regional Australia.

If we want to see real change we must rethink how we support and incentivise our future healthcare workforce from the very beginning of their training. The link between fair pay for placements and the solution to regional workforce shortages is clear, yet Labor has missed the mark. It is worth noting that paid placements are not a new concept. In fact, they were once a standard part of medical training in Australia. My own husband, who trained as a doctor about 46 years ago, was paid during his placements. Now, here we are decades later trying to reinstate something that was abandoned long ago. One must ask, what happened? Why have we gone backwards?

Labor's turn toward paid placements recognises the dire current shortages we are grappling with and highlights the need for continuous and targeted investment in our education and training systems to build a stronger, more resilient workforce for the future. Instead of addressing the root causes of these shortages, Labor is offering the bandaid solution in this bill that is too little too late for regional Australians.

We need real solutions. If we are serious about addressing workforce shortages in critical sectors we need to start by ensuring that students have access to adequate financial support during their studies. This means offering meaningful support for practical placements—support that reflects the value of the work being done, the impact on those undertaking them and on their families and the cost associated with completing these placements.

We must also rethink the way we structure education and training in fields like nursing, midwifery and social work. We need students to be learning on the job, gaining the skills and confidence they need to hit the ground running when they graduate—being job ready. And we need to ensure that they are not forced to choose between their education and their livelihoods. Labor's paid prac proposal is a step in the right direction but does not address how desperately students are struggling, especially in regional Australia.

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