Belinda Neal (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. The bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and gives effect to the changes announced by the Rudd Labor government in the 2009-10 budget. I am pleased indeed to be able to talk about this government’s enhanced support and funding for Australia’s universities.

I addressed members earlier this year about the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle, which reached its milestone 20th anniversary this year. I have had a long and friendly association with the Ourimbah based campus and its Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Crump. I know that this university has established a record of excellence in education and many local students can access that excellence. The Ourimbah campus has forged partnerships with the wider community, government agencies and local businesses that bring great benefit to the Central Coast. It is a multi-sector campus, being co-located with the New South Wales Hunter Institute of TAFE and the Central Coast Community College. Together these three institutions do a wonderful job in targeting areas of skill shortage in the economy of the Central Coast.

I am well aware that all Australian universities need the fullest support of the Commonwealth government to continue providing the highest quality teaching, learning and research to students from the widest range of social backgrounds. The pressures are most particularly of concern to regional campuses, such as this one on the Central Coast. So I am heartened indeed to be speaking today on this bill, which gives certainty and sustainability to higher education funding. There are measures contained in this bill that are of particular benefit to regional universities. The reforms in the bill are an important part of the Rudd Labor government’s agenda to reform higher education in Australia.

The measures proposed here will help ensure the financial sustainability of our universities. They will recognise and give greater reward to the essential research initiatives at our universities. They will also provide quality by rewarding excellence and encourage the participation of students from all socioeconomic groups in higher education. The bill is a positive and innovative response to many of the recommendations of the Bradley review of Australian higher education. It provides certainty for students in universities, provides funds for growth and improved quality, and seeks to arrest more than a decade of declining public investment in higher education. The bill is the first step towards increasing the proportion of Australians aged 25 to 34 years who possess higher education qualifications to 40 per cent by the year 2025.

To allow universities time to adjust to the new arrangements current funding levels will be maintained for the years 2010 and 2011. From 2012 funding for universities will be simplified by rolling a number of existing programs into the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. Under the new arrangements universities will be funded on the basis of student demand, and to facilitate this the bill removes from the act the maximum grant amount from the Commonwealth Grant Scheme for 2012. This will mean that there will be no overall limit on the number of students that table A education providers—that is, the major public universities—will be able to enrol from 2012. In addition the current cap on overenrolment for Commonwealth supported university places will be raised from five to 10 per cent for the years 2010 and 2011.

All programs under the revised act will gain significant funding from increased indexation provisions to be introduced in 2012. This will include grants for teaching, learning and research as well as for the OS-HELP maximum loan amount and the FEE-HELP borrowing limit. The bill will increase the maximum annual student contribution amount for nursing and teaching students. This measure will increase the funding available to universities. It will mean a slight increase in contributions for those students of around $1,000 per year, but this increase will be more than offset by savings eligible students will reap from the extension of HECS-HELP benefit, valued at up to $7,500, to cover teaching and nursing courses. On top of this, from 1 January 2010 students who receive an OS-HELP loan will no longer incur a 20 per cent loan fee. This will assist students who wish to undertake part of their studies at an overseas university.

One reform measure that I am particularly encouraged by is the move to increase participation in higher education by students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Rudd Labor government has committed to a goal where by 2020 some 20 per cent of undergraduate enrolments will be from students from a low socioeconomic, or SES, background. Some $108 million over four years will be invested to link universities with low SES schools and vocational education and training providers so they can offer scholarships, mentoring projects, curriculum and teaching support, and practical programs run by SES schools. Some $325 million will be invested over four years in financial incentives to universities to help them enrol more low SES students. This funding will allow universities to provide intensive and ongoing support mechanisms to assist low SES students who do enrol to complete their courses. These measures will increase access to and continued participation in higher education by these disadvantaged students. They will be of particular assistance to Indigenous students across Australia.

One of the major thrusts of the bill before us today is a commitment to ensuring quality of teaching and research outcomes in the higher education sector across the nation. Under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme increased indexation arrangements and new performance funding will be introduced. This will give higher education providers real incentives to ensure that students receive the best possible learning opportunities. Additional funding of $94.6 million will be provided in 2011 to table A higher education providers, based on increased indexation of teaching and learning grants. Funding will be determined by rigorous performance targets set within each university. Work will begin with each university in 2010 to establish these performance targets and indicators, and from 2012 performance funding will be paid if targets are met.

The assessment of performance will be managed by a new and independent body—the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. A new structural adjustment fund worth $400 million over four years will also be available to universities to help them develop and implement long-term strategic missions. This fund will support broader strategic and capital projects and will be of particular importance to regional universities such as the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle. Strengthening the research base of our universities is a priority of these new arrangements. I am very pleased that the bill will provide $512 million over four years for a new Sustainable Research Excellence in Universities initiative. This program will help plug the current gap in funding for the indirect costs of research in our universities. Together with the Research Infrastructure Block Grants scheme this new initiative will increase support for the indirect costs of research to 50c per dollar of direct competitive grant funding by 2014.

Another measure, the Joint Research Engagement initiative, will refocus the existing Institutional Grants Scheme, allowing closer collaboration between universities and industry. Another practical and welcome measure is the plan to increase funding to Australian Postgraduate Awards. The government has committed to doubling the number of such awards by 2012. On top of this, the Australian Postgraduate Award stipend will be increased by more than 10 per cent in value to $22,500 in 2010. That is very welcome income support for many postgraduate students. These more generous arrangements will enhance Australia’s research capacity.

The Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 transfers and consolidates funding streams from a number of existing programs into the Commonwealth Grants Scheme. This will simplify the funding arrangements and allow an increase in Commonwealth contribution amounts for those clusters of funding. The new funding arrangements in this bill come on top of additional investments of $2.1 billion from the Education Investment Fund for education and research infrastructure and $1.1 billion for the Super Science initiative. I am very proud to be part of a government which is giving this sort of support to education and our universities. I commend the bill to the House.

