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

I will only be speaking briefly on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009, which implements a number of the recommendations of the Bradley review. Unfortunately, a lot of the funding from this has now been found from the Education Investment Fund, which was previously the Higher Education Endowment Fund. The Higher Education Endowment Fund was established in 2007. There was an original endowment of $5 billion. The vision of this was that higher education institutions would gain access to the interest and it would be an endowment fund in perpetuity. How wrong we were. Within two years, the Minister for Education had raided this endowment fund, a fund which was designed to be there in perpetuity, and used the money that was left there to fund a number of the recommendations of the Bradley review.

In speaking on this legislation I would like to say that the Liberal Party and the National Party have long been supportive of a shift towards a more deregulated higher education sector. We believe that greater flexibility for individual education institutions will allow for a more demand driven system. We think that this is an important development and we certainly will not be opposing this legislation. The opposition is also supportive of the creation of a tertiary education quality and standards agency to encourage a best-practice model in higher education, ensuring that Australian institutions remain globally competitive.

One of the features of our education system is how dramatic the expansion of international education, the delivery of education to overseas students, has been over the last quarter of a century. We now have a services export which is worth in the order of $15½ billion to the Australian economy. It is our third largest export industry in terms of its value to the Australian economy. It is our largest service export. It means that many Australian students now come into contact with overseas students. It is part of their experience at Australian higher education institutions but also part of the experience for overseas students. We in the opposition certainly welcome the expansion in the number of overseas students that we have seen coming to Australia and the extraordinary success that Australia has enjoyed in this area. For many traditional markets we are now a more popular destination than the United Kingdom. Of course, our two major source countries for overseas students are India and China. While we are speaking in particular on higher education it would be remiss of me not to mention the extraordinary growth that we have seen in the vocational education and training sector for overseas students, such that on the latest figures there are now more overseas students who are studying in vocational education and training courses than there are in higher education courses. This has been a positive development.

I should say that, by and large, the providers are of a high standard, but certainly there is a need for the regulation that we have here to keep pace with developments in the industry. There will be an opportunity, I am sure, to say more about this at a later time. We support the creation of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. We think that this is important and it is an important goal to make sure that we maintain our reputation in the delivery of education services to overseas students. This not an area where we can rest on our laurels. There is a lot of competition from European institutions, from institutions in the United Kingdom, from institutions in Asia and also from institutions in North America.

While indicating that the opposition will not be opposing this legislation, I should also point out that the abolition of the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships and the Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships proposed by this legislation is a real concern to us. Provision for the replacement measures for these scholarships has not yet been introduced into the House. We wonder why this legislation is not yet available and why the government have not given sufficient consideration to this legislation. The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs have already had time to examine this legislation and they have recommended, and we agree, that the government need to introduce the legislation, allowing for the replacement of the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships and the Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships.

Before the last election, the Prime Minister committed to improving and expanding Australia’s Commonwealth Scholarships Program, yet under their replacement model rural and regional students will be excluded. Greater flexibility is needed to ensure that rural and regional students who may not be eligible for Youth Allowance are still assisted to attain further education. As the replacement measures are currently understood, students particularly from farming and small business backgrounds will find it harder to undertake further education. With those remarks, the member for Sturt will speak later to outline in more detail the opposition’s position on this legislation, but I have indicated that the opposition will not be opposing this legislation.

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 (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. This bill forms an important part of the Rudd government’s measures to transform Australia’s higher education sector. The government’s approach to this very important issue is worthy of a moment’s consideration. Labor started with a commitment before the last election to make significant reforms to this sector. In government we established a major review of higher education, led by Professor Denise Bradley, to provide a foundation for effective action. I recall that the opposition was critical of this government during the initial period of office when a large number of reviews and investigations were initiated. But this considered approach is now bearing fruit and leading to progressive reform in a number of critical areas, of which higher education is a most important one.

The Rudd government have set the standard—broad policy settings and quality investigations by an expert inquiry followed by long overdue structural reforms, detailed policy changes and fair dinkum allocation of resources. Eleven years of the Howard approach to higher education has resulted in Australia falling behind the rest of the developed world. The Bradley report indicated that within the OECD we are now 9th out of the top 30 in the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with tertiary degrees—down from 7th only a decade ago. It is time to stop this decline and to reinvigorate the sector, to try our best to match other OECD countries that have set ambitious targets for the future.

The Bradley report recommended a significant number of measures to raise the standards of Australia’s higher education system. It recommended the establishment of targets for attainment of degree qualifications; the setting of targets for participation of lower socioeconomic groups; that institutions should have the freedom to enrol as many students as they wish, with funding to follow the student; increases in levels of student support; that a proportion of funds allocated to institutions be allocated on the basis of performance against specific targets for teaching and equity; that funding for research be increased; and that the government establish an independent national tertiary education regulatory body.

Access Economics, quoted in the Bradley review, predicted that from 2010 the supply of undergraduates will not keep up with demand. To increase the numbers participating in the system, we must look at members of groups currently underrepresented in the system: Indigenous people, those of low-socioeconomic status and those from regional and remote areas—broadly those disadvantaged by circumstances of their birth. The reforms initiated in this bill are a critical first step to address this important area.

The government have made a significant and major response to the Bradley review which is progressively being rolled out. The Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has announced that Australia will have a target of 40 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds with bachelor level or higher qualification by 2025. The government is supporting the Bradley recommendation that universities be funded by demand, with funding of a Commonwealth supported place for all domestic students accepted into eligible accredited higher education courses at recognised public education providers.

The current cap on over-enrolment will be raised from five per cent to 10 per cent from 2010, and removed completely in 2012. This will allow a managed transition into the new system and will prevent institutions growing too quickly, therefore with a possible drop in quality. Significantly, the Rudd government is providing an additional $5.4 billion to support higher education and research over the next four years. This major boost in funding will support high-quality teaching and learning; enable access to students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds to be significantly improved; provide additional funding to institutions that meet agreed quality and equity outcomes; and, last but by no means least, improve resources for research.

To ensure that the standards of higher education increase as the demand and funding increase, the government is establishing a national regulatory and quality agency. The agency will carry out audits of standards and performance and provide quality assurance to ensure that Australia’s reputation for quality teaching and learning remains high.

Turning to the detail of the bill, I will focus on some of the bill’s key measures and implications. Universities will have to negotiate specific performance targets that suit their circumstances and contribute to national goals for participation and quality. The government is not approaching this delicate issue in a ham-fisted way but will ensure that proper consultation with each institution takes place in the setting of performance standards.

The bill also covers some of the areas raised as concerns during the inquiry held last year by the House Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Innovation. The report produced by that committee, entitled Building Australia’s Research Capacity, is well worth reading and provides another pathway for future changes in this sector.

The bill amends the HESA to commit $512 million over four years for a new Sustainable Research Excellence in Universities initiative to augment the existing block grants scheme. The number of Australian postgraduate awards will be doubled by 2012. Importantly, the APA stipend to support our postgraduate students will be increased by more than 10 per cent from $20,427 in 2009 to $22,400 in 2010. This increase will be welcomed, I am sure, by postgraduate students across the nation, as the increases complement the major reform to student income support arrangements.

The higher education performance funding is significantly different to the former Learning and Teaching Performance Fund. Each university will receive a share of the performance funding pool, based on the size of their student population, and will receive performance funding if they meet their targets, rather than on the basis of comparative performance.

