Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first thing in speaking to the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009 is to reflect that the VET sector is quite different from the higher education sector. The VET sector is made up of a national network of 4,000 public and private providers. There are 1.67 million students in 2008-09 financial year studying in the VET sector. These include, for example, 429,000 Australian apprentices in training—apprentice hairdressers, mechanics, plumbers, chefs and electricians and trainees in building and horticulture.

In the 2007 budget the former Howard government announced that it would extend FEE-HELP to the VET sector. Recognising how different this sector is from higher education, where we have a limited number of universities, it was constrained to a special category of providers. Until the introduction of the 2007 legislation, the VET sector was the only sector offering post-secondary qualifications without an income-contingent loans scheme. The previous government recognised that students seeking an education in the VET sector did not receive the same level of financial support as those seeking an education at university. We believe that students wishing to undertake a VET course should not be deterred from doing so because of the financial pressures associated with upfront fees. Our view was that pursuing a VET qualification was just as important as pursuing a university qualification.

Under the bill we introduced, FEE-HELP was available to those undertaking a TAFE diploma, associate diploma, graduate certificate and graduate diploma where full fees were charged, where arrangements were made for credit transfer to a higher education award and to VET providers that were corporate bodies only. As I said, this was the first introduction of a student loan scheme in the VET sector at the national level.

The former minister for vocational education, the member for Goldstein, said when he introduced that bill that the operation of the scheme would be monitored carefully and that he was of the general view that if this introduction were successful VET FEE-HELP could be extended further in the future. We would like to see VET FEE-HELP more widely available in the future. For that reason we supported the federal government’s decision last year to extend income-contingent loans specifically in the context of the Victorian state government’s reforms of vocational education and training. In August 2008, as part of the Victorian state government’s move to a demand-driven system, the federal government announced the extension of income-contingent loans to the Victorian VET sector. The opposition at that time indicated our support for that extension.

Unfortunately, that legislation to extend income-contingent loans to Victoria was linked with the bill which allows universities to levy all university students with a $250 fee, which the opposition cannot support. That second piece of legislation, by way of guidelines, eases the conditions for providers to be eligible for VET FEE-HELP. As of 20 March 2009 there were 12 approved VET providers and 15 others awaiting the parliamentary disallowance period.

The bill we are considering today is really consequential from those two earlier ones: the original extension of FEE-HELP to the VET sector and then the subsequent legislation which is still being considered in the other place, which did allow the extension of income-contingent loans and did it by way of guidelines which will ease the conditions on providers. It has been explained that this will be done to support the Victorian state government’s move to a demand-driven system and would be available for any other state or territory government that chose to move in that direction. This legislation is a consequence of the easing in an early bill and it provides discretion to the minister to revoke the approval of a provider and allows the registration of a provider to be rescinded if they no longer operate in Australia. As a consequence, this is a simple machinery bill, a result of some earlier pieces of legislation. It will help ensure additional regulation of providers, who will have access to VET FEE-HELP. The opposition will be supporting the bill.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009. This bill makes some minor changes to the operation of the FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP schemes. The changes are a continuation of the government’s refining of these schemes and will ensure that government assistance to students is better targeted by ensuring that assistance under VET FEE-HELP is limited to units which are essential to a student’s course of study. Under current arrangements, it is possible that a student may receive VET FEE-HELP assistance for a unit of study even where that unit of study was additional to and not directly required for the completion of that course. The amendments in this bill ensure that assistance under the scheme is available only for VET units of study which are essential for the student to receive their diploma, advanced diploma, graduate certificate or graduate diploma.

Due to skills reform being undertaken in Victoria, a greater number of VET providers will soon be offering access to VET FEE-HELP assistance to their students. It is therefore important that such assistance is targeted so that it can reach those who need it the most. This is a common-sense amendment to the Higher Education Support Act 2003 that does not stop students from accessing assistance or increase their contributions to their education. It simply ensures that VET FEE-HELP does what it was designed to do, which is to provide loans to students to help pay for all or part of their tuition fees.

The VET-FEE HELP scheme was introduced by the Howard government in 2007; however, the original legislation had a number of shortcomings that have since had to be corrected by the Rudd Labor government. Without these changes, the scheme could potentially have gone far beyond what it was originally designed to do. Those opposite do like to parade around claiming that they are always required to fix up mistakes that they inherit in government. It is a story we hear time after time from them but which is always shown to be not so.

But, whilst we are on the subject of education and skills, we should examine the record of the previous government in this area. Even a cursory glance will show the mess that was left behind by the last two ministers for education in the Howard government: both the member for Curtin, who is now the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and the member for Bradfield, who of course went on to become a short-lived opposition leader. Under the direction of these two former ministers, the previous government allowed Australia’s skill base to run down and, when introducing the VET FEE-HELP scheme, as I have said, lazy drafting on their behalf has since required a number of amendments to fix their mistakes.

By contrast, the Rudd Labor government has since introduced trade training centres to develop vital skills and talents, strengthened the role of the industry skills councils and established the statutory body Skills Australia to provide advice to the government in this important area. We are committed to improving Australia’s skill levels, and an increase in the number of completions at diploma and advanced diploma levels is a key part of this commitment. The Council of Australian Governments has committed to doubling the number of such completions by 2020. The student services bill that was introduced into the House earlier this year included amendments to allow for future expansion of the VET FEE-HELP scheme. That bill also corrected another significant wrong of the Howard government, a legacy of the member for Bradfield—that is, the stripping of a funding stream worth around $170 million from Australia’s universities, under the guise of offering students greater choice.

But I dwell on that a little bit too long, I suppose. The bill before the House also improves the protections that are in place for students and the government by ensuring that, if a VET provider does not meet certain standards, they can be required to cease operating as a VET provider. This is a simple safety precaution that is in line with the objectives of the bill to properly target assistance under the scheme.

Amendments in the bill also remove some of the delays in the higher education and VET provider approval process. These changes will allow higher education and VET providers to operate sooner, which will in turn give eligible students faster access to FEE-HELP or VET FEE-HELP assistance under these providers. Under current arrangements, notices of approval to operate as a provider do not take effect until the parliamentary disallowance period of fifteen joint sitting days has elapsed. This can sometimes take up to two sitting periods and, looking at today’s list, it stretches right back to February this year, thus creating long delays and leaving students without access to assistance during this period.

The amendments will allow providers to operate on the day immediately after the notice of approval is registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments. This will not result in a reduction in accountability, as a notice of approval must still be tabled in both houses of parliament and the usual disallowance period will still apply. No student can be disadvantaged by the amendments to the approval process. In the event that a notice of approval is disallowed and the provider in question has already allowed students to access assistance, those students will be able to access whatever rights had accrued under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 prior to the disallowance.