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

The Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 is the legislative instrument that delivers some of the measures included in the government’s response to the Bradley review. The review, as we know, received hundreds of submissions and was released in December 2008. Instead of acting on the recommendations, however, the minister announced a further review into the Bradley review. It is interesting to note that during this period the government also announced its second cash handout—much of the funds that may otherwise have been directed into higher education. There are no funds in this process for improving teachers’ facilities or support for teachers and only limited funds for teaching and learning outcomes.

One issue of relevance to my electorate, which I note in schedule 1 of this bill, is the abolishment of Commonwealth scholarships—the very scholarships that have helped thousands of students, many from my electorate, achieve their tertiary goals. Fewer students will now qualify for the government’s replacement scholarships—a direct and deliberate attack on regional, rural and remote students and their families. Under the revised rules students will have to qualify for youth allowance payments before they can qualify for other scholarships or assistance. The government is deliberately and knowingly limiting the support criteria for students from regional areas, ignoring their equity of opportunity to access tertiary study and, more seriously, deliberately and knowingly ignoring the fact that, for every student who has to relocate to study, he or she and their families have major additional costs compared to students who can live at home while they study.

The government’s own figures show that far fewer students will qualify for assistance, because they will not qualify for youth allowance or Abstudy or be able to meet the 30-hour a week work criteria over 18 months in a two-year period to qualify for the independent rate of youth allowance. As well, the scholarship amount itself will be reduced. So the government is not only excluding regional students; it is also short-changing eligible youth allowance or Abstudy recipients. I understand these new scholarships will be included in a future bill.

I have received countless emails and phone calls from people in my electorate. One of those emails is from Roberta Meiklejohn, who writes:

… Nola—I hope you speak up loud and strongly about this terrible situation and get it out to the public domain via radio and television. The proposed changes to the Youth Allowance and the Commonwealth Scholarships are acts of criminality and discrimination. These changes will reduce rural students to peasant status.

The Commonwealth scholarships are vitally important for rural students having to live away from home. Without this extra money they would not be able to afford the high cost of living.

I have two sons who are now studying at UWA and receive Youth Allowance and the Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarship. We live in the country and are not able to financially support our children away from home.

My sons would not have the opportunity to study Law and Engineering without the financial support from the Government.

The Youth Allowance is not enough to cover the high cost of rent, food, clothing, books, computers, Internet connection fees, electricity, telephone and travel costs.

If they were able to live at home then many of these costs are covered by the family home including not having to purchase computers for the boys to use away.

They have no choice but to move to the city for their study. And we are not financially viable enough to pay for their cost of education and living while away from home.

I am a teacher and my husband works in his own small business. The extra financial support from the CAS is necessary to keep my sons fed and a roof over their heads.

This still means however that each holiday they find whatever jobs they can to supplement their income to help with the cost of books, which for both of them is extremely expensive.

It seems to me that the Rudd Government only wants education for certain populations which does not include rural students.

His education revolution excludes these students because of the high cost of living way from home.

So while I have academically able children they would be forced to live lives unfulfilled because of the cost of study away from home. Rural students will be reduced to peasants.

Is this what the Rudd Government sees in their so-called “education revolution”? If so then the peasants will be forced to bring back the guillotine.

Yes I am very angry about these changes to the Youth Allowance and the Commonwealth Scholarships because I have a daughter in Year 12 who is also hoping to go to UWA.

Under the proposed changes she is beginning to think that this will be impossible for her. Is this fair Mr Rudd??

She cannot work 18 months for 30 hours each and every week to qualify for Youth Allowance because there are not the jobs for all these students in the country. She cannot take two years off from her studies because she will lose her position at the university.

The education revolution should be changed so that when every rural student chooses to go on with further education then they immediately qualify for Youth Allowance and the Commonwealth Scholarships.

Rural students should have the same opportunities as students who live in the cities.

Students who live in the city and are at home do not have to take time off from their studies.

My son who is studying engineering found it extremely difficult to recommence higher maths and science studies after a 12 month break.

The students who he was studying with who had not taken the gap year did not find the same difficulties as the Year 12 course was still fresh in their minds.

Changes should happen for the better Mr Rudd. Not to make things even more difficult or in this case impossible. For God’s sake, someone please make the Government see some sense.

That is why I am speaking on these issues. These are Roberta’s own words—and she is not a lone voice in regional Australia. All members representing regional areas have been receiving these same emails, but it is only coalition members who are speaking up on behalf of these students and families. There is absolutely no doubt the proposed changes will directly and negatively affect the higher education opportunities of students from my electorate of Forrest, which is a rural and regional area of Western Australia.

In some instances, these changes will actually deny students their university and career opportunities. Where is the detailed analysis on the number of current gap year students in my electorate who will be disadvantaged because of the proposed changes? I have not seen it. How many students in my electorate who would have previously qualified for youth allowance will now not meet the eligibility criteria? Where is the analysis on where and how many jobs will be available to students who will need to work for 30 hours a week for 18 months in small regional towns and rural communities—of course, assuming they can get the transport to find the jobs? Where is the acknowledgement of the students’ needs to travel to find such work if it is available? There is no equity of opportunity to higher education for regional students in the proposed changes, or the acknowledgement that every student from my electorate who has to relocate to study faces substantially higher costs to access their education than a student who lives at home and does not have to travel.

Students from my electorate live at least two to four hours drive from metropolitan universities and have no choice but to relocate to Perth. There are a multitude of additional costs, as you heard from Roberta’s statement, associated with relocation—transport, food and communication with home, and they are just a few. Students in the south-west of Western Australia are unable to study their chosen or required courses. To be able to afford to attend university at all, many students need to be able to meet the independence criteria. That is how it is. This is frequently the only way a regional student can access university study. Statistics show that a disproportionate number of regional students defer compared to metropolitan students. The Victorian government’s Education and Training Committee recently inquired into geographical differences in the rate in which Victorian students participate in higher education. The executive summary noted:

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. The Committee firmly believes that this change will have a disastrous effect on young people in rural and regional areas.