Most importantly, the Rudd government has set a goal of 20 per cent of those enrolled in higher education to be drawn from groups currently under-represented in the system. Universities will be able to set targets, after negotiation, that are challenging but that suit their circumstances. Most significantly, they will have to meet targets for equity performance as well as teaching quality. Targets and performance will be assessed by the new Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. The role of Skills Australia will be expanded to advise the government on the effectiveness of higher education systems in meeting Australia’s needs.

I welcome this important initiative to improve the linkages between our workforce and training needs and the delivery of quality graduates and postgraduates from the tertiary sector. Of course, I am also fully aware of the need of our tertiary institutions to provide a high level of intellectual endeavour of a sometimes more esoteric nature, without which the nation would be the poorer in the arts and education fields.

The bill does increase the maximum annual student contribution for education and nursing graduates. This will provide increased revenue for higher education providers to better resource their education and nursing courses and will add around $1,000 per year to an education or nursing degree. The value of the extension to the HECS-HELP scheme to eligible graduates will be greater than the increase in student contributions.

I will turn now to the funding arrangements under the structural adjustment fund. The amendments will provide $200 million for structural adjustment over the period 2009-10 to 2012-13, which will provide $136 million of new money. This will commence on 1 January 2010. While the linkage of this structural adjustment to specific capital projects is still to be determined, there is no doubt that capital works in the higher education sector will significantly increase the level of spending on infrastructure nationwide and will help Australia minimise the effects of the current global recession.

In conclusion, I reiterate my support for these important measures that are being undertaken in support of the Bradley review. The review found that Australia needs more well-qualified people to meet the demands of a rapidly-moving global economy. We are also facing a looming shortage of academics to teach and guide the undergraduate and postgraduate students. Again, that was highlighted in the report by the ISI committee and came up at many hearings.

The reforms encapsulated in this and other bills will enable Australia to move again to be a world leader in the higher education sector; to adapt to the challenges of more students wanting a better education at a higher standard, which is recognised worldwide; and, most importantly, to enable students from poorer or disadvantaged backgrounds, due solely to the circumstance of their birth and not to their intellect, from achieving their full potential. I commend the bill to the House.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition will not oppose the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. In fact, the coalition support a number of the measures relating to the deregulation of the higher education sector, greater flexibility for institutions and an endeavour to be more responsive to student demands. Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, perhaps you, who have been in this parliament longer than I have, might reflect as I do on these changes and wonder why these revelations are so appropriate now when efforts to make changes of this kind when the coalition was in government were opposed. There were vitriolic orations from Labor members about what an evil thing deregulation in higher education and flexibility and responsiveness to student demand would be, yet in government we see a different face of the ALP.

A number of these measures do respond to the Bradley review, but it is worth noting, in response to some of the comments of members opposite, that it does not embrace all of the Bradley review recommendations. In fact, it falls a considerable distance short of funding commitments that the Bradley review recommended. That is something that no doubt will be the subject of further debate. I would have thought that the very closely related issues of changes to Youth Allowance—what that means in reduced eligibility for over 30,000 students—and the mystery that surrounds the precise nature and array of scholarship related support, given that this bill dismantles and abolishes the present array of Commonwealth scholarships, should have been dealt with in conjunction with this bill, because those instruments are very important in achieving the ambition that Bradley outlined, which the government seeks to associate itself with in the bill before the parliament night.

I will touch a bit more on that, and how it relates to the community that I am a part of, but I should declare a pecuniary interest as the chairperson of the Monash Peninsula Campus Community Advisory Council. My strong ongoing interest has seen me carry out that highly paid and highly sought after role, trying to make sure that outer metropolitan interests are reflected in the plans of a terrific university like Monash for the future. When we see so many of the quality academic institutions being pretty much in the heart of our biggest cities, having outer urban campuses and regional campuses is very important and having a strong voice in support of them is equally important. Hopefully, having declared that interest, I will bring some of the insights to bear that that role provides me.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Gray interjecting

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. The interjection from the Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia, opposite, is that they should double my pay. Yes, a hearty zero to zero would be fantastic—but thank you for that!

As I say, the coalition does support the deregulation measures and the flexibility. We see those measures as an improvement and mentioned that we would have liked Labor’s support for such a reform when Labor were in opposition. But they are late to this task. They have had a conversion somewhere along the way, and now a more demand driven system will be part of the higher education framework for the future. The coalition is very supportive of the new Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. That is particularly important as there is now, in that scope for greater flexibility and student responsiveness, a need to always keep an eye on quality and to make sure that, in the enthusiasm to embrace more candidates for higher education, that effort is not at the sacrifice of quality and standards.

The minister, Julia Gillard, claims that the government is providing $5.7 billion of new money for universities, yet, when you unpick that a little bit, it is not quite as it is being presented. That $5.7 billion that is in the budget for initiatives includes about $3 billion—$2.99 billion—taken from a raid on the Education Investment Fund, a fund that was designed and paid for under the previous government and through the enterprise of the Australian people from budget surpluses as a Higher Education Endowment Fund that would support ongoing improvement in university infrastructure and in research capability for years to come. That endowment has been raided; it is no more. That represents more than half of the funding that has been announced—from the previous government. But that endowment is now gone. That has been spent, and opportunities to fully embrace some of Bradley’s recommendations and other insights are now made more difficult because of that.

What we are looking at is really a change in the funding. I will not go over all the details—I think the previous speakers have done that—but they include the changes to eligibility for funding, the funding parameters themselves, the revision of Commonwealth scholarship arrangements, introducing funding for clusters of education, and also changes in student contribution amounts and introducing the HELP scheme, the Higher Education Loan Program. Isn’t it extraordinary that something that those opposite had held up as an obstacle to higher education is now being expanded? It is another conversion on the road to higher education Damascus, but it is quite remarkable to see that change of interest and change of heart.

In fairness to the ALP, perhaps when you are in government you learn a lot. You need to take more seriously your responsibilities and be a little more objective in your analysis. Perhaps that is what we are seeing here today. Some of those changes are interesting, though—and I touched on the youth allowance eligibility question and how that will actually make higher education more difficult by reducing eligibility for some 30,000 students. There is also the idea of the HECS extension through HECS-HELP, HECS having been long held up by the ALP as an obstacle to people engaging in higher education. That will now be a greater obstacle—if you believe what the ALP said. I do not, but I am very mindful that intending higher education candidates may well have been persuaded by the hysteria and ill-informed comment from the ALP when in opposition that HECS was an obstacle to academic engagement. We have long seen that the benefits of higher education qualification are that it delivers much improved employment and income prospects over a person’s working life and that that personal contribution to their own future opportunities is not the obstacle that the ALP have gone on about for some years. They now seem to agree with that and are looking to extend the HECS utility with the HELP provision in the light of things that they must have just learned since coming to government.

One of the things that trouble me, though, having identified the raid on the Higher Education Endowment Fund, staring down the barrel of an enormous budget deficit and with no end in sight to deficit budgets and accumulating debt, is that the scope to fully embrace not just the specific Bradley recommendations but the actions that are required to pursue some of the recommendations is considerably diminished.

I touch on a couple of things in particular that are of importance to the community that I represent. These are the ambitious targets that the Bradley review set for increased participation in the higher education sector: 40 per cent of all 25- to 34-year-olds to hold a qualification of at least bachelor level by 2020, recognising that the current rate is about 29 per cent. That is a welcome and ambitious goal, recognising that the employment mobility and future prospects of someone with a higher education are enhanced as we go into economic transformation and change that have been with us for some decades and will be with us for decades to come. But simply making that statement will not bring it about. And the targets go further and talk about participation amongst low-SES Australians and other disadvantaged groups. By 2020, the Bradley review proposed a 20 per cent level for all undergraduate enrolments in higher education being students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds.