Whilst the changes made in this bill are relatively minor, they are part of a broader range of measures that consolidate the Rudd government’s commitment to higher education and skills. They make changes that improve the system for students, providers and the government. I commend this bill to the House.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to have an opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009. The importance of vocational education and training on an individual and national level cannot be overstated. I would like to pay tribute to the work of the ministers for education under the Howard government, the successive ministers who placed such a strong emphasis on ensuring that young people in Australia had an opportunity to enter into higher education rather than just fall off the edge, because I think the previous administration had put a lot of emphasis on university level study. While that is important, it is not for every young person. What our ministers did was to try to make sure that young people had a variety of opportunities to further their education, particularly in the vocational education and training system.

Clearly, with the growing demand in the Australian economy, more than ever before we need skilled workers who have furthered their education at either a university or a vocational education and training institution. There is an ongoing requirement that the government contribute towards ensuring that the needs of a skilled workforce can be met. A major part of this process is about ensuring that students are encouraged to attend a wide range of further education options. This process is ongoing and requires the constant diligence of government.

Things have changed quite a bit in terms of the skilling of our workforce. At one stage, government industries made up a substantial part of the training system that trained young people in apprenticeships and vocational education and training. That changed dramatically when a different tack was taken and many government industries were privatised or corporatised. It was then left to the private sector. It became clear to me when I came into the parliament in 1993 that there was an ever-increasing gap in the capacity of this country to find skilled workers to fill the many vacancies that opened up. Because we did not have a large number of people training through the apprenticeships and training systems that were offered by either the Public Service or government industries such as the railways, buses and airlines, nobody seemed to want to foot the bill for the training of young people. I think it is fair to say that there was a hiatus which, down the track, caused us considerable problems with workforce requirements. But I applaud the work that was done by the successive ministers for education—if memory serves me correctly, Minister Kemp, Minister Nelson and Minister Bishop—under the Howard government.

In 2007 the Howard government expanded the operation of FEE-HELP to extend the concessional loans to cover vocational education and training courses. Again, this is an indication of just how serious we were when we were in government to ensure that all young people had opportunities to further their education and training. The worthy object of this policy was to encourage greater participation in vocational education and training courses where the lack of FEE-HELP served as a deterrent to students. In the past, these might have been young people who went into apprenticeships or vocational training in government-owned enterprises.

The bill currently before us will refine this policy. VET FEE-HELP will allow full fee paying students who are enrolled in diploma, advanced diploma, graduate certificate or graduate diploma course access to FEE-HELP loans to cover the cost of their course fees. Where the student is undertaking a diploma or advanced diploma, their VET provider must have a credit transfer arrangement in place with a higher education provider. As with FEE-HELP for university students, the $80,000 maximum loan is repaid once the student reaches the income threshold. Students do not have to pay for the VET courses upfront. They are able to pursue their vitally important education and they only have to pay for it once they have entered into the workforce.

Clearly, when the Howard government embarked on the mission to make VET courses more accessible, it was recognised that there would be administrative kinks that would need to be ironed out. As the VET sector provides units, modules and courses far wider in scope than those offered by tertiary institutions, the first challenge is to determine which of those units FEE-HELP should cover. As a consequence of this bill, only those units that are essential to the course being undertaken will be covered by a loan arrangement. Any units taken in excess of the requirements of the course will not be covered. VET providers will be able to offer loans immediately after their notice of approval has been registered rather than having to wait, as they currently do, for the disallowance period to cease. This will streamline the processing of applications from VET providers to offer FEE-HELP and will thus enable students to have earlier access to financial assistance for their higher-level VET courses. The minister’s discretion to revoke approval of a VET provider is also confirmed.

This is a positive continuation of a policy designed to encourage higher level learning with vocational education and training providers. But, as I have noted, there needs to be continual work done to ensure that opportunities are available for all Australians to pursue their education at tertiary institutions or VET institutions. Despite all the talk about the education revolution, what we continue to see is that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are prevalent in VET and tend to seek low-level qualifications. This means that the measures being discussed today will have very little effect on the students who need the assistance most. Much more needs to be done to create better pathways to encourage students to continue their education in higher-level diploma and advanced diploma courses and, in some cases, at university.

Leesa Wheelaham, a senior lecturer in adult and vocational education from Griffith University has noted that ‘VET needs to provide a climbing framework to higher qualifications, particularly in higher education’. Ms Wheelaham goes on to note that the ‘Labor policy emphasises the need to equip the Australian people to engage in lifelong learning, but it does not yet have the lifelong learning policy to support this’ ambition. I have added the word ‘ambition’.

It would seem that, if the so-called education revolution is to ever get off the ground, establishing a climbing framework for higher education is essential. Replicating TAFE by installing trades training centres in senior schools across Australia seems to be a hopelessly misguided policy when this money could be better utilised to encourage continual engagement in education across the Australian workforce. If the youth of Australia are to see any benefit to their education system, it will be that the accessibility of VET courses continues to be expanded before them and that the policy disincentives to advance their education are promptly removed.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to be able to speak today in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009, which is part of a large range of measures this government is taking in every sector of the education system. I was sorry to hear the previous speaker refer to the ‘so-called’ education revolution, because in truth there is an education revolution led by the Rudd Labor government which is being felt in every sector of the education system throughout Australia. We have reforms taking place in early childhood, in the primary and secondary systems and in the higher education system. What we see in this bill is assistance directed at the VET system to provide fee help. Of course, VET FEE-HELP at present assists students who are studying diploma, advanced diploma, graduate certificate or graduate diploma courses by providing a loan for all or part of the tuition costs.

The bill is targeted at certain higher level skills and, as such, it is limited to these advanced diplomas. Under current arrangements, there are no provisions that expressly limit a student’s access to assistance under the scheme to those VET units of study which are essential and directly relevant to the completion of the student’s VET course of study. As such, it is possible that a student may be entitled to VET FEE-HELP assistance for a unit of study even where that unit of study is additional to, and not directly required for, the completion of the course. What these amendments do, and it needs to be recognised that they will be particularly useful, is ensure that access to VET FEE-HELP assistance is appropriately targeted to those VET units of study which are essential in that they are required to be undertaken by the student in order for the student to receive the relevant award for that VET course of study.

This amendment has particular relevance for my home state of Victoria because it relates to the Australian government decision to support the Victorian government’s VET reform agenda by allowing for the extension of the VET FEE-HELP assistance scheme to subsidise diploma and advanced diploma students in Victoria. As of 1 July this year, a greater number of VET providers will be offering access to VET FEE-HELP to their students, increasing the risk that funding may inappropriately support students undertaking non-essential VET units of study. So what we have with these legislative amendments is a targeted provision which will ensure that the support for fees is directly targeted to the purpose for which that assistance is created.

The bill also makes some minor technical amendments to provide for appropriate protections for the minister and the Commonwealth in the event that a VET provider no longer offers any eligible VET courses, is no longer appropriately established under a law of the Commonwealth or a state or territory, or no longer carries on business or has its central management and control in Australia. These amendments mirror those made to HESA in 2007 in relation to higher education providers and, therefore, ensure consistency between the FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP assistance schemes.