This is the Victorian government report—a Labor Victorian government. It further noted:

The Committee was concerned to find that many young Victorians who wished to commence a university course defer their studies for financial reasons. There was widespread concern that a significant proportion of students who defer do not subsequently return to study.

I have no doubt that these findings would be replicated in my regional and rural electorate, and around Australia. The current workforce participation criteria allows regional students to take one year off study—the gap year—to allow them to earn the designated amount needed to qualify for youth allowance the following year. There are three main issues that will arise from the tightening of the independent criteria. The current 2009 gap year students who began working at the conclusion of year 12 under the current youth allowance criteria will not qualify for youth allowance in 2010. To change the criteria part way through their qualifying period seriously and unfairly disadvantages students who were unable to plan for these changes. How many current gap year students will be affected and how many in my electorate? How many will now not be able to attend university at all because of the changes?

At any time, it is very difficult for students to find work in regional towns and small communities, and my electorate has 12 towns or localities with fewer than 1,000 residents. Where in these communities will young people find 30 hours of employment for 18 months of a two-year period, particularly those with no skills and immediately out of high school? Agriculture and tourism are major industries in the south-west that provide employment in seasonal or peak periods, but certainly not 30 hours of work a week consistently for 18 months.

According to the ABS Labour Force Survey data, teenage full-time unemployment has risen from 7.5 per cent in November 2007 to 10.6 per cent in June this year. With rising unemployment, it is just unreasonable to expect and assume that all young people will be able to find virtually full-time employment, especially in small towns and communities in the south-west. It just displays a lack of understanding by this government of what goes on in regional communities across Australia. Even in normal circumstances, finding 30 hours work every week for 18 months will prove to be a major barrier for regional students. Also, there are many employers who are unwilling to provide a job for an employee they know will only be there for 18 months. How many students will lose their motivation to study at university or TAFE following a two-year gap?

Students who wish to complete a Bachelor of Medicine at the University of Western Australia are already faced with a six-year degree. To be forced to take an additional two years away from study to satisfy the proposed criteria would push back completion of the degree to at least 25 years of age. We know that in my electorate we currently have a shortage of GPs, and this will not help that. The changes certainly will not encourage young people to pursue this course of study or facilitate a potential return to the region to take care of that GP shortage.

Commonwealth scholarships were available to all students and were granted to the most disadvantaged students. Under the proposed criteria, the Commonwealth scholarships have been axed and the relocation and start-up scholarships introduced. However, both scholarships are only available to youth allowance recipients. If a student does not qualify for youth allowance, they are not eligible for the relocation and start-up scholarships. Therefore, there is no other form of financial assistance available to regional students except for competitive university scholarships. The relocation scholarships are valued at $10,000 less over the period than the previous Commonwealth accommodation scholarship. A Perth based university—and I will not quote its name—states that it has noted the proposed change in the youth allowance and the way that it will force students who are constrained financially to undertake a greater time period earning prior to entering the tertiary system. As such they expressed concerns over the new requirements. In their experience, a significant number of students who defer for a year do not take up their place in the following year.

This is particularly the case for students who undertake an ‘informal’ rather than a ‘formal’ year off. ‘Formal’ gap year students tend to undertake specific activities, including community aid type projects, where they know the placement is only temporary and they tend to still see themselves as university students. In contrast, ‘informal’ gap students tend to engage in casual work. They often become accustomed to the luxury of money and new possessions and have greater difficulty in relinquishing these, describing themselves as being part of the workforce. Both sets of students, of course, get out of the practice and habits of study, which is also detrimental to their return but is part of life. The changes foreshadowed will in effect force those in financial need to work both more intensively and for a longer period, and this is only going to exacerbate trends in deferment, to the detriment of participation in tertiary education.

‘Regional and remote students’, said the university, ‘who are usually faced with the additional financial burden of living away from home with all of the additional expenses this requires, are particularly vulnerable in this regard’. What a great word for rural and regional students, I would add: vulnerable. The university went on to say that these students could thus be considered to be the most at risk. The university is particularly vulnerable in this regard and thus could be considered to be the most at risk. This university is particularly proud of the number of low SES students that it is currently catering for and would note that a large number are from regional and remote communities. As such, it is particularly concerned about any change that has the potential to reduce participation from these cohorts, particularly in light of the federal initiatives aimed in the opposite direction.

Information provided to me indicates that it costs from $15,000 to $20,000, and even more in certain circumstances, for a student to relocate and study at university in Perth. Families who have more than one child attending university have even higher costs, which are not taken into account in the proposed changes to youth allowance. One of the most distressing comments that I have received in this process comes from parents who are now saying to me that as a result of these changes they will be forced to choose which one of their children will be able to attend university. Every student should have equity of opportunity to gain a higher education. The proposed changes create an additional barrier for regional students, their parents and some of their siblings, who are already working several jobs and going without in other areas of their lives to support the children’s education. The changes to youth allowance are a disincentive for families thinking of moving to my south-west electorate and an incentive for families to move from regional areas to the city to support their children’s educational opportunities. Unfortunately for regional and rural Australians, the Rudd government’s education revolution is typical of their continuous Shane Warne style of delivery—nothing but spin.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. Education is a central priority of the Rudd government’s reform agenda. This government is passionate about providing quality education outcomes for all Australians, right across the education spectrum. We are heavily investing in all aspects of education in Australia to ensure a productive, bright future for our nation. The Labor Party has a long history of championing higher education and in opposition we made substantial commitments to reforming the sector. This bill signifies a pivotal first step in revolutionising higher education in Australia, allowing us to work towards a world-class university system. It sets us on a path that will transform both the quality and accessibility of Australia’s universities and provides the basis for increased public funding of higher education through the implementation of significant structural change and important policy initiatives.