In the community that I represent on the Mornington Peninsula, the percentage of our population that goes on to higher education is less than that of the greater metropolitan area generally, less than that of the state of Victoria and less than the national average. In my own journey, I left a housing commission secondary college called Monterey in Frankston North and was one of a handful of people who were absolutely committed to pursuing higher education.

My belief that your postcode does not determine your potential is ingrained in me, so I am very interested in these recommendations, but our local community’s experience should point to a need for positive action to bring those recommendations about. Simply saying, ‘Come to higher education. There’s a place for you,’ does not tackle the biggest obstacle, and that is about aspiration amongst candidates who may be extraordinarily well qualified and able to succeed in the higher education environment but who, because of their life’s journey, their economic circumstances and the guidance of those around them, feel that that journey is not for them.

How do we say to a young person in Frankston North who is doing well at their studies but who may be the first person from their family ever to go on to higher education, ‘This unfamiliar, almost alien, journey for your adult life is for you,’ when around that person they may have no signal, no message and no mentoring to engage in that pathway? This is where these recommendations, as virtuous as they are, need decisive, comprehensive and thoughtful action to be brought about.

In Monash’s favour, they have the Monash College, where someone perhaps not with the ENTER score that Monash might be looking for—as they seek to maintain their international reputation as a university of excellence, which is very ENTER driven—can get in. ENTER scores are the key to higher education opportunity. But, if your ENTER score is not that flash and you are an incredibly gifted individual whose other competencies, faculties, skills and talents would make you a wonderful graduate and a very suitable candidate, at least measures like the Monash College give you a chance to go that way.

But, again, where is the appetite? Do we say: ‘You’ve been smacked around with a dodgy ENTER score. Why don’t you turn up anyway and see if higher education’s for you’? Or is the message, ‘No, go and do something else with your life’? This is reality. This is what goes on. I think the raid on the higher education fund and the parlous state of the Commonwealth finances provide very limited scope to put in place the programs and the support that are needed. In some cases they will need to last for years and years, in fact probably generations, for communities that have not had higher education as a natural and normal part of their life journey to be able to make higher education part of their normal journey.

I know it is not just Monash that do this, but I am most familiar with Monash, particularly the Peninsula campus. Their college is one pathway in and they offer VCE research and VCE study labs to help people prepare for their exams. They do that on campus so at least people can come into what seems like a foreign part of the local community and say, ‘There are folks around here that aren’t that different from me, maybe this is for me.’ It reaches out to those people who for whatever reason may have left secondary education early, started on another career pathway and found it was not for them. It engages with those people and says: ‘Higher education could be part of your future journey in life. You are equipped, you are capable and you have all that it takes to succeed.’

Those kinds of measures give people the confidence to turn up to engage and to overcome the noise that the Labor Party put out into the electorate prior to being elected to government. They said HECS is an enormous impediment and you have to be loaded with cash up to your eyeballs to have a higher education. That is not true, but what happens when those messages go out there is that there may be some hesitation in a person for whose family higher education is not a familiar pathway. They hear all that and may go and do something else.

So we need to focus on higher education aspiration. I believe with every fibre of my being that your postcode does not determine your potential, but your postcode can provide influences in your life that guide you to make certain choices. In some communities those choices may well guide you away from a higher education career, an academic pathway, that leads to improved future prospects. Those might be the messages that are there, and they are what we need to overcome.

The opposition is not opposing this bill. We regret that the changes around youth allowance to do with reduced eligibility and scholarships, as the complementary measures that make some of this ambition achievable, are not here to be discussed and debated alongside the bill. Resources needed to achieve those virtuous goals may be scarce. Whilst certain groups make the headline statement that higher education is very virtuous, simply repeating it does not make it happen.

I invite the government and the officials advising them to connect with the issue of educational aspiration to see what we can do to make sure that obstacles, real or perceived, are not denying capable, suitably qualified and completely ready people to engage in a higher education experience that will improve their future life prospects. Your postcode does not determine your potential, but there are messages we need to overcome if we are going to achieve some of the goals that Bradley outlined, that the government are referring to and that are in part addressed in this bill before the House.

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

I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. I listened to the member for Dunkley speak in relation to this particular issue. He said that somehow we have had a Pauline conversion with respect to the tertiary sector. I say to the member for Dunkley that the only conversion that has happened has been in those of the opposition. Listening to the member for Dunkley’s comments, you could tell that they have a kind of political amnesia. We were highly critical of the Howard government with respect to education at all levels.

It is a fact that under the Howard government they spent one-fifth of the percentage of GDP that our competitors in the OECD spent on preschool education. Their remedy for primary and secondary education was to give schools flagpoles, to put little statements on walls and to underfund schools, particularly state schools. The evidence of that is across electorates throughout Australia. Their idea for tertiary education was simply this: ‘We’ll make sure that you get funded, provided you impose Work Choices on the people who work in the tertiary sector. If you don’t, pursuant to legislation and protocols, we’ll underfund you. We’ll cut back your funding.’ That is their idea of tertiary funding and of the importance of the tertiary sector.

Let us not look at this situation somehow as though the Howard government had this wonderful and virtuous record for 10 years when it came to the education sector. The federal government, the Labor government, is committed to the Building the Education Revolution program at every level—preschool, primary, secondary and tertiary. This is a substantial amount of funding in terms of the increase and involves substantial policy reform across many years. We are building a stronger economy by skilling our workforce—making sure our young people and those people involved in the tertiary sector have the kinds of skills, abilities and talents that are necessary to improve productivity—to ensure that we have a highly skilled workforce which will improve profitability in our businesses, improve the economy and therefore maintain the wealth that we all expect our country to enjoy. But it is also about a fairer Australia.

I listened intently to what the member for Dunkley had to say. We saw an erosion of equity of opportunity under the Howard government and a greater reliance on student fees for income for universities. I have spoken to the universities in my electorate of Blair in South-East Queensland about our reforms. I have spoken to Professor Alan Rix, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland. He is based at Ipswich campus of the University of Queensland. I also have the Gatton campus of the University of Queensland in my electorate. Along with a number of other academics who I have spoken to, Professor Rix was highly critical of the Howard government’s record. They are very much in favour of what the Rudd Labor government is doing in terms of taking on board the recommendations of Denise Bradley in her review. For example, Universities Australia in a media release on 12 May 2009 said:

Universities Australia applauds Federal Budget for higher education, research and innovation.

The Group of Eight universities, the sandstone universities, including the University of Queensland, said that they applauded what this government was doing with respect to tertiary education and they called it a ‘visionary road taken to university reform’.

I just wonder what was happening under the Howard coalition government for almost 12 years. They must have had some very unpleasant experiences at university in their time when they were much younger because they seemed to attack the university sector constantly. We are really strongly of the belief that a strong tertiary sector means a stronger Australia, a fairer Australia and an Australia that will meet the future challenges that we face in this century. We are strongly of the view that we need the 10-year reform agenda for higher education to position us so that we can compete in the world market across many areas. We believe that higher education is integral to our vision of a fair, just and prosperous Australia. Those opposite did nothing about this. In fact, sadly, whilst our competitors in the OECD increased their funding to tertiary education by 48 per cent, Australia under the Howard coalition government decreased it. That is the reality.