These reforms to an important part of the education structures of our country are consistent with the reform agenda of the Rudd Labor government, which is to look at every single part of the education system in this country. The fact that we are focusing here on vocational education and training for the future is consistent with the understanding that we have that people find different pathways to their educational ends. We are ensuring that all pathways will be supported. I commend the bill to the House.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to pick up on that last point about the various educational pathways to be achieved by, hopefully, many young people and students in Australia. I have just come from a meeting with two 18-year-olds, Heidi Pett and Jess O’Callaghan, from Port Macquarie, both of whom have taken time away from three part-time jobs to come to Canberra to express their concern about some of the changes contained in the budget, post-Bradley, with regard to, in particular, the independence test in the Youth Allowance.

Picking up on the point of the previous speaker, many people choose many different pathways to tertiary education and to qualifications generally. But I sincerely hope the language from the government of the last 12 months in regard to an education revolution includes very much the concept, the belief and the practice of keeping as many pathways as possible open, including those for students who have the impediment of geography by being based in regional and rural Australia. I do not make that point lightly. The comparative statistics in regard to people who access tertiary education for the mid-North Coast New South Wales, my electorate, are not good. The statistics roughly equate to one in six people on the mid-North Coast having tertiary qualifications compared to the state average in New South Wales of one in three.

We have a fundamental issue of disadvantage that I hope the government, in its language over the last 12 months under the broad banner of an education revolution, is aware of and wanting to address. I certainly hope that we work through the broad changes post the Bradley review and post the budget response from government. We are now dealing with a range of students and potential students who are raising concerns on a number of issues. I hope the government communicates actively with them and work through the issues that they face. If there are issues genuinely raised that are further structural impediments to students from my region and other regions of New South Wales in accessing university and choosing pathways then I would hope the government addresses those issues and feels not one grain of guilt in changing some of the responses contained in the post-Bradley period that we live in.

In a lot of ways, I think, it will be a test of the education revolution language to see over the coming weeks and months how the government, the executive and the minister in particular, engage with a group of people who have left school and who have been caught in this retrospective trap of public policy in regard to the independence test for the youth allowance. If there is poor engagement on that front, any of the language we have heard from government over the past 12 to 18 months starts to look very hollow. If there is good engagement, if it is communication and if it is working through the changed eligibility criteria then certainly it would renew and restore my faith, and the faith of many 18-year-olds on the mid-North Coast and right through regional and rural Australia, that the government are serious about lifting the standard of education in this nation.

That links into the issue before us in regard to the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009. FEE-HELP is a loan given to eligible fee-paying students to help pay part or all of their tuition fees. The government pays the amount of the loan directly to the student’s provider. Students repay their loan through the tax system once their income is above the minimum threshold for compulsory repayment, otherwise to be known as ICLs, or income contingency loans.

The bill makes amendments to access to VET FEE-HELP and also to regulate the providers of vocational education and training. That second point is, I think, a point of reflection for all of us as we move to an era, like it or not, of full contestability within the vocational education and training sector. There are costs and benefits that come with that era and with regulating providers, whether they are registered training organisations or one of the many different forms that we now have for vocational education and training. I think there is a need to keep a very close eye from a public policy point of view on the regulatory environment and the role that government and ministers play in ensuring quality is not diminished as we enter this new era. The bill also clarifies that a student cannot access the VET FEE-HELP assistance to undertake a VET unit of study unless that VET unit of study is required to be undertaken in order for the student to receive the award associated with that course of study.

A new requirement is that a body corporate must offer at least one VET course of study before the minister may approve that body as a VET provider. The minister can revoke the approval of a body corporate as a VET provider if that body corporate no longer offers at least one VET course of study, is no longer established under Australian law, no longer carries on business in Australia or no longer has its central management control in Australia. It also provides that notices of approval for higher education and VET providers take effect on the day immediately following the day the relevant notice is registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments. Where a notice of approval ceases to have effect the cessation has no affect in relation to any rights or responsibilities which have already accrued in relation to the enrolment of students with a higher education or VET provider.

The effects of the bill are that these amendments provide what we consider appropriate protections for the minister and the Commonwealth as we enter this new era. The present amendment mirrors those made to higher education providers in 2007 and brings consistency to the rules relating to higher education FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP assistance schemes. The amendments ensure that higher education and VET providers will be able to offer FEE-HELP or VET FEE-HELP assistance to students immediately following the registration of their approval as a provider. Therefore it speeds up access to higher education FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP. Due to previous reforms a broader range of providers can seek access to these loans. These amendments should, I hope, speed up access to the loans, therefore a greater protection by way of the revocation of providers is an obvious consequence.

As far as local issues are concerned, I have just spoken about a couple of very impressive 18-year-olds who are down here this week engaging with government and lobbying about their concerns, the concerns of their colleagues and, as we all could argue, what is in the best public interest for the nation for the future. The particular amendment speeds up access to VET FEE-HELP for local vocational education and training students undertaking courses by a newly approved provider, and anything that improves access within what is a complex area for people who are not engaged in the public policy process can only be a good thing. It limits the availability of FEE-HELP to courses that are required or essential to be taken for the student to achieve the award. That is something we will continue to watch and monitor. It certainly broadens the minister’s powers for revocation of providers. Whenever public policy gives discretion in any form to a minister or an executive, I would hope that this place would maintain an ongoing watching brief on those discretionary powers—in this case, increased discretionary powers of a minister.

These amendments support the implementation of the policy agenda for income contingency loans established in other legislation so, in isolation, they are unlikely to be controversial and therefore, from my point of view, are certainly not to be opposed. However, the global issue of the moment is the way students and potential students are reading the post-Bradley, post-budget environment provided by government and therefore weighing up their education pathways for the future. Given the amount of change that has taken place and is taking place, I would leave government with this message from my region. There is a need for greater communication and engagement on the concepts underlying a lot of the changes that are taking place and on the detail with regard to individual, personal and family circumstances as to what would have been accessible from a lower SES regional environment such as mine in the previous environment compared with what I think is the common goal of trying to broaden access for more people in a region such as mine. While the theory and the principles behind it are sound, and the language is sound with regard to an education revolution and trying to lift the general standard of education within the nation, it is the practice of the moment that is challenging a lot of people.

