Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying the other day, some universities attempting to combat the rising costs of amenities and services have reported having to redirect funding out of research and teaching budgets to make up the shortfall. According to Universities Australia, the body representing the university sector:

Universities have struggled for years to prop up essential student services through cross-subsidisation from other parts of already stretched university budgets, to redress the damage that resulted from the Coalition Government’s disastrous Voluntary Student Unionism legislation.

It is one thing to deprive our university students of vital amenities and services, but it is a completely different and far more severe issue when we begin to put at risk the educational quality of our universities. It simply cannot be justified. That is the cost of the current legislation and it must be amended urgently to rescue our tertiary institutions.

Without the amendment of these laws, Australia could see a serious decline in the influx of international students to our higher education facilities. The current laws have resulted in increased social isolation for international students because of the diminished services and amenities. If we continue to allow the quality of the services and amenities at our tertiary institutions to decline, then the multicultural vibrancy of our university campuses in Australia will be in serious jeopardy. In 2005, 18 per cent of all higher education students in Australia were from overseas. Without funding for the services that support these students, Australia could face a significant decline in its position as a major player in the international student market, and therefore a significant decline in the number of international students enrolling at our universities. The simple fact is that universities need the amenities and services they had in the past in order to attract significant foreign student bodies. These services are vital for international students to integrate and interact socially with other students at our universities. By depriving the universities of these facilities we are taking away this important component of tertiary education. We cannot allow our universities to be neglected any longer. With almost one-fifth of our students from overseas, we stand to lose much more than our multiculturalism. Many universities need this influx of overseas students to maintain educational services. The funding that this bill proposes to be provided by students at the discretion of their higher education providers, up to the capped amount, is absolutely necessary to maintain adequate student services and amenities and ensure our universities continue to be seen as a viable option for international students, both socially and educationally.

Without this funding, many higher education providers have been unable to effectively maintain the primary social activity that is seen as a beacon for Australia internationally. I am of course speaking about sport. Long has Australia been recognised as a sporting nation, but, with the former government’s introduction of their voluntary student unionism legislation, many sporting organisations have identified a decline in participation and an inability to invest in infrastructure and undertake long-term development planning. The former coalition government’s legislation is effectively killing university sport, which is devastating for regional areas where the university sporting teams are some of the very few available to the community.

Another crucial service that the removal of this funding has impacted on is independent representation for students. The current laws are forcing students to face the daunting reality of a diminished capacity for effective representation on university decision-making bodies. Without this, many students will struggle when decisions are being made. The amendments in this bill will ensure that students have access to representation and are not left to face important decisions alone.

This bill is not about imposing fees on students; it is about supporting our higher education providers to ensure the continued viability of both Australian and overseas students engaging in higher learning. Without this support, the future and outlook for universities in Australia is bleak. The Rudd government has consistently committed to ensuring that university students have access to vital campus services. We are honouring that commitment. It is not compulsory student unionism. We are not changing the legislation that prohibits a university from requiring a student to be a member of a student organisation. We are simply providing a chance for universities to renew their once-vibrant amenities and services. If this bill is passed, higher education providers will be eligible to impose a fee on students that will assist the rebuilding and restoration of student services and amenities. It is for all of these reasons that I commend the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009 to this House.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to support the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009 for a second time. I think the reasons we are here for a second time can be boiled down to about four reasons. First and foremost: the opposition, if I may call them that, are hell-bent on stopping us from fulfilling an election commitment. I think one of the major reasons they are doing that is that they want to have something to say at the next election, whenever that will be, to say that Labor have not fulfilled their promises, because this is part and parcel of what Labor promised in 2007 in our election campaign and we are trying to fulfil that. But those opposite are setting out to stop us from doing that, to use it for cheap electioneering purposes for the next election, whenever that may be.

Secondly, from listening to many of those opposite—not all, but many of those opposite—I know they have a pathological, ideological hatred of unionism and, from that pathological hatred, they have associated anything to do with fees for amenities and services at our universities with promoting—and I think the member for Mayo used this term—‘Labor Inc.’ in our universities. So universities, to those opposite, are nothing more than seedbeds of socialism, of potential communism and, I suppose, the seedbeds for this conspiracy on climate change which those opposite now believe permeates the decision-makers of the world.