We have put forward a strong program of reform. The Bradley review reported in December 2008 with 46 recommendations and many of them are taken up by the legislation that is before the House. For example, there is a national target of at least 40 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds obtaining qualification at bachelors level or above by 2020. That would mean an extra 217,000 people in this country would have access to the kind of training that would give them security in their finances, in their jobs and in their families’ future—217,000 extra training places; 217,000 extra jobs—people involved the tertiary sector having the kind of training that is necessary for the future. That is an enormous contribution. We also know that we need, according to Bradley, to set a national target by 2020 of 20 per cent of higher education enrolments at undergraduate level for people from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds.

The truth of the matter is that for nearly two decades we have had about 15 per cent of people from low-socioeconomic backgrounds enrolled at undergraduate level. We know also that that cohort makes up about 25 per cent of the student population. There is a big challenge for us here. But that is what Bradley recommended and that is what the Rudd Labor government is so committed to doing. We see justice and equity when people from disadvantaged backgrounds are supported into tertiary education. This uplifts people and gives them the kind of chance in life that they deserve. We believe that no matter what the postcode and the financial circumstances in which a person was born—whether they were born in a wealthy suburb or in a poorer area of our community—a person deserves the same chance in life. We do not believe that education is about the politics of the Left or the Right. We believe it is about both. We believe it is important that people get every opportunity in life to advance.

We have provided many packages in terms of assistance and it is a bit disingenuous of those opposite to say somehow that we are simply raiding funds that they set up because there are many, many areas which we are putting funding into after a decade of underfunding. The decade of underfunding, the national scandal of declining public investment in higher education as a proportion of GDP, is coming to an end. It is coming to an end because the Rudd Labor government is carrying out its election commitments and listening to the recommendations of the Bradley review.

We have a new approach to higher education funding, as the Deputy Prime Minister has said, and it is sorely needed. The bill introduces a new, student centred funding system for higher education. It will cost $491 million over four years but we believe it is necessary. For the 2010-11 years, the cap on overenrolment and Commonwealth supported places will be lifted from five to 10 per cent in funding terms. In the circumstances, we think it is crucial that we do this. We think it is crucial to ensure that Commonwealth supported places for eligible students be accepted. We think it is important particularly that the skills needs of young people—and mostly young people go to university—are met, and it is in the broader public interest of all Australians to ensure that our people are educated at tertiary level, if they so choose.

The situation is that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds at high schools—for example, in my electorate—need to get incentives and opportunities and to be encouraged to go to university. That is why I recently attended a wonderful program that was run by the University of Queensland’s Ipswich campus. It was called PolyVision: Pacific Youth of Tomorrow. That is very much in line with what we are doing in terms of the University of Queensland, Bremer State High School and other state high schools in my electorate which are from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds.

PolyVision is worth noting and commenting upon. PolyVision is a University of Queensland outreach initiative which specifically targets Pacific island high school students. I met a number of them there from my old high school, Bundamba State Secondary College. It is particularly targeting those on the west side of Brisbane. It is based on a concept that was developed by the University of Auckland. PolyVision aims to inspire young people to consider higher education as a postschool option, as well as building their self-confidence, instilling pride in their Pacific identity and inspiring them to dream big dreams. I was pleased to go that night to that dinner to celebrate the young people who graduated from that course. I had dinner there with a number of them from my old high school, Bundamba State Secondary College, and also students from St Peter Claver College, a Catholic school in Riverview in my electorate and another area of low socioeconomic status.

PolyVision represents one of a number of outcomes of a two-year research project undertaken at the University of Queensland. It has arisen from a strategy aimed at motivating young people to consider the full range of available postschool options. I commend all those involved in PolyVision. I also commend Professor Alan Rix, who was there at the time as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland, and the parents. There were so many parents there supporting their young people undertaking this program. The delight, the glee and the enthusiasm of those young people—from different backgrounds, and most of them from what we would call working-class high schools in my electorate—were inspiring and I commend all the people involved. It links in very much with what I am talking about here with this bill and what this bill aspires to do.

The University of Queensland in my electorate also needs to be commended for what it does in partnership with Bremer State High School. Bremer State High School is relocating to the Sandy Gallop golf links just beside the University of Queensland. In partnership with that working-class area high school, the University of Queensland will develop strong links. It already has strong links in terms of the aerospace program with Boeing and the aerospace park near the RAAF base at Amberley which is being developed. It is important also that young people from Bremer get encouraged to go on to the University of Queensland’s Ipswich campus, where we will see many young people involved in the Bachelor of Health Sciences, the Bachelor of Nursing, the Bachelor of Medicine/Surgery, the Bachelor of Business, the Bachelor of Arts and other courses that are run there.

The government here, in the legislation that is before the House, is allocating $108 million over four years for a new partnerships program to link universities with low SES schools and vocational education and training providers. It is just like the situation with the University of Queensland’s Ipswich campus and Bremer State High School and like the young people from St Peter Claver College and Bundamba State Secondary College in the PolyVision program I referred to. The intention here is to ensure that we have as many young people as we can from low socioeconomic backgrounds involved in higher education. The funding here will ensure that our young people get a chance in life. What we are going to do here is make sure they get the opportunities and places which they deserve, because we need to ensure that their aspirations and their expectations are met.

We are also allocating $325 million over four years to provide universities with a financial incentive to expand their enrolment of low SES students and to fund intensive support needed to improve their completion and retention. Sadly, many people go to university and drop out. We need to sustain these young people, particularly with the family pressures and the challenges that perhaps their parents did not face. With the pressures of their backgrounds, the kind of assistance that they need is not necessarily coming from home. We are supporting them, making sure they have got the financial support and making sure that universities partner with them. That is why I was rapt, absolutely thrilled, to see the families of those Pacific island young people from those schools supporting their young people at PolyVision that evening.

Of course, the steps to improving low socioeconomic status student participation will have impacts on, for example, those in the Tongan and Samoan communities in Ipswich and also on Indigenous students as well. There are many Indigenous students in our high schools in Ipswich and they are grossly under-represented at our universities. They face particular challenges and difficulties in completing university and getting there in the first place.

I heard some criticism about what we are doing in terms of scholarships. We are actually grandfathering some of those programs to ensure that those people who are receiving Commonwealth education costs scholarships and those people who are receiving existing Commonwealth accommodation scholarships will continue to receive those scholarships under the current arrangements. But we are bringing in new programs. The Commonwealth education costs scholarships will be replaced by a student start-up scholarship of $2,254 in 2010 and indexed thereafter. The accommodation scholarship is being replaced as well, and the relocation scholarship will provide $4,000 for students in their first year at university and $1,000 each year thereafter—and that will be indexed, of course, because that is the right thing to do.

I am very pleased that, in this legislation, we have funding for the Australian Universities Quality Agency. That agency is going to be replaced by what we think will be a better agency in 2010—the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. We think that is important because we want to make sure that, across the whole spectrum of the tertiary sector, the research that is done, the study that is undertaken and the teaching that is given is consistent—and we are going to make sure it is of high quality. We do not want young people who go to sandstone universities receiving a much better education than those who go to other universities. We want to make sure that everyone gets access to the kinds of education that they deserve and need in the circumstances. It is important also that we assist research and development, and that is why I am pleased that we are building on our commitments. We are increasing by more than 10 per cent the value of the Australian Postgraduate Stipend. It is going up from $20,427 in 2009 to $22,500 in 2010.