The government needs to stay earnest and engaged with the many people who are grappling with the changes, who are trying to understand the reasons for them and are struggling to do the maths on their personal circumstances, which in many ways will make the decision for them as to whether or not they access vocational education and training or other tertiary education. I would hope everyone in this chamber fundamentally agrees with the principle of trying to get as many students as possible into tertiary education in all its forms. Whether it is vocational education, university or whatever, we are trying to encourage people to engage in education pathways and to put some meat on the bones with regard to length of stay in education. That length of stay in education principle affects us in terms of employment or unemployment, lifestyle, self-knowledge and awareness, wellness—the whole suite of issues that confront this nation. Education is the meal ticket. I think the government has picked it up. I would hope this is part of that response. I just earnestly ask the government to stay engaged in this period when a lot of reform has been dropped on local communities. There is a lot of concern, some of it right and some of wrong, within communities about the direction of government and the implications of the post-Bradley period. I do not oppose this bill.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009 shows again that Labor is the party of good governance. It shows that the Rudd government is a progressive government and will continue to be so. This is definitely a government committed to providing opportunities in education. When I was putting this presentation together, what struck me was that this is yet another education bill that this government has before parliament. We have had so many education bills before us since I came into this place in 2007, and all of them are about reforming and improving the education system and people’s access to it. We are very lucky to have such a committed Minister for Education. I think it is great to see all this work being done on education, in this case the important VET sector.

As I mentioned, the Rudd government is not only a progressive government but a government that is distinguished by good governance, and this bill highlights this. How does this bill show us that? Because it is not just about encouraging participation, which of course we are doing, but it is about properly targeting benefits and then delivering them efficiently. That is what this bill is all about: encouraging participation in education, but also ensuring public money is being used as wisely as possible. We want to target payments and make sure people are not mucked around in getting access to those payments. So, to the detail of this bill.

This bill provides for technical amendments to the Higher Education Support Act 2003. It ensures students’ access to assistance under the VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme is limited to those VET units of study that are essential to the completion of the relevant VET course that they are studying. It ensures consistency between the FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP assistance schemes that we have in place. It also allows for a higher education or VET provider notice of approval to take effect on the day immediately following the day the notice is registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.

The VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme provides loans to eligible fee-paying students undertaking certain VET courses of study, to help pay for all or part of their tuition fees. This is another way in which the Rudd government is encouraging students to participate in education—another way we are increasing participation right across this nation. Students can access training and defer the fees until they are able to pay those costs.

The VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme is targeted to certain higher level skills, as access to assistance under the scheme is limited to VET courses of study leading to the award of a VET diploma, VET advanced diploma, VET graduate diploma or VET graduate certificate. Under current arrangements, there are no provisions which expressly limit a student’s access to assistance under the scheme to those VET units of study which are essential, and directly relevant, to the completion of the student’s VET course of study. These amendments therefore ensure access to VET FEE-HELP assistance is appropriately targeted to those VET units of study which are essential.

This change is particularly important for my own state of Victoria. The Rudd government has made a decision to support the Victorian government’s VET reform agenda by allowing for the extension of the VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme to subsidised diploma and advanced diploma students in my state. As of 1 July 2009, a greater number of VET providers will be offering access to VET FEE-HELP assistance to their students, increasing the risk that funding may inappropriately support students undertaking nonessential VET units of study. So the change will be important in that respect.

As I have said, this bill is also about efficiency in delivering the benefit. A characteristic frustration for many people when they know they are eligible for a benefit is how much of a fuss it is to actually get it—how much rigmarole you have to go through and how long it takes. This bill also makes amendments to the provider approval provisions, to ensure a greater number of approved higher education and VET providers can operate sooner, giving eligible students faster access to FEE-HELP or VET FEE-HELP assistance with those providers. In the way it works at the moment, there are unacceptable delays and additional costs for higher education institutions and registered training organisations applying for approvals, and this leaves students without access to FEE-HELP or VET FEE-HELP assistance during this time. The amendments will ensure that higher education and VET providers can operate on the day immediately following the day on which the notice of approval is registered. Under these amendments, parliament will still be able to scrutinise approvals of providers. A notice of approval must be tabled in both Houses of parliament and a disallowance period of 15 joint sitting days will apply, and approval will still be subject to the requirements of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

The VET sector is, of course, very important. In addition to providing good intrinsic education across a wide range of subject and career areas, it is often a bridge to keep people going in education. So many VET students have gone on from these studies to secure good jobs, support families and forge careers. The FEE-HELP or VET FEE-HELP assistance to students is helping many people into VET courses. It is raising our overall participation in education. It is improving people’s skills and employability. It is widening people’s employment choices and opportunities. This bill is not only improving participation; it is targeting public money where it is most needed and where it will be spent most widely, and it is delivering benefits efficiently. This bill is another example of our government on the ball, delivering for education. I commend the bill to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009, which provides for technical amendments to support the implementation of the policy framework for income contingent loans established in other legislation. The bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to: make clear that access to VET FEE-HELP is only available for units of study that are essential for the awarding of the approved qualification and not for units that are in excess of that requirement; ensure that the measures relating to the revocation of vocational education and training providers are consistent with the provisions in the act relating to the revocation of higher education providers, by allowing the minister to revoke the approval of a body corporate as a VET provider in cases where the body no longer offers at least one VET course of study, is no longer established at law, no longer carries on business in Australia or no longer has its central management control in Australia; and speed up access to higher education FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP by enabling providers to offer this support to students immediately following the registration of the provider’s notice of approval on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments as allowed for under the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

Income contingent loans for students, such as those that have been available in the higher education sector for some time, were extended to the VET sector for the first time in 2007. Part of the rationale for their introduction was that government support arrangements in the two sectors were inequitable—higher education students had access to government support through the ICLS; however, VET students studying for qualifications at the same level did not. Limited to those qualifications that are common to both the higher education and VET sectors—diploma, advanced diploma, graduate diploma and graduate certificate courses—ICLS were introduced into VET studies by using the existing framework for the higher education FEE-HELP loans provided for by the Higher Education Support Amendment Act 2007.

Initially, VET ICLS were only made available for full-fee diploma, advanced diploma, graduate diploma and graduate certificate courses, on condition that there be credit transfer arrangements in place to credit the qualification towards a higher education award and on the further condition that the providers be bodies corporate. Although I support this bill, which provides for income contingent loans to the VET sector, I am concerned with the administrative challenge it may present, because it limits eligible units of study to those that are essential for the approved award. This will mean defining and containing the VET ICLS within a framework of units, modules and courses that is far broader than those provided by the higher education sector.

The regulation of providers in the bill, while technical in nature, in effect is a response to the broadening policy parameters for access to ICLS which are leading to the increasing number and diversity of providers seeking approval to offer higher education FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP. In comparison to the higher education sector, VET is currently provided through a national network of over 4,000 public and private registered training providers.

The bill provides for technical amendments to schedule 1A of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 which clarify that a student can not access VET FEE-HELP assistance to undertake a VET unit of study unless that unit is required to receive the relevant award associated with that particular course. The amendments will ensure that higher education and VET providers will be able to offer FEE-HELP or VET FEE-HELP assistance to students immediately after registration of the relevant notice of higher education or VET provider approval.