The task of reforming the higher education system in Australia is difficult and complex as a result of the 11 years of neglect by the Howard government. I would like to quote a speech by Professor Edward Byrne, who has just been made the new Vice-Chancellor at Monash University. He recently addressed a function, and his speech is rather relevant today, so I am going to quote liberally from it. He said:

Jonathan Swift has a lot to answer for. In Gulliver’s Travels—

and I do recommend it if you have not read Gulliver’s Travels. It is a book you should try and get into. Jonathan Swift:

… describes to his readers ‘a visit to the Grand Academy of Lagado,’ where Gulliver encounters an academic “with sooty Hands and Face, his Hair and Beard long, ragged and singed in several Places,” who at the time of the visit, “had been Eight Years upon a project for extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers,” and, “did not doubt in Eight Years more he should be able to supply the Governors Gardens with Sun-shine at a reasonable Rate.”

Swift’s satire, which reflected both on his contempt for the Royal Academy of Dublin and his disbelief that humans were rational creatures, is an image of academic life that we are all familiar with: the disengaged professor in an ivory tower. It has remained a popular stereotype up to today, even if we would hope that academics’ standards of personal hygiene have improved somewhat.

Tragically, I think that was the view under the Howard government of what universities were: ivory towers full of people beavering away on useless projects, not centres of learning. So we had 11 years of this view that somehow universities were not places of quality education, were not places where everyone should strive to go but were irrelevancies. Unfortunately, we now have to try to make up for those 11 years of neglect.

During the Howard years, Australia slipped radically behind the rest of the world when it came to public investment in higher education. Rather than adopt the global approach of investing more money in tertiary education, the Howard government saw fit to oversee a decline in public investment as a proportion of GDP. As a result, Australian universities have endured more than a decade of underfunding. This shameful record of public neglect is compounded by additional issues that plagued the Howard government’s approach to higher education: the increased micromanagement of the sector, the erosion of opportunity and the reliance of universities on student fees for revenue.

As I said, Professor Edward Byrne has just taken up the vice-chancellor’s position at Monash University. At this time, I would like to put on the record my appreciation of Professor Richard Larkins, who retired from Monash University just a short time ago. Richard arrived at the university at a very difficult stage in the university’s history. It was going through quite some challenges and was facing the neglect of the Howard government—the downturn in revenue. In the very short time that Professor Larkins was in charge as vice-chancellor, he turned the university around and put it back on the education map. I would like to put on the record my appreciation for the great thing he did for that terrific university.

There are enormous challenges that have been left for the Rudd government, but we are committed to reforming this sector. We stand ready to deliver on the significant promises we have made for higher education. We understand the need for a substantial increase to public funding and a program for long-term reform. We will continue to work with the higher education sector to rebuild our universities and the way we go about delivering tertiary education in Australia.

Again, I think this idea has been captured neatly in Professor Byrne’s speech:

The internationalisation and ‘mass-ification’ of higher education have put universities firmly on the agenda of policy makers and business, who recognise the place that world-class higher education institutions have in providing the skilled workers, critical thinkers and cutting-edge researchers that collectively underpin successful knowledge-intensive societies.

Thus for universities to continue to be effective in their mission to advance the human condition in today’s world, they need to be attuned to the needs of the communities that they serve. This means recognizing the vital contribution universities can play as agents for societal progress—by providing graduates that are leaders in business and the community, by generating new ideas and solutions to the pressing problems of the 21^st century. In Australia, it should be noted, universities also make a direct contribution to the economy as our third-largest export industry, and in the case of Victoria, the largest.

This bill responds in part to the Bradley review, which assessed that reach, quality and performance of our higher education system will be key factors in our future economic and social growth. It is a bill that reflects the key principles of the government in relation to higher education—namely, the belief in the importance of quality university education to the community and the individual; broadening access to higher education, especially to groups traditionally underrepresented; and basing access on merit and not the ability to pay.

This bill encompasses measures announced in the 2009-10 budget, amounting to a $5.7 billion allocation to higher education, innovation and research over four years. It gives effect to budget measures that implement reforms and increased funding to student places, revised indexation arrangements, industrial performance targets, indirect costs of research and a new quality and regulatory agenda.

An important component of this bill is that it seeks to increase access to university for all Australians, particularly people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Not only does this adopt a key aspect of the Bradley review; it also adheres to a fundamental principle of the ALP in providing a helping hand to those who are less fortunate. We have committed to a dramatic improvement in the participation rate of Australians in higher education right across the spectrum.

This bill introduces new initiatives which will support our higher education attainment ambition that, by 2025, 40 per cent of all 25- to 34-year-olds will hold a qualification at bachelor level or above. Additionally, the government is committed to ensuring that, by 2020, 20 per cent of university enrolments at undergraduate level will consist of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Providing support to increase the participation of students from such backgrounds will have a significant benefit for families from low socioeconomic groups. It will result in flow-on effects of higher education aspiration and attainment, both for students and their families, including improved future employment, economic and social outcomes. This bill specifically targets the issue through a number of measures to ensure the government achieves our higher education attainment ambition.

Through this bill, we have adopted the Bradley review’s recommendation to introduce an uncapped student demand driven system for the funding of universities. Previously, the government has funded universities through agreements on a set or capped number of places. Overenrolments have resulted in penalties, with universities resorting to uncapped overseas and domestic full-fee-paying students to meet demand and provide revenue. This has resulted in academically capable students being squeezed out of university places for purely financial reasons.