While I am on the subject of assisting universities and helping young people, I want to commend the government for the assistance it is providing to the University of Queensland in my electorate for the relocation of the School of Veterinary Science from Brisbane to Gatton, where it should have been in the first place. I appreciate the support—the tens of millions of dollars which are going to the University of Queensland. I commend the Head of the School of Veterinary Science at the University of Queensland, Professor Jonathan Hill, and all those involved in making the application for funding. I think the funding for the relocation of the School of Veterinary Science to Gatton will make a big difference in the Gatton community. Along with the prison that is being built by the Queensland Labor government, this will secure employment and a much-needed boost in retail expenditure. It will improve the population cohort and it will also improve the wealth and the aspirations of young people. They will have the opportunity to go to a brand new School of Veterinary Science, not to what is at the moment a fairly rundown university in terms of its facilities and structures.

I think this is tremendous for the people of the Lockyer Valley. It has been advocated for a long time. I commend the government for the funding we have seen there. It will make a big difference to the future of townships in the Lockyer Valley such as Gatton and Laidley and also for young people from Ipswich and the rural areas west of the Great Dividing Range, many of whom come to Gatton for their funding and their education. They get the training they need in agricultural science. Then they go back to their farms and become involved in best practice in their farming communities. Also, they stay there. We have had a drift to the cities of people from south-east Queensland. If we can get people back on the farms, that will be good for the Queensland economy as well. If we can train those farm workers and those involved in primary production, that will be even better. This is a great piece of legislation and I commend it to the House. (Time expired)

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to make a contribution tonight on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. I have always had an interest in matters relating to education. While I spend much of my time in schools speaking about the need to get the best education possible, we know that a university education and such qualifications are not for everyone. I know that there are many young people in Cowan who are not interested in a degree of any kind, and they are of no lesser value to our community than those who have attained multiple and higher degrees. No person in this nation should have their value and self-worth judged by the qualifications they possess; rather, they should be judged by their character and by evidence of their effort to do their best. I hope the days are gone when those with university qualifications are thought of as being the best and all others are thought to be of lesser value. That is not to say, however, that those with university qualifications are not great achievers for this country. Without them, where would we be in health, science and the arts? My point is that, first and foremost, Australians should be judged by the depth of their character, not by what university they attend and what degree they receive.

I am here to speak on a bill which represents the government’s response to the review they commissioned on higher education, led by Denise Bradley, which commenced in March last year. There is little doubt that the review elicited a great number of submissions across a broad range of categories. That review, the Bradley review, was released in December 2008. I understand that the 42 recommendations also covered a broad range of issues, including funding, quality and standards, the issuing of places, support for students and how to ensure increased participation from lower socioeconomic areas and those who are not considered to be part of the mainstream. The review also elicited a number of reactions and counter points which I will speak of later.

How do we ensure that those who are often called ‘the disadvantaged’, such as Indigenous people, have tertiary education opportunities? It is my view that it should not be done through quotas and special funding arrangements, because tertiary qualifications are ultimately achieved after comprehensive study, coursework and exams. Arriving at the front door is the easy part; leaving in a cap and gown requires more work and a foundation and ethos that are created many years before. In Australia that begins when children are born—when they are safe, when they are fed healthy food and when they are introduced to education by the examples their parents provide to them. For example, ‘story time’ creates in children a love and valuing of books and the information passed on by their parents in general terms.

When I meet with people in Cowan I sometimes hear of their disquiet about the special arrangements that are provided for minority groups—special funding, places set aside et cetera. While some may be dismissive and call such concerns racism, I consider their concerns to be evidence of a belief in an egalitarian society where there are no special extra rights for minorities but, rather, equal responsibilities and opportunities for all. My point is that, through early intervention and steps taken to ensure that children are in safe, healthy and positive environments, you can remove the disadvantages that face teenagers. Special funding, special places and special deals for minorities become less relevant if their younger years are positive and appropriate. It is through such a solid base from infancy onward that disadvantage is best alleviated. While it may make some feel good to be able to point to the number of undergraduate students from targeted minority groups or groups deemed to be disadvantaged, I worry about their ability to pass the course requirements without that solid base of education and a safe and healthy childhood. I also worry about those who were never suited to tertiary study and their opportunities while these boxes are being ticked for university undergraduate places.

My point is very straightforward. If we get the health and safety and children’s love of learning right from their infancy, we remove the need for special deals, special places and special funding later. The challenge is: how do we get parents to raise their children safely, keep them healthy and read to them, amongst other imparting of information? That is a requirement for all parents in this country, no matter where they were born, the colour of their skin or their socioeconomic situation. Without reservation I condemn all parents that abuse their children or allow their children to be abused by others, as an abusive environment is not a safe and secure environment. I condemn parents or carers that are addicted to drugs and whose children suffer from neglect or have their futures undermined by those parents. I condemn parents that bring children up in circumstances of crime. I condemn parents whose commitment to drugs, alcohol, gambling or other vices comes before their commitment to their children, ensuring that those children do not have the opportunities that parents should be providing.

As I have always said, in this place and outside it, there are communities, suburbs and towns around this country right now where children should be taken away from their so-called parents and placed in the care, permanently, of properly assessed couples. Children should be able to grow up in an environment where they have a proper mother and father whose commitment is to the child before themselves and before any vices.

That being said, I would like to speak more specifically about the work of a university in Perth. There are several universities in Perth, including the University of Western Australia, Curtin University of Technology, Murdoch University, University of Notre Dame Australia and Edith Cowan University. It is with regard to Edith Cowan University, or ECU as it is commonly known in Perth, that I would like to make some comments.

I recently attended a launch of a new teaching degree opportunity created at ECU. The launch was held at Ballajura Community College. ECU was represented by Professor Kerry Cox, the vice-chancellor, and Professor Greg Robson, the head of the school of education, and Tim McDonald from the university was the MC. The launch was for the graduate diploma of education residency program. The graduates seeking their teaching diploma will be able to see firsthand the challenges and the opportunities their chosen career will provide them with. For two days a week they can be at a school getting firsthand experience, then undertake their course work on the other days. The program will ensure that participants will not suffer from any significant culture shock as a result of moving straight from the lecture theatre to being in charge of a class of primary or secondary students. Whilst hearing how the program would work and the benefits that the schools would receive, I was reminded how positive and innovative ECU was and how similar attitudes in our schools can allow the two parts of the equation to work so well together.

At the launch were the principals and some staff of a number of schools, with most being Cowan schools. Given the event was hosted by Ballajura Community College, the principal, Dr Steffan Silcox, was there and expressed his strong support for the program. At Ballajura Community College, or BCC, there is always something innovative happening, so it did not surprise me at all that a new tertiary program was being launched and implemented at the school.

The other schools from Cowan taking part in the program are Mercy College, Ashdale Primary School, Ashdale Secondary College and Roseworth Primary School. I took the opportunity of speaking with the principals of Roseworth and the two Ashdale schools. Geoff Metcalf is the principal at Roseworth Primary. Roseworth is located in the suburb of Girrawheen and the school exists as a result of an amalgamation between Hainsworth School and Montrose primary schools. Geoff Metcalf is a highly dedicated principal that has always looked at ways to provide a better education for his students. Girrawheen is an older suburb with lower socioeconomic circumstances than most other suburbs in Cowan. I know that, like me, Geoff sees the potential in Girrawheen and sees it most clearly in the students at his school.

