Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not sure there's a university at Danglemah, member for New England. There's one close by. But why wouldn't you want to go out and study and have all the wonderful benefits of regional living and have your degree still worth every bit as much as any degree you'll get from a sandstone university? I will always be an advocate for regional universities, as I know my Nationals and regional Liberal colleagues will be. We will always push the point that you're going to get every bit as good an education at a regional university with every bit of opportunity that comes with it.

CSU believes that changes to student services and amenities fees are not fit for regional universities and students. That's the submission that they put in. This bill requires 40 per cent of student services and amenities fees to be provided to student led organisations. Such organisations could be anything from sporting organisations to cultural or political clubs or other university organisations. Perhaps it's a good idea in theory, but regional students and students studying online must also pay these fees but may not be able to access the benefits of those fees. I know I've had a bit to say on this in the past, and certainly it's something that obviously CSU are passionate enough to put in their submission. We respect that. CSU's submission states:

Charles Sturt University cannot support the measures relating to the use of the Student Services and Amenities Fees … without significant amendments. The intent of the Schedule 2 of the bill seems to be to impose a single model for SSAF across all universities regardless of their differing characters and demographics.

Therein is the nub of the problem. Therein lies the heart of the problem, and that is that CSU, UNE, CQU and other regional universities often get compared to and are expected to do the same and have the same provisions as the sandstone universities, but the landscape is vastly different. The CSU submission went on to say:

The model may be well suited to universities with a single major campus and a large on-site daily student presence but may not be workable for regional and/or multi-campus institutions, or those with a high proportion of part-time or online students.

Geography and our student demographics make it difficult for Charles Sturt University to foster the kind of on-campus student life envisaged by the Government's goals for SSAF, however desirable it may be.

I just wonder—I do earnestly wonder—about the level of engagement that the government has had with universities and particularly with regional universities. I know they'll come into the chamber and spruik their stakeholder engagement. I appreciate that the minister, Minister Clare, told me that he'd had a discussion with Professor Leon just a couple of weeks ago, and that's to be admired and encouraged. That's basically what a minister should be doing, and that is negotiating and talking with universities, with his stakeholders—or her stakeholders, as the case may be. But CSU state in their submission:

Two-thirds of our 35,000 full-time equivalent students are online. More than half are part-time and therefore pay a proportionally smaller SSAF. Those studying on campus are spread across six main campuses in regional NSW, in numbers varying from less than 70 in Dubbo to more than 2,000 in Wagga Wagga. Two of our campuses, Albury and Port Macquarie, are almost 1,000 kilometres apart. The University's campuses are nonetheless host to around 60 sporting, cultural, recreational and discipline-focused clubs similar to those at other universities, though with much smaller memberships than is the case at metropolitan universities. The activities of these clubs are in part support by SSAF.

So that needs to be considered.

When we look at this bill and when we look at the provisions around this bill, we need to remember and always acknowledge how tough students are doing it because of the cost-of-living crisis and the sorts of things that have occurred in the past two years that have forced up the price of everything.

Accommodation is also something that is of great difficulty for our regional students. I know Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga has onsite accommodation and certainly helps students to gain accommodation. When I went around the country with Labor senator Deb O'Neill from New South Wales, looking into how universities were coping with everything going on post pandemic, focusing on international education, many of the universities told us that accommodation was at crisis point—and yet, again, our migration numbers are such that they are placing an impost on our universities and on society in general.

So I say this to the government in all frankness and in all honesty: try to do everything you can to bring down the costs for our students, particularly for our regional students, and please, please, please make sure that stakeholder engagement is front and centre with the likes of UNE, CSU, CQU and other regional universities because what you're doing is hurting them and hurting the students, who are indeed Australia's future.

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