Clause 6 sets out the requirements to be satisfied before the minister may approve a body corporate as a VET provider. The proposed paragraph 6(da) is a new requirement that a body corporate must offer at least one VET course of study before the minister may provide approval. Clause 1 of schedule 1 of the act defines a VET course of study to mean a structured and integrated program of vocational education or vocational training, usually consisting of a number of modules or units of study or shorter programs and leading to the award of a VET diploma, a VET advanced diploma, a VET graduate diploma or a VET graduate certificate.

The opportunity to access VET FEE-HELP may attract additional education providers to my electorate, particularly around the Busselton region that has and is seeing rapid population increases. The area currently offers a range of excellent primary and secondary education facilities. Further higher and vocational education and training could certainly assist with current and future population growth projections as well as potentially assist in retaining more young people in the region and assist in providing a future skilled workforce and small businesses for the future. Excellent secondary schools have been established in the region and a diversity of tertiary education opportunities is required right through regional and rural areas.

Universities do not offer the range of courses required by regional students within their south-west campuses. We currently have a regional campus of Edith Cowan University in Bunbury, the Margaret River Centre of Wine Excellence as well as TAFE centres. The natural environment, our cape and marine environments, our natural resource management history are all regional strengths in my area. One of the many success stories in education in the south-west is the Georgiana Molloy Anglican School, just north of Busselton. In 1996 all existing schools were at capacity. The Busselton-Dunsborough area had the second-highest national per capita growth rate outside of Sydney. A community based steering committee formed a constitution, a vision and a time line for the development of the school. Public meetings were held, planning approval was granted in 2002, construction started and the Georgiana Molloy Anglican School was opened in 2002 and had 128 students in 2003. This school offers a holistic, character based education centred upon the strong relationship between staff, students and parents. Students are encouraged to become independent, critical thinkers with an ongoing love of learning. The school complements its TEE program by offering a strong vocational education and training program, providing an opportunity for students to develop industry and generic work related skills while at the same time gaining nationally recognised qualifications while still at school through a broad range of curriculum council courses and subjects. The school now has 830 students from kindergarten to year 12. Our regional communities should have the ability to educate and retain our young people. This bill ensures that VET students have an opportunity to access VET FEE-HELP. I support the bill on that basis.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important bill, which I think goes to one of the critical parts of what a government can do in terms of trying to up-skill the community by providing the necessary educational facilities and support for people trying to get the sorts of skills and education levels they need to have fulfilling careers and to help not only themselves but the economy as well. So it is very pleasing to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009.

I also want to make mention of the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion, who has a very large portfolio looking at workplace relations, training and other areas. It is a very important role—as well as being the Deputy Prime Minister, of course—and no less important in that it is the issue of education which is front and centre in my local community in terms of all the things we are trying to achieve as a community and certainly of which I am very supportive. I do everything I can as the local representative for that community. I have got a number of stories about what is happening in the electorate of Oxley which I will recount to the parliament in my contribution.

This bill provides a number of technical amendments for the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to ensure that a student’s access to assistance under the VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme is limited to those VET units of study that are essential to the completion of the relevant vocational education training course of study. This makes complete sense and is where it ought to be. It also ensures consistency between the VET FEE-HELP assistance schemes, and the bill applies previous amendments made to HESA in relation to the revocation of a higher education provider’s approval to the VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme and provisions of HESA, and also allows a higher education or VET provider notice of approval to take effect on the day immediately following the day that it is registered under the federal register.

The VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme provides loans to eligible fee-paying students and it does that for certain VET courses of study. It helps pay for all or part of the tuition fees for students. Students can then access training and defer the fees until they are able to pay, which is a completely reasonable and appropriate manner to deal with getting students through these schemes. You will hear debates in this place from time to time, or perhaps in the community, about whether that ought to be the way for deferral of fees, how those fees should be paid and how much they should be; whether they are for a VET course, a training course, a higher education course, a university degree or others. I think those debates will continue for a long time into the future. But I think it is important that we all recognise here that any assistance that can be granted through government schemes that helps particular students to further educate themselves to gain particular skills and to improve themselves gives them a better chance of fulfilling careers, contributing to the economy and playing a larger part and a bigger role in their own community. This is one of the very important driving factors for this government, to ensure that we do our bit to assist students in their ability to pay fees on specific courses.

The VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme is targeted to certain higher level skills as access to assistance under the scheme is limited to VET courses of study leading to the award of a vocational education training diploma or advanced diploma or a graduate diploma or certificate. This is for a good reason: where there is assistance provided, and where that study leads to a particular type of award, that is where the assistance should go. It should not just be right across the board on any course or on every bit of training. Where there are limited amounts of funding, and where governments are limited in what they can do with the amount of resources they have available, it should be specifically targeted and directed at those who not only need the most assistance but also to those skill level areas the government wants to promote and where the economy needs to be stimulated. That is exactly what this does.

For local communities, there is a focus you can make when defining your area. In the past decade, and certainly in the last five years, there has been a real focus in the western corridor of Brisbane and Ipswich from a whole range of areas—local government authorities, the state government and the federal government—on skilling people up, providing better educational opportunities and providing better training opportunities. That has come not only from those three levels of government but also from private providers, the community itself and—some might find it surprising—even from developers. I make specific mention of that because I want to put it on the record that Springfield Land Corporation in my electorate has for many years driven not only the development of a very large estate—a satellite city called Greater Springfield—but has had education as a central focus of what that community is about, right at the core of it. For a lot of years I suppose people just looked at it as perhaps any other development and did not really consider just how serious they were, or the sort of impact it would have on the local community: to build a new community for people to live in on the principle that education gives you great opportunities.

We are many years down the track now, and probably close to 20 per cent of the development has been completed. The Bremer TAFE has been involved. It is a fantastic TAFE organisation in my electorate and wider—it runs into the electorate of Blair, and I note that the member for Blair is here and will also speak on this very important bill. We have not only organisations such as TAFE but schools getting more involved at a community level and at a government level outside the normal charter that we would expect from schools, and certainly outside the normal charter that we would expect from developers of a particular estate. That achievement means that the University of Southern Queensland has set up in my electorate. It is a great regional university that is branching out and providing the sorts of opportunities to people that otherwise would never have had those opportunities. A lot of young people growing up in the western corridor have traditionally not had a lot of places to turn to. I say that would be the same regardless of which state we were talking about. You traditionally have not had a lot of opportunities directly around you. You certainly cannot look directly at a university in your own backyard, or some professional skill providers or other educational institutions that have the capacity to deliver the sort of up-skilling, training and educational opportunities in a community that we now find we do have in the western corridor.

I am particularly pleased and I am thankful about this. I would also like to acknowledge all of the hard work that has gone into delivering those sorts of opportunities. Right across the board there has been this wonderful partnership in the electorate between community, government, private enterprise, businesses small and large and employers. It is a story that continues to develop and grow.