But those opposite have a pathological hatred of anything to do with student services. Take, for instance, the member for Indi. I do not know what happened to the member for Indi at university, but it has caused a pathological hatred of student services and amenities on the university grounds.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They wouldn’t vote for her; she kept losing elections.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, something happened, indeed! I did notice, though, that a number of those on the other side have been involved in, I suppose you could call it, union politics on student campuses in the past. The former member for Higgins is another. When he got re-elected, a little disappointingly for him but not for me, personally, he only spoke once in this place and that was about this bill and the re-emergence of ‘Labor Inc.’ on university campuses. But enough of their pathological hatred for anything bordering on unionism.

They also continue their attack on our public universities themselves. They have never been supporters of public universities, even though many of them have benefited from a public education through our universities. Not only have they attacked funding of universities, but they have tied their funding, perversely, to their perverse industrial relations systems in the past. In other words, you do not get funding or you do not get certain programs unless you introduce AWAs and other forced industrial relations systems in the university—again, this pathological interest in trying to dumb down liberal—small ‘l’ liberal, I have to say—institutions in this country.

Finally, I believe their view of politics is not to argue the substance of any legislation such as this. If you go through the substance of this legislation, which I will now attempt to do, you will see it has nothing to do with their opposition to it. That is purely political. When you ask for substantive argument about why we should not try to reintroduce what we regard as services and necessary amenities to our campuses, they cannot give it to you, except to say, ‘You’re trying to introduce compulsory unionism to our campuses.’ And on they go. Those are their four basic reasons for why they are opposing this bill. There is nothing of substance in their opposition, except that they are the opposition and they are well and truly acting like it today.

First and foremost, on a positive note, I would like to say what this legislation is all about. Fundamentally, it is about restoring a balance, as we promised we would do. It is about restoring the balance between what was taken away during the Howard era—and what is now being supported in the post-Howard era in this House by the opposition—and what existed before the Howard era. It seeks to do this in a contemporary way. It is not going to be the same as the past. It is going to be our way today. That is what it seeks to do. This time we are putting some balance back into the tertiary education system and accompanying services, after they were hacked at—and I think that is a pretty correct description—by the previous government in what was, as I have noted before, a poorly disguised attack on what they perceived as a political threat to their future on campuses around Australia.

Contrary to what some members have said in this House, both when this legislation first came up and more recently, the past legislation stripped nearly $170 million from university funding and left universities struggling to cover many vital and valuable services to the students the previous government claimed to represent. How do you make up $170 million of stripped services? I would like to know how to do that. One way the universities did it—had to do it, were forced to do it by those opposite—was to take away funding from their mainstream programs. They took it from student classes, programs and courses so they could redirect it into what they regarded as fundamental amenities and services. For example, dental services at La Trobe University and the Southern Cross University were closed down completely. I do not know about you, but having the old molar problems is bad enough at any time. But, if you are a rural and regional student at La Trobe University and you need assistance with your oral health—which can affect all of your health, of course; that is why I have always been struck by why, to this day, it is not part of Medicare, but that is another issue—and you cannot access basic oral health services on campus, it is very difficult. It is very difficult, as we all know, to access those services outside the campus. That is just an example.

The University of Technology, Sydney, La Trobe Uni and James Cook Uni had to close their legal services. In the case of the University of Technology, Sydney, this affected not only the students but also the local community, who had also accessed the service. The emergency loans scheme once offered at the University of Sydney had to close down. I understand that three universities shut down their Centrelink advice services. Nine universities shut down their student legal and taxation advice services. Childcare fees at La Trobe Uni rose by $800 a year and direct funding for sporting clubs was cut by something like 40 per cent and so on. Members on this side whose electorates include those campuses and those students have cited example after example of amenities and services being cut because of the Howard government ripping out $170 million, which is still supported by those post-Howard acolytes sitting on the other side. We all know this. Students are more than people just sitting in class and consuming lectures. Students, particularly those who come from rural areas such as my own electorate of Braddon in north-west Tasmania, require services to support and complement their studies. Those students are forced to travel, live away from home and go to university campuses throughout this nation and elsewhere. Those services and amenities are very important to those students.

