Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all members for their contributions to this debate. As I said when I introduced this bill, we have a good education system in Australia, but the truth is it can be a lot better and a lot fairer. This bill is an important part of achieving that goal. In February I released the Universities Accord final report. It's a blueprint for reform of our higher education system for the next decade and beyond. And in May I announced the first stage of our response to the accord. That includes the implementation of 29 of the 47 recommendations of the Universities Accord in full or in part. This bill implements a number of these recommendations.

Firstly it will wipe out about $3 billion of student debt for more than three million Australians. It will ensure that growth due to indexation on student debt, including HELP and other student loans, does not outpace growth in wages by setting the indexation rate to the lower of the consumer price index and the wage price index. This change is backdated to 1 June 2023. That will provide significant relief for those with a student debt while continuing to protect the integrity and the value of HELP and other student loan systems, which have massively expanded tertiary access for more Australians.

The bill also establishes a new Commonwealth prac payment from 1 July next year. This is expected to support about 68,000 eligible teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students in higher education to complete the practical part of their degree each year. Practical training, or placements, is an important part of these qualifications that ensures graduates have the skills and the experience they need to enter the workforce. A lot of students have told me that, when they do the practical part of their degree, they've got to either give up their part-time job or move away from home. For a lot of people that can mean delaying finishing their degree or not finishing their degree at all.

We need more teachers, we need more nurses, we need more midwives and we need more social workers. So, in line with the University Accord's recommendations, we are starting with students who are studying teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work in particular as a priority, because of the significant workforce shortages that need to be addressed in those areas.

The bill also establishes a new Commonwealth Grants Scheme funding cluster for fee-free university ready courses from 1 January next year. These are free courses that are effectively a bridge between school and university. They give students who need them the foundational skills they need in order to start a university degree and to succeed when they get there. The former government attempted to dismantle these free courses on a number of occasions. They tried to charge Australians more than $3,000 to do one of these courses. Under the system that they put in place, in 2025 universities would receive around $13,000, on average, to deliver one of these places, but it could be as little as $1,286 per place, depending on the course of study.

This bill isn't a rebadging exercise, as wrongly claimed by the member for Bradfield. This is a massive expansion of these important, life-changing courses. We've committed an additional $350 million over four years to significantly expand these fee-free university ready courses. This is an ongoing funding commitment. Our changes ensure that universities will receive $18,278 per place next year, which will be tied to CPI increases each year. This provides funding certainty for universities. It deals with the disincentives baked into the current system. Most importantly, it ensures that these courses remain free for students. These changes will help more Australians to get a crack at university and succeed when they get there. The Department of Education estimates that this will increase the number of people doing these free courses by about 40 per cent by the end of this decade and double that number in the decade after that.

This bill also requires higher education providers that collect the student services and amenities fee, or SSAF, to allocate a minimum of 40 per cent of that revenue to student led organisations from 1 January next year, with the understanding that some higher education providers may require time to implement these new arrangements. The bill provides time to transition to these new arrangements—up to three years for universities and five years for others.

Last but not least, the bill also establishes the new Adelaide University. It facilitates the merger of the current University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia and supports their ambition and that of the South Australian government to become a global education and research powerhouse.

I want to thank the members for Kooyong, Goldstein, Curtin, North Sydney, Warringah and Wentworth, and others, for their support and their advocacy for reforms to HELP indexation. I also want to thank the member for Indi, who spoke passionately and inspiringly in this debate about the positive impact that Commonwealth prac payments will have for people in her electorate, especially for students and for women, who are more likely to be working in the teaching, early childhood education, nursing and social work professions.

I also want to thank government members, so many of whom have shared the influence that education had on their lives and the positive impacts that this bill will have on the lives of the constituents they are privileged to represent—in particular, the member for Newcastle, who spoke passionately of the benefits of fee-free university ready courses, or enabling programs, and the impact they have had in her electorate of Newcastle. I also want to thank her for her advocacy over the past 11 years and for her efforts to save these programs on three separate occasions. I also thank the member for Cooper, who has been a tireless advocate for those studying nursing and midwifery and for their inclusion under the new Commonwealth prac payment.

And I thank my friend the member for Reid, who shared some of the moving stories that she has heard from students about others who started alongside them but who simply couldn't finish their degrees, because they weren't able to support themselves while they were undertaking mandatory placements, and the difference these Commonwealth prac payments will make. I also want to thank the member for Gippsland for his support for the measures in this bill and for his longstanding commitment to helping young people right across Australia achieve their full potential, particularly in regional Australia.

The government will not be supporting the second reading amendments offered by the members for Bradfield, Brisbane and Goldstein. I acknowledge the strong advocacy from members to include other professions under the new Commonwealth Prac Payments. As I've said in this debate and in my remarks replying to this debate, this is the first time that the government has provided financial support for mandatory placements. We are starting with the courses that were recommended by the Universities Accord: teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work. The government will support the amendment moved by the member for Indi. This requires a review of the Commonwealth Prac Payment after three years of operation.

I want to close by thanking the Universities Accord panel, led by the extraordinary Professor Mary O'Kane. I want to thank Ben Rimmer, Deputy Secretary of Higher Education, Research and International Group in the Department of Education, and his entire team for their work in bringing this bill to the parliament and in developing the first stage of the response to the Universities Accord. I thank the many other stakeholders who have advocated for and welcomed measures in this bill. I'd also like to thank and acknowledge the work of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee for their inquiry into the bill and note their recommendation that the bill be passed.

This bill helps with the cost of degrees, it helps with the cost of living and, most importantly, it helps with the cost of so many young people missing out on the chance to go to university in the first place—in particular, young people from poor families, from our outer suburbs and from the regions and the bush. I commend the bill to the House.

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