I would particularly like to make reference to a group of schools in my electorate in that part of the western corridor, which, through our schools trades training investment, decided there was a real opportunity for them to collaborate and pool their funds to build one big trades training centre that could be utilised by all four schools. It was quite a simple proposition and one that I know is being dealt with through the department, and it is one that I expect will be successful. The simple proposition is one of four schools getting together. Not only do they have more resources but they can build a higher quality, better resourced facility for their students. What was really nice and really different about this one is that it involved government and non-government schools collaborating together. I am not sure how many other electorates may have this happening, but I hope it is happening elsewhere. I know that what is happening in my electorate is a really great example of schools in a particular community seeing the advantages of skills and education and what they can deliver for their students.

When this new facility is built and starts to provide the training, the skills and the resources it has been chartered to do, we will see something that we have not seen for a long time: government and non-government schools working together and sharing facilities with students being able to interact directly with students from other schools in an educational and trades training environment. That interaction will, I think, have a huge impact in the local community by the fact that it will give an understanding of how other schools work, how other students deal with their issues and how you can provide better opportunities in the local community.

So it is all very good news and all very important. It is all part of a genuine focus by a whole range of people to do something just a little bit different that will leave a legacy behind. But all this would not have happened if it were not for a couple of factors. Not only do you need essential goodwill—the goodwill of communities prepared to work together across all of those areas I have already described—but also investment, and very importantly that investment should be an investment such as the one contained in this bill. Being able to provide assistance schemes, funding for schools, supporting TAFE colleges and the work that they do, supporting universities in their expansion and their provision of courses for students: without all of that and without government assistance and without proper programs in place you do not get all those great ideas becoming a reality.

I have had the good fortune of having a number of ministerial visits to my electorate. I have shown them what is happening and I have taken them to the local schools and the university to shown them the growth that is occurring in the western corridor so that they can see that the money being invested, the programs that this government has put in place, the investment in schools, the vocational education training programs and the support we give to students and to families is having a very positive impact—that it is having the desired outcomes that we all seek. In the end, any government wanting to invest will want to see a great outcome from that investment, and that is certainly the case in terms of the electorate of Oxley and the wider western corridor.

I tend to refer to my electorate these days as being not just strict boundaries based on an arbitrary line that is given to us by the Australian Electoral Commission but as being more about the western corridor. It is a growing and developing community and it sometimes transcends those artificial boundaries that are given to us by the Australian Electoral Commission, which are necessary obviously for elections and for representation purposes.

Under the current arrangements, there are no provisions that would expressly limit a student’s access to assistance under the scheme to the vocational education training units of study which are essential and directly relevant to the completion of the student’s VET course of study. As such, it is possible that a student may be entitled to VET FEE-HELP assistance for a unit of study, even where that unit of study was additional to or not directly required for the completion of that course. We acknowledge that and we understand how those arrangements work. These amendments, therefore, do ensure that access to VET FEE-HELP assistance is appropriately targeted and that we are getting bang for our buck in terms of delivering essential funding into what I think is a key area in terms of driving the economy and in terms of keeping Australia moving and ensuring that young people and people who are doing re-training get the essential assistance they need.

This amendment is also particularly important in light of the Australian government’s decision to support the Victorian government’s VET reform agenda by allowing for the extension of the VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme to subsidise diploma and advanced diploma in that state. It is important to acknowledge that part of what we are doing is trying to bring about some consistency across the states and some uniformity to reduce the burden of bureaucracy and red tape and other inefficiencies that are contained in all systems and, also, to try to make it as user friendly as possible.

Further, the bill makes minor technical amendments to provide for appropriate protections of the minister and the Commonwealth in the event that a VET provider no longer offers any eligible VET courses, or is no longer appropriately established under a law of the Commonwealth, a state or a territory or no longer carries on a business or has central management and control in Australia. These amendments mirror those made to the HESA in 2007 in relation to higher education providers. It therefore ensures consistency between the two different programs: the VET FEE-HELP Assistance Scheme and the FEE-HELP scheme. The bill also makes amendments to the provider approval provisions to ensure that a greater number of approved higher education and VET providers can actually operate sooner, giving eligible students faster access to both those schemes.

Under the current HESA arrangements notices of approval are legislative instruments, and such notices of approval to operators of higher ed or VET providers do not actually take effect until the parliamentary disallowance period of 15 joint sitting days has elapsed. This can sometimes take up to two sitting periods. This creates some unacceptable delays and additional costs for higher education institutions and registered training organisations applying for approval and, as a consequence, leaves students without access to either the FEE-HELP or the VET FEE-HELP assistance programs during this time. So the amendments will ensure that higher ed and VET providers can operate on the day immediately following the day on which the notice for approval is registered. The amendment is particularly important, again, in light of our decision to support what the Victorian government has done as to reform in this area.

The key drivers of this amendment and changes are not only part of a wider program of the Rudd government’s move to make education, higher education and vocational training more efficient but part of a general philosophy that we have in terms of creating better efficiencies, creating more consistency across different jurisdictions and ensuring that where the government expends taxpayer dollars you get maximum value for those dollars, they are appropriately targeted at the people they are meant to help, they are targeted at the appropriate schemes or courses and, in the end, it is an investment not only in those people that receive that help but also in jobs and in the upskilling of all Australians. It helps to provide for better infrastructure delivery and, very importantly in all electorates, it helps to provide better schools and better outcomes out of the students that go through the schools. I think, too, it has better linkages between primary and secondary education, on to higher education, regardless of the path that students want to take—whether they want to take a university type path or whether they want to take a trades based path. Both of those have some equal opportunities that students can choose for themselves, and they can do that as early as possible through the education system, be it government or non-government.

I think one of the great successes of this government has been to, over recent years, turn that debate around. I think a lot of the public, certainly in the community, view these constant debates—about government schools and non-government schools, about how money is expended, about what is more valuable and about having a trade or a university degree—as old debates which are hopefully dead and buried. We can all move on to more important issues such as providing people with the necessary skills and investments, providing the right resources and facilities, providing all the right paths, providing the right types of policies and strategies, making sure that there is conformity across states and jurisdictions, and making sure that government is a facilitator and not an inhibitor of people’s educational opportunities and skilling opportunities.

While I commend the minister for her great work in this, I also commend the bill to the House. I know it is not a controversial bill and it is supported by everyone in this House. I commend it to the House.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of this legislation, the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009. Like the member for Oxley, I represent a seat in that south-west part of Brisbane that goes into the Lockyer Valley and down to the Fassifern Valley. The challenges for students, young people and those seeking further education in Oxley—which is the south-west part of Brisbane and part of Ipswich—are the same for those in Ipswich and the rural areas outside. The member for Oxley talked about the growth in the corridor that he and I represent. His seat is growing rapidly and in three years time will have the second most number of electors in the whole of Queensland, and mine the fourth. We need a new classroom every week in Ipswich with the growth in the number of people, which is booming. The ABS figures show that Ipswich grew by more than four per cent in the last year, the fastest in Queensland. So the old stereotypes about Ipswich and those people who live in areas like Inala and Durack and out into the rural areas of my electorate, in Laidley, Gatton and beyond, are simply gone—and should be gone—from the lexicon of language used about South-East Queensland. Many people think that ours is an old coalmining area, an area where there is just manufacturing, but there are aerospace and universities and dynamic institutions out there with linkages in jobs that people never dreamed about decades ago. Tourism is a wonderful thing in our area, and hospitality as well. So it is the talent, the tolerance and the technology, which are all going towards creating a new Ipswich and a new area in South-East Queensland.