I think it is very important—and, again, it has not been mentioned by those opposite—that this legislation allows higher education providers to choose to implement a compulsory student services and amenities fee. They can choose. It does not mean it is compulsory; it is up to those higher education providers to choose whether to implement this form of amenities fee. It is capped at $250 per student, it is indexed annually and what it is meant to do is clearly and precisely set out. It is not meant to and cannot be used to promote Labor, Green, Liberal, National or Callithumpian Inc., as the member for Mayo was very quick to point out in his rather scratchy contribution on this legislation. It allows higher education providers to choose to implement such a fee. It does not say they must do so, contrary to the mischievous comments made by members opposite. So this is not imposed by us from without. It is up to the higher education providers to make the decision, taking into account the whole of the demands and expectations of their students on their campus. They make the decision.

I mentioned earlier that, contrary to the claims of those opposite, the changes introduced with voluntary student unionism that Howard era and post-Howard acolytes still support did not reduce costs on university campuses. Those changes merely shifted those costs—for example, evidence demonstrates that students have been hit with increased costs for child care, parking, books, computer labs, sport, food and so on. They have also indirectly affected academic achievements, with a number of unis forced to redirect funding, on their own account, out of research and teaching budgets to cross-subsidise and fund services and amenities that would otherwise have been cut.

For the edification of those who may be listening to this debate and those present in the House I would like to explain a little more about what the intention of this legislation is and what is not intended.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please do.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Parliamentary Secretary. I know you will be interested in these details, although you would know them anyway, I am sure. The new fee, if introduced—and I reiterate: if introduced—by higher education providers comes with some room to move. I see my good friend the member for Dunkley at the table is now listening to the actual contents of the bill. So as not to introduce a financial barrier, eligible students will have the option, if the fee is introduced, of a HECS style loan under a new component of the Higher Education Loan Program, SA-HELP. The fee will be indexed along with other loan programs. So, importantly, if it is introduced by a higher education provider, it is capped and if somebody finds it financially difficult then they can take a loan to help them pay that fee.

Contrary to comments made by many opposite, particularly by the member for Indi in her contribution to this debate, this bill is not about a return to compulsory student unionism. I point out to those opposite that section 19.37(1) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, which prohibits a provider from requiring a student to be a member of a student organisation, is unchanged in our legislation. We knew that there would be scaremongering about support for political activities on campus, but the amendment is very clear on this point. This is very interesting, given that the member for Indi, not surprisingly, carried out a scare campaign about this legislation, mainly driven by what I regard as ideological motivations.

I reiterate that the new provisions prohibit the fee from being spent by a higher education provider on support for a political party or a candidate for election to the Commonwealth, state or territory parliaments or local government. It is strictly prohibited. So I do not know where the idea of ‘Labor Inc.’ being reinforced by this legislation comes from, except in the somewhat warped neurological domain of the member for Mayo and others. This restriction also applies to any person or organisation which receives any of the fee revenue. So we are not harking back to the old days when, as the member for Canning reminded us in his earlier contribution, there was tremendous warfare on the campuses, with support for the PLO, if you remember them. They are ancient days. I could well imagine how some people might have been upset at how student fees were used for contentious political debates; however, we have moved a long way from those heady days of the sixties and seventies. That is strictly prohibited in this legislation—but you would not believe that if you listened to those from the other side.

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

Don’t tell me you’ve lost your place!

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. I am just trying to—

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

You’ve had a go at just about everybody.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not quite—I have another one coming up, Member for Dunkley. I note that the very edified National Tertiary Education Union has welcomed the bill, again. We expect some mumbling on the other side, because as soon as you mention a student union you immediately get right-wing reactionary comments. But the National Tertiary Education Union, which represents many thousands of students, has welcomed the bill as:

… the first step in the vital process of rebuilding student culture on university campuses, devastated by the effects of the former Coalition Government’s Voluntary Student Union (VSU) legislation.

I also note that Carolyn Allport, the NTEU President, said recently:

“The loss of student services in the university sector has been endemic, with essential health, welfare and academic advocacy services being reduced or abandoned in almost every university in the country.”

If we take that at face value, and we do, this is a pretty sad legacy from the former government’s legislation. Dr Allport also said:

It is a fact that the introduction of VSU has seen the demise of a number of elected student organisations, with many others only just surviving. As a result, many universities have been forced to redirect funding from their core duties of teaching and research to help support student services, often at a reduced level.

The protocols and guidelines—which we do not hear much about from the other side—that will accompany this legislation as a legislative instrument, which will be presented to the parliament, are an attempt to be more prescriptive about how student services and amenities fees are to be used and also more prescriptive about delivering national access and service benchmarks on services and information that are going to be presented to students.