Ashdale Secondary College is a brand-new school. The principal is Carol Strauss. I saw Carol at the launch, and the school’s involvement in the program is, in my view, evidence that Carol and her team are dedicated to assisting in providing the highest quality teachers possible. A teaching position at Ashdale Secondary College is highly sought after, and the staff there are some of the best there are in Perth. Graduates seeking a residency will be in very good hands there, with very good examples of teaching on offer. Ashdale Primary is a large school, under the leadership of Rick Firns. It will provide graduates seeking their teaching diploma with a great variety of opportunities, under a very highly regarded principal.

I expressed right from the start my thoughts on education and the importance of primary and secondary education. I see examples such as ECU’s residency program for the diploma of education as being of great benefit in ensuring knowledge is eventually transferred effectively to students in our schools. Beyond my thoughts on early intervention, quality teachers are going to make the biggest difference once those students reach schools.

With specific regard to this bill, making a large presumption, it is pretty hard to be opposed to much of the changes to be made. The presumption I speak of is the matter of finances. The question is: can this all be accomplished within our means? Admittedly something around half of the $5.7 billion involved is from the last government’s Higher Education Endowment Fund, so that came out of the savings this nation once had. Clearly there is nothing new about that money. It is also a point worth making that, when we look at the money being spent in this legislation, there is a clear difference between the emphasis on higher education here and the far greater emphasis on pink batts and cash handouts.

Yet this bill is an example of what a government can do when it is no longer constrained by fiscal restraint. Extra places at university, as admirable as that is, can be provided when you no longer try to balance a budget, when economic conservatism has been thrown aside, when the federal government no longer provides a shining example of living within one’s means but rather starts looking like a teenager with an unexpected mobile telephone bill. As a father, every time my daughters ask for something they see in the shops, I ask them whether they can afford it. That is what parents do, but the example shown by the previous federal government is no longer available, and the focus on living within one’s means is gone and is beyond the families of Australia.

Now leaving that issue aside, it would be useful to mention some of the industry perspectives that have been raised following the release of the Bradley review. I will begin by drawing upon the comments of the University of Sydney’s vice-chancellor, Michael Spence, who said:

I think the target is great, (but) I think it’s aspirational and it will not be possible, as the Government realises, to achieve it without also addressing educational disadvantage at primary and secondary school levels.

That is a very important point that I have already covered in this contribution. Dr Spence also said that he had been disappointed there had been no deep discussion of the role of fees in making educational reform during the Bradley process.

The University of New South Wales Vice-Chancellor, Fred Hilmer, warned the government not to accept the review as a whole, saying it was not properly thought through and costed and could not deliver dramatic increases in quality and output. He is reported as telling the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney that he and many of his colleagues were troubled by the review’s lack of a clear vision. He said that the review did:

… not clearly acknowledge the fundamentally important principles of excellence, differentiation of mission and the importance of a university education for its own sake.

He went on:

There is little recognition in the Bradley report of the special and key role played by research intensive, internationally well-ranked institutions.

Clearly, there has been a big divide, following the Bradley review. The Group of Eight universities believes that Denise Bradley, the former vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia, has a hidden agenda to deconcentrate research. In December it was suggested that the Group of Eight vice-chancellors was fearful, before the release of the Bradley review in late December, that the hostility its chairwoman was believed to harbour against the research elite might influence her recommendations. That was in response to her address at a recent Australian Technology Network conference saying that her review had stressed the teaching and research nexus to counter an extreme position on research concentration. It was reported that Professor Bradley told the ATN conference:

I am aware of the arguments about the strategic importance of greater concentration of internationally competitive research performance, but I think that there are good national reasons for us to adopt a model which continues to encourage some spread across institutions.

She went on to argue against:

… too much concentration of research capacity in too small a number of what will inevitably be capital city institutions.

It has also been widely reported that the Group of Eight, which argued forcefully for research concentration to meet global challenges in a paper released before the Bradley report, slammed the findings of her panel. The executive director of the Group of Eight said:

What is presented as a tightening of criteria for university status, based on the mythical “teaching-research nexus”, could well loosen expectations of research quality and further dissipate the nation’s research investment …

And further:

The Bradley report reflects a parochial and complacent view in the context of aggressive concentration of research investment in many other countries.

I also understand that the Group of Eight’s tough stand against Professor Bradley has been echoed by University of Melbourne professorial fellow Vin Massaro, who pointed out that the review’s targets for enrolment growth would involve producing an extra 544,000 graduates by 2020, which would require an additional 20 universities. Professor Massaro went on:

Assuming that the Government (was) prepared to fund these places, no mention has been made of the likelihood of finding the academic workforce to teach them, nor of the cost of building the necessary teaching infrastructure, nor of the plausibility that demand would rise so quickly …

He estimated that the capital costs required to meet the challenges of this enrolment explosion would be in the range of $25 billion to $30 billion.

On the other side is the group of universities represented under the banner of the Australian Technology Network. The ATN’s director, Vicki Thomson, said:

… We think that it is unfortunate that the Bradley review is being picked apart and that might diminish the opportunity for significant reform.

Representing the ATN, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Technology, Sydney, Ross Milbourne, said that the Bradley review was the best he had seen on the tertiary sector. He said its vision was to create a world-class university system. He went on:

We need a great university system, not one or two great universities.

The facts therefore are abundantly clear—that there is division in the tertiary sector about the direction taken by the Bradley review and the government’s ability to deliver on the expectations that have been created. There are concerns in that direction, as well as concerns about the financial capacity and where the review will lead our university research programs. I have also stated my own concerns.

Moving on, I also share the concerns of my regional colleagues about the changes the government wants to make to effectively abolish the workforce participation criteria for eligibility for the independent youth allowance. While that is not dealt with in this bill, the minister’s refusal to even entertain the notion that there is a problem is, sadly, just more evidence that this government is arrogant and refuses to consider alternative views. Country students will be disadvantaged by the government’s recalcitrance on this matter.

In any case, we look forward to greater Senate scrutiny of these matters in the future. To conclude, I look forward to seeing what will happen in the future with the implementation of this bill and seeing how far the government gets with managing the great expectations it has created.

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed a pleasure this evening to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. In doing so, I would like to preface my remarks by saying how proud I am of the Labor Party’s long history when it comes to opening up access to education for all Australians, particularly in the area of tertiary education. I would like to very briefly set the historical perspective. It is worth going back two or three decades. Prior to the 1970s a university education was inaccessible for many Australians due to the prohibitively high costs that were attached to attaining it. It is a shame that many bright, talented Australians probably missed out at that time on the chance to achieve their full potential. Following the reforms of the Whitlam government, many Australians were, for the first time, given that chance to study at university in a far more accessible way. Some members of this House, in fact, benefited from those reforms. It makes me reflect on the fact that, historically, when it comes to the need for dramatic reform for the benefit of many Australians, the Labor government seem to be pretty good at doing that.

The steps that are contained in this bill yet again reflect that type of approach. I do not think we can honestly say the same when we look at the record of the other side of the House either during their last tenure of government or going back even to those comparative years. Over the term of the last government there was a marked decline in public expenditure in the higher education sector, especially in comparison, as a percentage of GDP, with other OECD countries. There was also an increase in some of the red tape requirements, there was an erosion of equity of opportunity and a greatly increased reliance on student fees for university funding.