The legislation here relates to some technical amendments, but they deal with areas of higher education. For many people in the south-west corridor of Brisbane and beyond the idea of a tertiary education or education at a TAFE was simply something that they could not aspire to. But under successive Labor governments we have seen this sort of thing opened up to working-class boys and girls and young men and women who never dreamed that they could aspire to this sort of education. Skilling our people and improving the opportunities in life for them is not just about improving productivity and profitability in our businesses, but it is about social inclusion, social capital and reducing social inequity. It is important that we do this for the sake of the young people of our communities but also for the sake of a more fair and just Australia.

The background to this type of legislation can be found in the fact that there was an injustice between those people who studied in the VET area and those people who studied elsewhere. It was the case that income contingent loans were available to people who went to, say, the University of Queensland or the Queensland University of Technology, but people who went to, say, Bremer TAFE in my electorate could not get the kind of access, until recently, to loans which enabled them to complete courses.

Fortunately that has broadened over the years and we have implemented the extension of HELP loans to various people—both sides of politics have been supportive of this—so that, if you want to do a diploma, an advanced diploma, a graduate diploma or a graduate certificate course, you can. Initially, it was in relation to credit or qualification for a higher education award such as a degree, but we have broadened that out as the years have gone by. This is important because many people use it as a stepping stone, and other people simply want to become trained at a TAFE course to get a job.

Many people in my electorate of Blair go to schools such as Ipswich Grammar School, Ipswich Girls Grammar School, St Edmund’s College and St Mary’s College and other private schools. They provide a wonderful educational course for young people who want to go on to academic pursuits and attend the University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University. There are also other people from those schools who want to pursue TAFE courses. Many students in high schools such as Ipswich State High, Bremer State High or Bundamba State Secondary College would obviously prefer to go to TAFE courses. Many want to go to university, such as I did. I went Bundamba State Secondary College and then went on to the University of Queensland. Increasingly, we are seeing more students from state school system background going to university, and this is a tremendous thing. It is important that we give children the opportunity, no matter where they come from—as I have said before, whether they live in Boonah or Brisbane, Ipswich or Indooroopilly—to have access to a high quality education, either at a TAFE or at a university.

The legislation lines up to make sure that, if you are going to be studying a course, you can get access to HELP but at the same time make sure that that course be directed to qualifications to ensure that you get the training and skills you need. That certificate is very important in helping you get a job in all the circumstances. Loans to eligible fee-paying students are important because many people come from backgrounds where they cannot rely on the support of their parents because their parents are struggling to put food on the table, to pay the rent, to pay the mortgage and to meet the everyday needs of their households. These parents cannot help them with tuition fees. Students can access training and defer fees until they are able to pay under the VET FEE-HELP assistance scheme. It is a great social scheme which will reduce inequality in our society and give children from whatever background—whether they are the son of a coalminer, or the son of a meatworker or a shop assistant—access to loans which will enable them to complete their studies. These things are important in my community and to people in my electorate.

We want to make sure that our assistance is targeted to those VET units of study which are essential to completing those courses. In terms of the assistance the Rudd Labor government is providing for the higher education sector, it is important for many people to know that it is not just universities but other institutions that are receiving assistance as well. It has to start at the grassroots level. We are rolling out child-care centres—hundreds of them—across the country, making sure that children are educated from a very young age. Regrettably, under the Howard coalition government, expenditure on education with respect to child care and preschool education was only one-fifth of that of our competitors in the OECD. If we can get our children educated at their first instance of entry into the education system, that will give them the best chance in life.

Building the Education Revolution—in terms of funding for infrastructure, community facilities, multi-purpose halls, libraries and the many things that we are rolling out across Australia—not only is good for jobs but also enables children to get access to information and technology in a world they never dreamed of. In schools such as Raceview State Primary School, Silkstone State Primary School and Brassell State Primary School, the three biggest primary schools in my electorate, those children will have the same access to information and the same access to facilities as children who attend larger or private schools in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. That is very important. So far, in my electorate, $30 million has been announced with respect to education funding under the BER funding, under the National School Pride and Schools for the 21st Century programs. Whether they are coming from small little country schools or larger Ipswich-based schools, students are appreciative of the funding because that kind of funding gives them opportunity and gives them a chance for advancement in life.

It is important that we go on to look at what we are doing in the broader context of higher education. This bill deals with higher education; it deals with the TAFE system. But it is important to think that, whether you are five or 15 or even 25, we are going to support you in pursuing education to enable you to develop your skills, talents and ability not just to contribute to society but to build your self-esteem to ensure that you can achieve everything in life and your full potential.

We are actually building the education revolution by investing $5.7 billion over four years through delivering reform in the higher education innovation sectors. In my electorate, we have two university campuses—one in Ipswich and one in Gatton. We are seeing it manifest locally. We are seeing the increase in funding for higher education brought forward into those campuses. For example, the relocation of the school of veterinary science from Brisbane to Gatton will make a big difference. This will be not just in terms of the local community in terms of jobs, infrastructure and improvement in terms of development in the Lockyer Valley; it will give children a chance to pursue their goals and dreams if they are from a country life and agricultural background and to do what they need to do as country people to ensure their farming communities are developed to the best extent possible.

We are also investing an enormous amount of money locally in terms of the University of Queensland Ipswich campus. I have spoken to Pro-Vice-Chancellor Alan Rix, who is very supportive of what we are doing in terms of infrastructure and innovation locally. We have also seen the new chair of Universities Australia come out just yesterday commending the Rudd Labor government for its commitment to the provision of higher education through the federal budget that was announced by the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, the member for Lilley.

The new Chair of Universities Australia is Professor Peter Coaldrake, who is very well known in Queensland. He is the Vice-Chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology. He has come out very strongly in support of what the government is doing in terms of the new framework for higher education in this country. He has said that it is going to make a great contribution to Australia’s economic recovery, social advancement and environmental sustainability. He was pleased that we have adopted the recommendations of the Bradley and Cutler reviews on indexation, full cost funding of research, enhanced access and equity programs and approved accreditation and quality assurance arrangements.

The investments in substantial social capital and infrastructure in the higher education sector are also crucial to improve not just the lives of students but also the research facilities in our universities and TAFEs across the country. We see that expressed locally in my electorate through the wonderful work carried out by the University of Queensland Ipswich campus. For example, an Ipswich study was undertaken by the university to look at the health needs of the local community, a study which will have implications not just locally but state wide, nationally and internationally. We have many health needs in my areas. Universities and other tertiary institutions are playing a practical role in developing our local area and improving the lives of the people of Ipswich.