To sum up, first and foremost this legislation is about delivering on an election commitment to restore balance to our universities by providing a mechanism to allow universities to provide much needed services and amenities to students. There are prescriptive guidelines on how this capped fee—if it is decided by universities that they want to introduce it—will be used. It is not to be used for overt political purposes, as those on the other side would have us believe. I urge them to support this legislation once again and get it through the other place. (Time expired)

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Braddon on his contribution to this debate, as well as the members who have gone before him on our side of the House. I rise today to voice my strong support for the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill 2009. The bill will amend the previous government’s voluntary student unionism legislation and deliver a balanced, measured and practical solution of rebuilding student services and amenities of a non-academic nature. The bill will also restore independent democratic representation and advocacy in the higher education sector.

If those opposite continue to oppose this bill it will cause the decline, or even the complete closure, of critical services at Charles Darwin University, or CDU, in Darwin. Under the current arrangements, close to $170 million has been ripped out of university funding, resulting in a decline in services in some instances and the complete closure of vital health, counselling, employment, child care, sporting and fitness services. The failed passage of this bill is likely to hit students from the bush and regional areas like mine the hardest because it will prevent universities like CDU from providing vital services which support not only students but also local jobs.

The Country Liberal Party in particular have betrayed students from rural and regional areas. The services and amenities at Charles Darwin University are used not just by students but by the entire community. Universities have reported having to redirect funding from their research and teaching budgets to make up the shortfall of funding for campus services. Regional universities like Charles Darwin are already struggling to provide important services to their students. By not supporting this legislation those opposite have put at risk the remaining services that are already under pressure. The Rudd government remains committed to rebuilding student services on campuses because it is in the best interests of our students, in the best interests of the community and certainly in the best interests of regional universities. The National Party and Country Liberal Party claim to represent the bush, but they continue to vote against legislation which would support our vibrant community activity in Solomon.

In my electorate of Solomon, Charles Darwin University is a fine higher education institution. CDU has evolved from adult education classes in 1951 to Darwin Community College in 1974 to Northern Territory University in 1989 to Charles Darwin University in 2003. Professor Barney Glover is the Vice-Chancellor of CDU. I spoke to him yesterday. I rang up the vice-chancellor because often on these bills it is important to talk to the people who are at the coalface, the people who are working in the day-to-day grind of delivering services, delivering education outcomes, enrolling people and making sure that they are looking after the people whose education is entrusted to them. Barney said to me that this is a vital piece of legislation. He said that we really do need to make sure that this bill goes through. He reiterated the point that I have already made—that it is the services on the edges, the support services, that will be subject to closure and will not be able to be funded properly. He would lose money out of his operating grants. He would have to redirect money from the operating grants, which are there to deliver educational outcomes, into support services for students.

Let us face it, many students these days are having to also work part time. Some people are going back to study when they already have a family, so there are a lot of outside pressures on students that might not have been there in the seventies and eighties. It is vital that we have those services around these people to make sure that they are given every opportunity to study, every opportunity to achieve their best possible results, and not at the sacrifice of their personal life or their friends and family. I am a former student of CDU. The experience I had there was when there was a very strong student group, a community focused group. It was a fantastic time there. There were always a lot of activities going on that were put on by the student group. It made it feel like a university community.

I was very excited to see in a press release from Charles Darwin University that it has posted a record year of enrolments in its higher education offerings. In fact, the university grew its higher education enrolments by nine per cent this year, lifting the total number of higher education students to 7,445. I am very happy to read this: it was the third successive year in which CDU has grown its higher education enrolments. Recently the quality of research at Charles Darwin University was recognised in a new international ranking for universities. The Spain based SCImago Institutions Ranking 2009 World Report published the first index of institutions that are active in research and ranked CDU in the top five Australian universities. I congratulate CDU on this fantastic achievement, one I know that Barney and his team are determined to build on.

Charles Darwin University has become an integral part of the innovation ecosystem in Northern Australia. It is not, however, the limit of its ambition. I understand, through Barney, that CDU is determined to be part of the national conversation by joining the Innovative Research Universities network. CDU has been recognised internationally for its teaching and research, especially in the fields that draw on the unique culture and natural heritage of our beautiful part of the world, whether it be in tropical knowledge, cross-cultural and Indigenous knowledge or savannah and desert knowledge. That is why it is fantastic to be part of a government that believes in investing in education and innovation.