In 2006, whilst in opposition, the Labor Party issued a white paper on higher education and research and we promised a ‘substantial increase in public funding’ and a ‘program of long-term reform’ if we were elected to government. Since being elected to government, we have been determined to deliver on this promise, a promise we find fundamentally essential and important to this community. In 2008, the government commissioned a review of higher education, now commonly known as the Bradley report. Many recommendations were made in the report and these now form the basis of what will be a comprehensive overhaul of the system and, as promised, a program of long-term reform.

From the Bradley report, the government has committed itself to two key targets. Firstly, there will be a national target of at least 40 per cent of 25- to 40-year-olds having achieved a qualification of bachelor degree level or above by 2025. This will be implemented by accepting one of the Bradley report’s recommendations: to introduce an uncapped student demand driven system to fund undergraduate places. Until now, there has been a capping on the number of overenrolled student places that universities have been able to offer under agreements with the government. This will be done gradually by increasing the cap on overenrolment from five to 10 per cent from 2010 to the removal of the cap altogether in 2013. This change to the allocation of places will allow universities to manage their own student intake numbers, but more importantly it will provide approximately 50,000 more student places by 2013. This bill introduces a student centred approach and will have an estimated cost of $491 million over four years.

The second of these key targets will be that by 2025 at least 20 per cent of university enrolments will be people from low-socioeconomic status, or SES, backgrounds. This will be achieved in part by allocating $108 million over four years of a new partnerships program to link universities with low-socioeconomic schools and vocational education training providers. The aim of this measure is to provide links between schools and vocational education and training providers, with links to universities. In this way, students will have a better idea of what universities do and what opportunity and potential a tertiary education can bring to their lives. It will expose them to a world beyond the scope of their own everyday experiences at that point. Students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds also need greater levels of support. This includes financial assistance, but also more counselling services, more extensive mentoring programs and greater academic support. In order to provide these services, the government is allocating $325 million over four years, not only to encourage universities to enrol students from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds but also to fund the intensive support programs needed for the retention of these students and the completion of their studies.

As well as providing these important services to assist SES students, the government is also introducing major reforms to student income support. Students currently receiving support under the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarship, CECS, will continue to receive support under the current arrangement. However, as of 2010 the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships will be replaced by the Student Start-up Scholarship of $2,254 in 2010 and this will be indexed on an annual basis. This will be provided to all students currently receiving income support or those under veterans’ schemes.

Another major reform to tertiary education will be the provision of $57 million over four years for the establishment of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. This agency is being established to work with the higher education sector to develop objective and comparative benchmarks and carry out rigorous audits. This will allow for the access of more detailed information about the performance of various higher education providers that will assist students in making a more informed choice about where they should study. It will also protect the overall integrity of the higher education system, encourage best practice and streamline current regulatory arrangements to reduce duplication and provide for national consistency across our higher learning centres. Overall, the agency will work with our universities to strive for better student selection and retention, and provide better outcomes for our graduates.

The government will be revising the indexation arrangements for all programs under the act from 2012, including grants for teaching and learning, and research, the OS-HELP maximum loan amount for overseas Australian students and the FEE-HELP borrowing limit. The government will also be helping Australian overseas students under the OS-HELP scheme by discontinuing the 20 per cent fee that these students until now have had to pay on their loan. The 20 per cent fee has limited the success of the loan program, and removal of the fee will encourage students to undertake part of their studies overseas for an Australian qualification.

Another major reform contained in this amendment will be the government’s commitment to increases to the funding of research conducted through universities. Over the next four years the government will commit $512 million worth of funding to the new Sustainable Research Excellence in Universities initiative to cover the indirect costs of research. This is in addition to the current funding provided by the Research Infrastructure Blocks Grants Scheme. The objective of the extra funding is to raise the average support of indirect costs of university research to 50 per cent of direct competitive grant funding by 2014. The government will also be altering the structure of the existing Institutional Grants Scheme and complementing it with additional funding to become more focused on collaboration between universities, industry and other end users.

Another step that the government is taking to promote research in our universities will be to increase the funding to Australian Postgraduate Awards and Other Research Grants. The government has a stated commitment to double the number of Australian Postgraduate Awards by 2012, and as part of this commitment the value of the postgraduate stipend will be increased by over 10 per cent, from $20,427 in 2009 to $22,500 in 2010.

As I said earlier, this government came to office with a commitment not only to redress the neglect of the Australian tertiary system of the past decade but also to provide better access to education for disadvantaged groups in our community, to give more freedom to our universities and to burden them with less red tape to operate to their best potential whilst, at the same time, assisting them by rewarding them with agreed quality and equity outcomes.

Additionally, the government has greatly improved research funding for our universities and is increasing investment in our university infrastructure. These are significant improvements to the tertiary system and, in commending this bill to the House, I want to repeat again my pride in being part of a Labor government that really understands and values the pure economic investment in education in this country. We do not use the words ‘education revolution’ lightly. It is what we really mean to do. As I have said earlier, if ever there is something that a Labor government really know hows to do, it is basic good, strong reform in areas of the community where it is needed. We have done it many times in the past and we are doing it again with the contents of this bill. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to commend the bill to the House.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to theHigher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. In doing so, I indicate that the opposition will be supporting the legislation although with some reservations in relation to the issue associated with the abolishment of Commonwealth scholarships and the fact that legislation to replace those scholarships is not before House at this stage.

I must express my disappointment that we are not also debating that proposed legislation dealing with the eligibility criteria for the youth allowance that was announced in the budget, given the great deal of community debate and uncertainty that the minister has created in the lives of young Australians over the past four or five months, particularly those young Australians from rural and regional areas who are currently in their gap year. They were faced with this announcement in May and now face three months without any indication of the final shape of the government’s legislation in that regard.

I note that this legislation actually abolishes the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships and the Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships with the replacement programs announced in the budget. The coalition does support, however, moving towards a more deregulated higher education sector with more flexibility for institutions and more responsiveness to student demand. It is by no means any suggestion that we have a perfect system now or that we would with the changes proposed, but we are working towards areas of improvement.

There has been a lot of rhetoric about improving access to higher education for regional students, but the action taken so far over the past 22 months does not recognise the enormous cost and the enormous economic barriers to participation for students from rural and regional communities. Last month the parliament of Victoria’s Education and Training Committee released its final report into geographical differences in the rate in which Victorian students participate in higher education. I give great credit to the Nationals member for Eastern Victoria, Peter Hall, who was a driving force behind the establishment of this inquiry in Victoria. Peter has had a long and very distinguished parliamentary career of more than 20 years and has a particular interest in regional education and tertiary education, given his background as a teacher firstly in the Latrobe Valley but also throughout regional Victoria.

Having said that, this was not a partisan report that was prepared by the Victorian parliament. It was a report of an all-party committee headed by Labor MP for the Ballarat East region, Mr Geoff Howard. It is relevant to the bill before the House today because it closely considers the issues associated with higher education support as we move forward. The bill before the House is the legislative instrument that delivers most of the measures included in the government’s response to the Bradley review. The state government inquiry highlights the problems we are facing in regional communities, particularly Victoria in this case. In his foreword, Mr Howard indicated that the inquiry attracted unprecedented interest from communities in every corner of the state. He also went on to point out that higher education was regarded as a significant issue in every community that the inquiry visited. I would just like to quote from the forword to help set the tone.

Time and again, the Committee heard about the difficulties faced by young school leavers in rural and regional areas who are contemplating leaving home to study. This exciting time in young people’s lives inevitably brings a multitude of challenges, as they farewell family and friends and branch out into new environments. However, an even greater concern for many of these young people and their families is the high cost of university study, particularly the cost of living away from home. The Committee heard that these concerns are responsible for a disproportionately high university deferment rate among rural and regional students, many of whom may never go on to pursue their studies.