During the term of the last government I placed on the record the story of Claire, one individual from my electorate. She was the youngest of nine in her family and a first-generation university student. She got, in the Victorian system, a TER of 91.5. She had won the Monash law prize. To get into Monash law, she needed 91.7—she was 0.2 off. She could not get in and did not get a place in the law system. Had her family been able to buy her a place into the system she could have got in on a result of seven points lower. I always thought that was the archetypical example of how bad the previous system was.

The new system we are proposing will remove caps on student places and will provide an additional 50,000 student places by 2013. To ensure the quality of higher education in Australia is maintained while participation is expanded, the government will create the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency which will be tasked with protecting the overall quality of the sector. This bill also introduces a new performance funding grant which will provide universities with a genuine incentive to ensure that they are providing the best possible learning opportunities for students. It will require institutions to meet certain requirements in helping underrepresented students achieve their study aspirations. Having some funding at risk will be incentive for universities to implement strategies to lift their performance.

The introduction of uncapped student demand driven funding is the first step to a higher education system with students as the central focus. Additional funding of $436.9 million will be targeted at supporting increased participation from students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This funding will essentially reward universities that attract more financially disadvantaged students and provide them with necessary support once they are enrolled. Three hundred and twenty-five million dollars will be provided to universities as a financial incentive to expand their enrolment of low SES students and to fund the intensive support needed to improve their completion and retention rates.

Studies have found that promoting higher education to students in the early years of secondary schooling results in greater aspiration for tertiary study. In recognition of this, $108 million will be allocated over four years to link universities to schools with low socioeconomic backgrounds in an effort to increase the aspirations of students to higher education.

These reforms will bring immense benefits to many of my constituents in Chisholm. Chisholm is home to Monash University, the Melbourne campus of Deakin University and the Box Hill Institute of TAFE, so higher education is a big factor within my electorate. Monash University is, as I have said, one of Australia’s leading higher education institutions and also has one of the largest enrolments of students on the one campus, at Clayton—it is a village unto itself.

There is some irony in the fact that Monash University is located in the area of Chisholm, where many people do it tough compared to many other parts of my electorate. I dare say many who come from the Clayton area do not actually attend the university—lots of people who live in Clayton go to the university but those who have been born and bred in the suburbs have not had a great opportunity to get there. These reforms will open up opportunities for such people to access the immense educational opportunities that institutions such as Monash University provide.

Many people from suburbs in my electorate—such as Clayton, Ashwood and Chadstone—which are generally home to households from lower socioeconomic backgrounds will be able to access quality university education as a result of these reforms. Having grown up in Ashwood and been one of a first generation of university educated individuals and one of five siblings who all had the pleasure of going to Monash University, I know the great benefits that this can bring. My parents did not have the opportunity when they were at school to get a university education but it was probably one of the greatest joys of our lives to watch our mother graduate with her university degree many years later. I think that is one of the things we forget: it is not just about people in their younger years; it is opening up across the board. For people who go into university as mature-age students, as my mother did, to get a degree is a terrific thing. Ensuring that people, no matter where they come from, have access to education is something that we should all be striving for. Many capable individuals from such suburbs have in the past missed out on the opportunity to study at university for purely financial reasons. This is a real tragedy and a damning reflection of the policies and attitude adopted by the former government. Through the reforms outlined in this bill we are seeking to address this very issue and ensure that, as we move forward, access to higher education is focused on merit and not on the ability to pay.

As I have said, I also have the Melbourne campus of Deakin University in my electorate, in the seat of Burwood. It is a very large campus. Deakin University is also striving to ensure that it is accessible to all. I am sure the next speaker will also be talking about the merits of Deakin University. Deakin has made itself very accessible through its online component, ensuring that, again, people who we would not traditionally visualise as students but who are in the workforce and want to upgrade or progress have access to higher education. We need to think about higher education as for all and not just for 18-year-olds. I think that sometimes in this debate we limit ourselves on who and what universities can provide benefits to.

These reforms highlight the Rudd government’s commitment to higher education and build on several local funding commitments already made to TAFEs and universities in Chisholm. The government understands that a high-quality higher education sector requires first-class research and teaching infrastructure. That is why we have invested $5 billion for higher education and research infrastructure through the Education Investment Fund. Monash University was successful in round 1 of the program, receiving $86.9 million to construct the New Horizons centre—a vital component of the university’s vision to develop the Clayton Innovation Precinct as the most significant technology innovation hub in the southern hemisphere. Not only is the university a higher education institution; it is also the largest employer in my electorate. It does not just see its boundaries. It looks at what it can do for employment in the sector for an area that has suffered job losses through the closure of car component plants. So we need to invest in these great institutions not only for education but for the employment opportunities they bring. A new biology laboratory will also be constructed at the university, following a further $8 million in funding announced in the 2009-10 budget. Both Monash and Deakin universities shared in $8 million in recognition of their excellence and improvement as part of the 2009 Learning and Teaching Performance Fund. This is reflective of the quality of learning and teaching at Chisholm’s two universities and shows both institutions are improving the quality of their teaching, which directly benefits students.

The Education Investment Fund also delivered for the Chadstone campus of the Gippsland Institute of TAFE, which received $16.2 million under round 2 of this program. The Gippsland Institute of TAFE—which sounds bizarre when it is in the middle of metropolitan Melbourne—is a lovely little TAFE which is there with the old SEC linesmen school. It is a vital part of the infrastructure of our state—indeed of many states—that people still know how to put up poles to string electric wires between. My father did part of his apprenticeship training way back when at that TAFE and he reckons that it has not changed since he went there. So they are very appreciative of the funding, which might bring it into the 21st century eventually. This is a great initiative of this government. This funding will enable the TAFE to build new facilities that will provide up-to-date training resources and infrastructure and will help train workers to build the $42 billion National Broadband Network. Chisholm is also home to the Box Hill Institute of TAFE, which has received unprecedented federal support for a number of innovative projects. This includes $2.7 million for the construction of a green skills hub which will support the provision of training courses in the sustainability sector. Additionally, $2.3 million has been provided for the TAFE to undertake a wireless internet rollout and equip its new Aveda Institute.