Recently, the federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, was in Darwin and he announced a $5.5 million investment for the Arafura Timor Research Facility. A landmark memorandum of understanding was signed between Charles Darwin University, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Australian National University and the NT government to unite research efforts on critical issues like sustainable development, protecting biodiversity and mitigating the impact of climate change.

During the same visit, the minister also opened the federally funded $17 million chancellery at Charles Darwin University. It is a very impressive building that has been long needed. The project employed more than 40 Territory businesses during its construction, and has resulted in substantial revenue flowing into the local economy. I was involved with another fantastic initiative for CDU earlier this year when I joined the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, and the Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Services Delivery, Warren Snowdon, to witness the signing of a memorandum of intent between Charles Darwin University and Flinders University.

This memorandum of intent will mean that, for the first time, NT medical students will be able to complete their medical degrees without having to leave the NT. The memorandum outlines the arrangements between the two institutions for their collaborative partnership to deliver the new medical program. There is currently no medical school in the NT. Local students are required to travel and live interstate for much of their training in order to obtain a medical degree.

The Rudd government committed $32.2 million in its May budget to establish a full four-year graduate entry medical program in the Northern Territory. This funding provides a welcome change for medical students who previously had to travel interstate to study. It will also encourage medical professionals nationally to study and work in the NT, with obvious benefits to health service delivery. There is nothing that the CDU cannot achieve in the future, and possibly zoology might be another course of study. We might even be able to train astronauts, as the parliamentary secretary asked me about.

The government’s commitment to this NT medical program includes capital funding to Flinders University of $27.8 million over three years to build a dedicated network of community based medical education facilities. The government will also provide $4.4 million over four years to the NT government to enable it to support increased teaching costs and medical places for local students. These facilities will be centred around Charles Darwin University and the Royal Darwin Hospital, and will enable the NT medical program to be delivered. This will build on the existing NT clinical school collaboration between Flinders, James Cook and Charles Darwin universities and the Northern Territory government.

Over $1.6 million has been invested in local TAFE to support local jobs. This government has also invested almost $1.7 million at Charles Darwin University under the Better TAFE Facilities program. The funding will provide Charles Darwin University with upgrades on the construction, refurbishment and procurement of both the Palmerston and Casuarina campuses. It is great that local students, employers and businesses will benefit from these building upgrades.

I want to touch briefly on the youth allowance, which has once again been blocked in the Senate by the coalition. All students who receive the youth allowance will get a $2,254 Start-up scholarship every year. The parental income test will be raised so that families with two kids studying away from home can earn more than $140,000 before their allowances are completely cut. Students who choose to move away to study are eligible for a relocation scholarship worth $4,000 in the first year of study and $1,000 for each year after that. Students will be able to earn $400 a week, which is up from $236, without having their payments reduced. The age of independence will reduce progressively from 25 years to 22 years by 2012, which will see an estimated 7,600 new recipients of independent rates of allowance.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t read the script!

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that those opposite do not like hearing this. It is great to see that the member for North Sydney has finally come back to the House after being the first male member ever to have a baby! What I want the shadow minister for education, the member for Sturt, to do is come to my electorate. I want him to tell the 271 students there they will be worse off under the coalition’s plan for Solomon—the Pyne plan, as they have called it, or the Pyne plantation as it should be called: all full of rubbish and should be cut down. Under the Pyne plan, almost $700 million over four years will be torn out of the pockets of students at the start of the scholarship, and it will reduce permanently by $1,254 every year. More than 150 students will be losing the equivalent of $24 a week each and every year.

During the election campaign, Labor made it clear that Australia needs nothing less than an education revolution, a substantial and sustained increase in the quantity of our investment and the quality of education for all Australian youth. This is required at every level of education, from early childhood education through to the education of mature age students. Education is the platform of our economic future. Our prosperity rests on what we commit to education now. One thing I have learned from my parents is that education is not something you just go through the motions of. Education is not something that you just do to win an election. Education is a commitment we set for the society that we want to become. It sets us up. As the Prime Minister said:

… I want people to understand that our reforms are essential to Australia’s future—because quality education is good for our economy, good for our community and good for individuals. It will help create jobs and higher wages, and will create better opportunities for all Australians.

I commend the bills to the House

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.