Student income support is therefore a major contributing factor in university participation. While the Committee welcomes recent national reforms to enable more students from low-income families to access Youth Allowance, it is concerned that the specific circumstances of rural and regional young people still have not been adequately addressed. Already, many such students defer their studies to meet eligibility criteria for income support and this route to financial independence is set to become even more difficult under the new system. In the Committee’s view, all young people who must relocate to undertake their studies should be eligible to receive student income support.

That the committee chair believes that ‘all young people who must relocate to undertake their studies should be eligible to receive student income support’ is of critical concern to me, obviously, as a member from a regional electorate.

The report goes on in great detail to highlight that the biggest hurdle to participation in higher education for a lot of young people from rural and regional communities is the cost barrier. It is in this area in particular that I remain concerned about and critical of the Rudd government’s approach so far in terms of overcoming these economic barriers for regional students. I stress that these are by no means my own comments with no support. Throughout the electorate of Gippsland, I have received in the vicinity of 60 letters from concerned parents, students and teachers who have written to me and I have forwarded those concerns directly to the minister to highlight, on behalf of my constituents, concerns that have been raised in relation to the government’s changes which were proposed after the May budget.

I have also tabled a petition with more than 5,000 signatures on the same topic and I understand there have been similar petitions circulated throughout regional Australia by other coalition members of parliament. The response has been staggering from people who are concerned about the changes and the impacts they will have on students who are right now in their gap year. It is a critical issue when we are considering a bill tonight in relation to the broader issues of higher education support in that the way we look after our regional students in the future is an area of immense debate in rural and regional communities.

As I said, I have tabled a petition with more than 5,000 signatures. I understand other petitions with even more signatures have been tabled in the parliament over the past six to eight weeks. The minister’s response at this stage, however, has been disappointing in that she has accused me and other members on this side of the House of scaremongering on this particular issue. As I said, students, principals and Local Learning and Employment Network representatives have raised their concerns, and I have brought them to the minister’s attention. I must stress that these are people who are not party political in any sense at all; they are just concerned about this particular issue, and there is no sense at all that they are scaremongering.

Now it appears that the concerns are coming from the minister’s own side of politics—if not in this place then certainly in the Victorian state parliament. As I said, the chairman of the Victorian parliamentary committee that was commissioned to report on geographical differences is a Labor member of parliament. It is an all-party committee which is dominated by the Labor party, and some regional Labor MPs at that. In the report, this is what the inquiry found—and I quote particularly from the executive summary in relation to the issue of the workforce criteria, which has caused great concern for students who are keen to be able to access higher education support in the future:

Throughout the inquiry, the Committee heard that for many rural and regional students, access to higher education is dependent on their ability to access the Youth Allowance through existing workforce participation criteria for independence. Although there are currently three workforce participation routes to independence, the Australian Government has announced that it is tightening the criteria. From 2010 only those young people who have worked for a minimum of 30 hours per week for 18 months will be eligible for Youth Allowance under the criteria for independence.

This is the critical point:

The Committee believes that this change will have a disastrous effect on young people in rural and regional areas. The Committee firmly believes that all young people who are required to relocate to undertake university studies should be eligible to receive government income support, and has recommended that the Victorian Government advocate for this change to eligibility criteria for Youth Allowance.

I say it is a critical point because it is fairly strong language from an all-party committee to be saying that a proposed change by the federal government in relation to the independent criteria for youth allowance would have a disastrous effect—not a mild effect, a modest effect or some impact. The committee has found it will have a disastrous effect on young people in rural and regional areas. I wonder if the minister still thinks that it is scaremongering to be raising these concerns given the direction that the Rudd government has taken in relation to the youth allowance issue.

The legislation which is before the House this evening abolishes the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships and the Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships, and replacement programs have been announced, as I understand, by the minister. It is, as I said earlier, regrettable that these programs are not ready to be put before the House today, because I think it goes to the heart of the concerns that are held by the students, the parents and the teachers throughout our nation.

To be fair to the minister, I think that the minister has been well intentioned in her efforts to crack down on anyone who has perhaps used the previous arrangements to their own benefit. Although the minister has stopped short of saying that they have been rorting the previous system, I think it is fair to say that there has been some illegitimate use and pushing of the envelope, if you like, in relation to the previous system. In my office I have received anecdotes of students who have been living at home—in metropolitan areas in particular—who have been able to achieve independent status under the previous model. I do not think anyone objects to a tightening up of those requirements—I do not think that should be of any concern—but I do not think that excuses the position we have got ourselves into now, where we are actually throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I think we have got ourselves into a position where we are going to discriminate further against regional students—and, I stress again, particularly those students who are right now in the middle of their gap year. These are the students who took the advice of their school principals, sometimes of Centrelink offices and certainly of teachers and parents, who told them that, if they took a gap year and earned the $19,500, they would then be eligible to apply for the independent rate of youth allowance. My great concern is the issue of natural justice to these students who have been caught out by these changes. They have had no time to adjust to it, and we have now left them in a situation of great uncertainty. Three months have passed since the budget was announced. We have legislation before the House tonight which does not specifically counter that particular issue but goes towards the broader concept of higher education support. I do not think the minister has really appreciated the great depth of angst this is causing in regional communities. As I said earlier, I have been overwhelmed by the response in my office alone, with people signing a petition and writing to me directly. These students are at their wits’ end in trying to know what hope they will have to go on to achieve their university dreams if the one criterion available to them, the independent rate of youth allowance, is taken away and they are forced to work 30 hours per week for up to two years to achieve the higher criterion which has been set under the proposed changes.

There are a range of measures in the bill before the House which are positive in the sense that they are designed to improve access to higher education. There is the removal of the government-imposed cap on the number of students in courses offered by universities, which is expected to lead to an extra 50,000 students undertaking undergraduate study over the four years. There are also funding provisions and more generous indexation measures on basic funding to universities, at a cost of $577 million over the four years. But I hasten to add again that these measures are worthless to many regional Australians if they cannot afford to access university campuses in the first place.

Again, I refer to the proposed changes to the youth allowance eligibility criteria. As I mentioned, the minister’s state colleagues have acknowledged that the proposed changes will have a disastrous effect on young people in rural and regional areas, and I believe it is important to explain why. I am not convinced that the minister has fully appreciated the anger that is brewing within regional Australia in particular in relation to these proposed changes. As I said, the state government Education and Training Committee’s final report, Inquiry into geographical differences in the rate in which Victorian students participate in higher education, was quite scathing of the proposed changes. What it demonstrates to us is that the government has not fully understood the economic challenges faced by rural and regional students. These are students who, by the nature of their location, have to move away from home to pursue their university dreams. Their parents are faced with costs in the vicinity of $15,000 or $20,000 per year in addition to what a metropolitan student may face in attending a university campus around the corner or somewhere with easy access to public transport.

So I highlight those concerns and hope the minister will take it at face value that the changes that are proposed to the independent youth allowance criteria simply are not going to meet the needs of regional students going forward and, in fact, will embed the discrimination. What is actually required in rural and regional areas is fair and equitable access to university education, and I plead with the minister to start listening to the concerns of the people on whose behalf I have written to her and also to the people who have signed petitions in support of the opposition’s campaign to provide better access for rural and regional students attending university.

Debate interrupted.