These projects reflect the Rudd government’s commitment to funding world-class higher education infrastructure which will enable students and researchers to operate in a world-class higher education system. The TAFE sector was completely ignored by the Howard government. They were totally denuded of any support and any recognition. It is a vital part of the higher education sector in our society. It is a vital part of education and jobs. Box Hill TAFE is a world renowned institution and it wants to stay a TAFE. It does not want to become a university; it wants to stay as an institution that excels in skills training. I really want to commend them for the great work they do.

The bill before the House today outlines reforms that build on Labor’s established commitment to higher education. It is a significant step forward in our reform agenda for higher education. Importantly, it reverses the shocking neglect and underfunding of Australia’s universities displayed by the Howard government. This is a bill that strives to improve the quality of higher education providers, whilst making university study accessible to a greater number of Australians. These reforms set us on the right track to achieving our higher education attainment ambition of increasing the proportion of 25- to 34-year-old Australians with bachelor-level qualifications to 40 percent by 2025. It also includes provisions that will help us achieve our goal of ensuring that by 2020 20 per cent of people enrolled in higher education will be from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The introduction of this legislation will transform the way higher education is offered in this country. It will ensure a greater number of Australians can achieve excellence in their tertiary studies. I commend the bill to the House.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is of course primarily legislation relating to appropriations. There is some fairly interesting information available in the explanatory memorandum that is worthy of comment, because it points out to us that, in relation to the Higher Education Support Act 2003, the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009:

• increases the overall appropriation under section 30-5 by $416,349,000 for the period 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2011;
• increases the overall appropriation under section 41-45 by $398,567,000 for the period 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2012 and appropriates funding for 2013 to a limit of $2,067,383,000; and
• decreases the overall appropriation under section 46-40 by $355,772,000 …

So, in terms of the initial appropriations, there is a net outlay of about $460 million—although it reads a lot better than that at first glance.

That brings me to the first issue I wish to raise on this higher education issue, and that is the consistent information provided in this House by the Minister for Education, the Deputy Prime Minister. This is what I often refer to as a process of measuring excellence by expenditure, and yet the record is not good. One might remember that the government promised, as a major policy issue, to provide a computer to every secondary student, I think—it might have been primary as well. That was costed and put in the budget, but everybody forgot the additional costs involved in installation, maintaining the software and other aspects that we know are associated with any form of computer hardware. In fact, the states said that those costs were twice the amount proposed in the purchase of the computers. The minister seems to have shrugged that off. Some states have done deals, which of course will represent an additional cost to the budget. The latest information I heard with respect to New South Wales was that they refused to participate. That is not surprising, considering the disastrous set of circumstances of economic management that apply at the state level in New South Wales. So the reality is that a major budget measure failed the test of administration.

Since then, we have had the BER—the Building the Education Revolution. These are all fancy terms, but everywhere we turn we see the funding allocated there being wasted. It is interesting, because an issue got up in the media. I do not think that the particular local member, the member for Paterson, had an involvement in this matter. In the absence of the Minister for Education—she was in Israel—the Leader of the House, Mr Albanese, was acting on her behalf, and he chose to make a smart-alec comment in this place and virtually belittle a school principal, who had complained publicly in some area that they had a quote to provide infrastructure. It was, in fact, two classrooms with two associated storerooms, and they were to be delivered by way of a transportable building. She claimed that that was going to cost $150,000. The minister got up in this place during question time, and this is recorded in the Hansard, and said that was ridiculous. Firstly, the quote was only $120,000, and then he listed all the things that were missing. A price was eventually arrived at, which he attributed to the New South Wales Department of Education and Training—the agent appointed by the Rudd government to deliver the BER in New South Wales, and that was $350,000.

I thought that this was worthy of some investigation, so I rang up the builder—who got a mention in the minister’s answer—and said, ‘Tell me about this.’ It is a well-recognised firm. It has one part of its business here in Canberra; that is where I started. I eventually got on to the national managing director, and he said, ‘Hang on a minute; we’ll get the quote out.’ The quote was not for $120,000. That was added to the quote, as an option that could be considered—one of which happened to be delivery of the building and its location on site. That was for $18,000. The minister said that there was no carpet. Carpet is not always provided in the structure of a building. Things like that are done by external trades. The minister also mentioned that there was no connection of electricity and sewerage. Of course, there was no sewerage, because the classrooms had no toilets or basins. And he called the building a ‘tent’, because it happened to be transportable. Just about every classroom building being delivered around Australia under the Building the Education Revolution is a transportable. In fact, on this company’s website is a photograph of exactly the same type of building, which was provided to another school. It is actually a large one, but in terms of visual effect it is the same.

We come to the fact that a building was delivered, with carpet and with some air conditioning—which the minister said was not quoted—at about $150,000, which is just what the school principal had said. Then I had a look, as somebody with a long experience in building construction in my previous life, at other items that were identified that somehow took this $150,000 up to $350,000. One was furniture. I went to the IKEA website and costed some desks and chairs—that were, I think, of better quality than one would find in a typical school—and I added them into the price. I looked at the cost of electricity connection, which I think would have been an extra anyway, and I took account of the fact that the power was already in the school, so there would be only some short extension of wires. I looked at the fact that there was no stormwater drainage and allowed for a couple of little soak wells. After considerable other efforts—for instance, the costing for furniture at IKEA for two classrooms of 30 students was about $10,000—I added it all in and I got to $178,000. So who was going to cop the other $150,000? Who was getting it? I can tell you what: the students in that particular school were not going to get it.