The university sector is very pleased with the federal government’s contribution to higher education, not just for it but also for the TAFE sector as well. It is important that we build a higher education system which minimises the kind of regulation and burden that the Howard government imposed upon it. Fortunately, we have seen the eradication of Work Choices and the delinking of funding to the higher education sector with the requirement to impose Work Choices style individual contracts. It is important that we improve accountability and transparency in universities and TAFEs and the like, but it is important that we do not burden them by imposing ideological preconceptions on those wonderful institutions.

When we look at higher education, tertiary education and secondary education, it is important that we recognise what the government is doing in terms of skilling our young people. The trade training centres that we are offering and rolling out across the country play an important role in ensuring that our young people develop interests, skills and abilities in areas that they perhaps would not have dreamed of in the past.

In Ipswich, we have seen three schools get together to apply for and receive funding for an institution which they have called the Ipswich trade training centre. I commend each one of them. It is going to be located at St Edmund’s College, a Catholic boys college in Ipswich with the Edmund Rice tradition. It is a wonderful institution which has a fantastic trade training focus in terms of manual arts, technical drawing and CAD systems, as well as a focus on the wet trades, carpentry, bricklaying and other types of trades. The emphasis for this particular trade training centre will be on those wet trades and engineering. I commend the two grammar schools, Ipswich Grammar School and Ipswich Girls Grammar School, for their involvement in this project. They have seen the wisdom of it. I have spoken to all the principals involved in those schools, and they have warmly welcomed the funding.

That will mean that students at those schools will be able to link in with businesses. I know that there are a number of businesses in the Ipswich and West Moreton communities who have offered their services and who are looking for students who are trained in those areas. There are many students who go to St Edmunds, Ipswich Boys Grammar School and Ipswich Girls Grammar School for a day or two and then go off and work as apprentices, getting their training on site and attending TAFE.

The other trade training centre in my electorate is the trade training centre in the Lockyer Valley, which will also make a big difference in terms of training for young people. That has got a transport and agricultural focus. I commend Lockyer District High School for applying for funding. That focus will link in with the University of Queensland Gatton campus. The contact between the two will mean that students can study, work, meet and socialise together and help ensure that there is a transition between that high school and the university campus. The state government of Queensland should be commended for the funding that it has put into both campuses, the Ipswich and Gatton campuses of the University of Queensland.

What we have done in terms of funding in the higher education sector is extremely important. This bill is a part of the government’s total agenda. We have injected $3 billion through our budget into tertiary education and innovation infrastructure through the education investment fund. The government has approved 31 projects from 160 applications. They will receive $934 million. There are many institutions across the whole country that will benefit, including institutions in South-East Queensland such as the advanced engineering building at the University of Queensland St Lucia campus, which is being funded to the tune of $50 million. That will position the University of Queensland’s engineering programs at the forefront of international teaching capability. It will integrate research, postgraduate training and undergraduate teaching.

It is important, in considering our TAFEs and universities, that we actually think about what we are doing and get an overall strategy. We want to build a stronger, fairer and more innovative Australia; we want to make sure that our funding of universities and the wider higher education sector is based on student demand; and we want to establish a target. We want to enable another 50,000 students to commence university studies by 2013. We want to ensure that we have as many people as possible with tertiary qualifications, whether they are from TAFEs or universities. We want to ensure that we support our young people not just because it is the right thing to do, not just because it will produce a fairer and more just Australia, but because we are interested in nation building—because we want to build the nation for the time when we recover to ensure that we have the future prosperity that we believe is important for our country and that we believe is important that our children inherit. What we do in terms of our funding of higher education says a lot about what we think Australia should become. It says a lot about what we believe our children should inherit and what chance in life we should give them.

This is a good bill. It is part of the framework of the Rudd government’s commitment to higher education, whether in the university sector or in the TAFE sector. I commend the bill to the House.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009 and, indeed, any bill that has to do with education. For me, it is about personal commitment, it is about policy, it is about politics and it is about access, fairness and equity—all the issues that come to the fore when we are talking about education. That commitment to education flows right across the members of the government, and this is just one of the commitments of the Minister for Education, Ms Gillard, to education reforms. This particular reform is important because it is about giving help and support where it is needed. It is also about credentials, about people getting the credentials they need to improve their lives, get the jobs they want, be able to do the extra study and be in a position where they have some choices in life. This bill addresses both of those important issues: help and support, and appropriate and proper credentials.

In this contribution I will give a brief outline of the bill and then go into some details and the rationale for the bill, as well as make some general comments about how it is of relevance to the people in my electorate of Page.

Vocational education and training, which the bill addresses, is a key plank of our education system and indeed our higher education system. There is a wonderful TAFE in my area, the North Coast TAFE, which is headquartered at Port Macquarie with the director, Elizabeth McGregor, a very fine public servant dedicated to education and the educational needs of our region, which are substantial. In fact, I met with her only last week to talk about what some of those needs are. I know that they have put in a submission to try and secure some more funds for their capital infrastructure works. I wish them well and I hope they are successful with their bid.

It is really important that students are able to access loans and the variety of support that they need, particularly if they are undertaking vocational education and training, because that is the basis of a lot of our skills and skills development. It goes to the heart of building up our skills in Australia, because we know that they have been run down over the past period and they have not been addressed in a national framework. There has been some good work done, much of it due to the goodwill of local providers—not through working cooperatively within an overarching national framework, and that is one of the key parts of this bill.

To return to my electorate, we have the TAFE and many campuses across Page. They run fine courses. I have studied at the TAFE in my own local area—it helped me get some of the skills that I needed—and I have also taught there. So I have had the privilege of being both a student and a teacher there, and I stay very engaged with that community and with the teachers and the students. We also have really good adult community education through the North Coast adult community education centres. They are right across my electorate as well. I have also worked in those centres and studied in those centres and run the local adult community education centre. I sat for some time on the New South Wales adult education ministerial advisory council, so I was in a position to give advice in that area and thoroughly enjoyed it.

There are 97 primary schools as well across Page. That is a substantial number of schools. All those schools, the children, their parents, the school communities and tradespeople, or tradesmen primarily, are the direct beneficiaries of the government’s economic stimulus package, of which 70 per cent is directed towards infrastructure. That is a lot of infrastructure across Page. Eighty-four of those schools are primary, special or K-12, and they are all sharing in the Building the Education Revolution infrastructure package as well as the national pride.

This bill goes to the heart of the support that students require. It will ensure that students’ access to assistance under VET FEE-HELP is limited to VET units of study that are essential to the completion of the relevant VET course of study. This is so that the students get the appropriate level of credentials and skills required to access those further training and education opportunities and access the jobs that they want. It ensures consistency between the FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP assistance schemes. The bill will also apply previous amendments made to the higher education—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member for Page will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.