That is just a simple example. In my inquiries I found that things were happening, such as the New South Wales government giving extended contracts without tender. People who probably had a contract for five or six school structures for the year just got the extra 50 that were paid for by the BER—no quotes, no tenders and no capacity to deliver. So what has happened? The steel framework for the building is being manufactured in Victoria, put on a truck and carted up to Queensland, where they put the top on it, and then it is carted back to somewhere in New South Wales, while a New South Wales manufacturer is being pilloried by a member of this parliament from New South Wales whose wife just happens to be the Deputy Premier—and that is okay. New South Wales manufacturing is getting nothing out of these buildings because the government will not let anybody else in on the tender, and those that have the work do not have the capacity to deliver. Where do you get anything out of that for the economy or, more particularly, for the interests of the taxpayer?

I will not go on and explain how school principal after school principal and P&C after P&C have complained. Because the bloke in Victoria had the courage to stand up against his own department, he eventually retained the perfectly viable gymnasium he had, which was pictured in the paper with a lovely polished jarrah floor, and got a couple of classrooms that he needed. Tell me about it! That is the measure. But in this place we are told: ‘We’ve got control measures for that. Yeah, I know we allocated $70,000 or $80,000 to a school that is up for demolition, but the money won’t get there. We’ll put it into the school next door.’ Who says the school next door needs it?

It is a mess and it is typical of the administration of these budgets by the Deputy Prime Minister. Not one of these expenditure measures is being well administered, and it cannot be said that every dollar is delivering an outcome. The government say they have $14 billion or whatever it is for this project. Surely the kids of Australia who are going to pay off the debt should at least be getting value for each dollar that is put into facilities around their schools! We had that disgraceful ad in the last election in which the Prime Minister was driving past a public school in a car. Now we need an ad where kids file into fancy new school buildings and they are each given an account to take home to remind themselves of what they are going to pay when they go to work to pay off the debt—when they will be getting 50c in the dollar.

But that is not the end of it. The minister told us yesterday there has been a decline in the number of rural students going to university, and she seems to think that is a reason to reduce those numbers further. That was the excuse she gave to the parliament in question time yesterday. The students cannot afford to leave home to go to university, and the ICPA, the Isolated Children’s Parents Association, has been knocking on doors in this place for years pointing out that, where kids live an unacceptable or untravellable distance from any form of primary, secondary or tertiary education, there needs to be some financial assistance. The fact that some farmer has a header in his shed that is worth a quarter of a million dollars does not make him rich when there is nothing growing in the paddock, but the government add up all his assets and say: ‘You’re rich. Your child does not qualify.’ Of course, the richer a person of the same financial means living in the city gets, the closer they move to a university. Where is the equity? It is not a question of means testing or of who is rich and who is poor. The fact of life is that, if you raise a family outside a 50-kilometre radius of a tertiary institution—a university or, for that matter, a TAFE—you have to have an extra $10,000 a year to accommodate that child.

I do agree it is a bit of a mess. People started to look at the youth allowance, which had a rent subsidy component, as a means of getting some financial assistance, so they could attend university. The first thing they had to do, which I do not think contributed to their education, was take a gap year, virtually divorce their family and go out and earn some money independently. Under the arrangements as they were, it was a sum of money—$18,000 became $19,000. They had to earn that amount of money within an 18-month period to prove their independence and qualify. They also had to spend it. If they had more than $2,000 of it left, they did not qualify. It was a process, and many kids took that opportunity. Maybe some had wealthy parents, but 70 per cent or 80 per cent certainly did not. A group of them have been working to that plan for the last 12 months, and now this minister stands up and says: ‘Tough. I’m changing the rules on you.’

The minister tells us that she has done some generous things and actually improved the thresholds as they relate to the means test. Then she throws in the curly one: to qualify, you must work 30 hours a week every week to prove your independence. You have just left year 12 and you are looking for a job. You are in a country town where things have been tough with drought and a lot of other things. Those jobs are just not there. So how do you qualify? She says: ‘Come round and I’ll show you the table whereby you can qualify.’ But if you cannot get a job at 30 hours a week for 18 months you do not qualify.

When this first came up I published on my website a form that could be downloaded as a petition. People could not just hit the button and protest; they had to download it, put it on a piece of paper as the rules of this House require, go around and ask people to sign it and then post it to my office in Albany, which is not a metropolitan centre. In the first week we got 6,800 signatures, which have been tabled in this place. I have with me another 1,200. Back in my office yet to be presented to this House there are sufficient to take that number to 13,000. These are not people who took the easy option and just pressed a button on the computer and sent someone an email; they had to have a genuine desire to do this. If that is not a message to the minister that there is something wrong with her proposal then I do not know what is.

The minister cannot sneer in this place at those people and say: ‘You’re not telling yourselves the truth. I’ve had the forums, I’ve had the people there and I’ve had them explain. Teach me things about this system that they don’t know.’ Maybe the minister believes the Youth Allowance system is inappropriate, which I would not dispute. Fortunately a number of universities are now letting these kids extend for another year, but that is two years out of the education system, which means they are getting closer to wanting to get married, have children and take a responsible place in society. Before she kills off the kids who have just been retrospectively dealt with, why can’t the minister say: ‘We’ll grandfather this thing. This is all going to happen in another year or so. Here are the new rules’? Rather than this prostituted arrangement based on Youth Allowance, there should be a proper policy for tertiary education students who live beyond a reasonable distance from a centre of learning.

That is what is needed, and you can call it what you like. It should be compensation for the fact that those young people are disadvantaged by distance. It is not because they are rich, poor or anything else. It is a straight-out equality of access issue. It can be measured, it can be done and there are all sorts of mixes you could have. It could be a dollar for every dollar they earn so that they make a contribution, as they can these days with night-time jobs and so on. But that should have been on the table as a transition measure and kids should not have been left in the circumstances they have been. I thank the House. (Time expired)

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

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. I am pleased to speak on these budget measures and yet another education bill. It seems to me that at the halfway mark of the first term of the Rudd government the area that this government will be remembered for is education. Isn’t it a great thing that this government has delivered so much for young people in education? I have lost count of the number of education bills that I have spoken on since the last election. Many of these bills have included sweeping reforms, including upgrades to every single primary school and many secondary schools in Australia, trade schools measures, student income support reforms, VET reforms and student union funding reforms. That is a fantastic list of achievements we have been able to deliver, and now we are turning our attention to the higher education sector.

The Rudd government is rebuilding Australia’s education system and, I believe, putting in place an education system for the future. This is another bill of sweeping change. I will list just a few of the changes introduced in this bill. This bill will introduce a demand driven system of Commonwealth supported prices from 2012, with transitional arrangements in 2010 and 2011. It will introduce increased indexation for higher education. It will introduce a new performance funding grant element under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. It will increase the maximum annual student contribution amount for education and for nursing. It will remove the loan fee on OS-HELP loans. It will add new items to other grant provisions of the structural adjustment fund.

The bill will introduce measures to increase the participation of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, which I think is a very important aspect of this bill. Funding for the Commonwealth Scholarships Program will reflect replacement of certain scholarships by new scholarships. From 2010 it will redirect the grants for the Workplace Reform Program into the CGS based grant. This bill also ends the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund and the Workplace Productivity Program. It will provide appropriate funding for the continuing Commonwealth Scholarships Program and other research programs. These are about a dozen very important provisions that will be made into law by the passage of this legislation. They are indeed some very sweeping reforms.

Firstly, I would like to make some overarching remarks about where we are heading with these reforms and then I will concentrate on a couple of those aspects. In this bill, the muddled tangle of ideology and small-mindedness of the previous coalition government will be untangled and swept away. In its place, we are putting new foundations that will consolidate our higher education sector and accelerate the race to make Australia’s higher education system world-class. I think that is extremely important because, without doubt, our universities today operate in an international higher education marketplace. Our foundations have to be strong and the key elements have to be constantly improved.

The new foundations of the Rudd government, first of all, are about encouraging participation in higher education. The new foundations that the Rudd government are putting in place are about world-class, first-class, ground-breaking research, not average research. The new foundations are about encouraging really good scholarship. The new foundations of higher education are about a system of cooperative working arrangements between the government and universities rather than the punitive approach of the previous government. The new foundations are about fostering cooperation on industrial relations between university management and their staff. The new higher education foundations are about creating a high-performing and rewarding system.

As I said, this is a wide-ranging bill and it is not possible to go through all of the detail on all of the aspects, so I will just focus on a couple of aspects that I find particularly important. Firstly, the amendments to the act, which support an increase in the participation of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds is a very important part of the Labor Party’s agenda. We are the Labor Party and the custodians of a fair go. Access to higher education is central to opportunity and prosperity for individuals, their families and their communities. This is particularly so in a modern world where a much larger proportion of jobs require a higher degree or specialist technical expertise. The second reason for supporting maximising participation in higher education is not so much about individual opportunity; it is about opportunities for our nation. So much great talent is wasted because of the lack of opportunity.

Still today a great deal of talent is wasted in Australia because people do not have the support to reach their full potential and having a go at university is critical to that. The analogy I would like to use, as a lover and long-time follower of Aussie rules, is that of the old VFL, which was before the AFL. If you go back to the days of the early eighties—when I was a young boy—there were virtually no Indigenous boys playing in the VFL, and then the AFL was started. It was not because there was no Indigenous talent out there but because they were not getting the support, help and recognition that they deserved to be able to play AFL at the highest level. It was not because there was no Indigenous talent; it was because of the lack of support. So much Indigenous football talent was being completely wasted because the system did not recognise and encourage it.

Today, the system has changed and the difference it has made is remarkable. Indigenous boys have made the system so much better. They are many of our great talents of the game. They are excitement machines in that particular code. The talent was always there but now the system is in place to identify it, support it, encourage it and give them a go. I think that is a very important story for us to tell. Australia had missed out and was the poorer for it. This part of the bill, which recognises and assists people from lower socioeconomic areas into higher education, is in my view a no-brainer and it ought be encouraged.

I would also like to say a few things about the controversial part of this bill that has been raised and this is also linked to the issue of lower socioeconomic areas. That is, of course, the issue of performance funding and publishing performance results in ‘league tables’, as they have been dubbed in the media. Performance funding focuses universities firmly on meeting our shared objectives for Australia’s higher education system. It is important that universities know that there are incentives available if they do perform well and meet certain performance measures. Having some funding at risk will be a real incentive for universities to come up with effective strategies to continue to lift their performance.

Under the Rudd government’s reform, a university’s share of the performance funding pool will be based on the size of its student population. Universities will receive performance funding if they meet targets rather than funding allocated on the basis of comparative performance. This is a system, I believe, that takes much better account of the issues of socioeconomic disadvantage and those communities. This is critical if we are to achieve our goal of ensuring that, by 2020, 20 per cent of the people enrolled in higher education are from groups that are underrepresented in the system as we currently know it. Universities will have the opportunity to negotiate targets that are challenging but appropriate for their circumstances against indicators of learning and teaching performance and the performance in relation to the outcomes of the low-SES students.

It is a very sensible system. It is a much better system than the old model used by the coalition, which just rewarded the rich institutions. The government is committed to making sure that the robust and suitable performance measures are put in place. Under this bill, individual targets will be negotiated in 2010 and there will be conditional funding paid in 2011 to providers who meet those agreed targets. Of course, a critical issue is who will decide whether or not institutions meet those targets. To make sure this is objective and done by people with the best available knowledge—

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 will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.