Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment be agreed to. I call the honourable Parliamentary Secretary in continuation.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was addressing the House previously, I was making the third of the three points that I seek to make in my brief time today. The first point, which you would of course recollect, Mr Deputy Speaker, was that higher education is critical to our national competitiveness, especially in the areas of research, development and innovation. My second observation was that the operations of TEQSA, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, under the previous government generated much criticism from the administrators and leaders of universities around Australia. The third point that I was coming to was that the amendments in the bill before the House this afternoon will make a significant improvement by reducing the dead hand of regulatory weight on the higher education sector and targeting the activities of TEQSA in a much more effective way.

The bill is in response to a report, Review of higher education regulation, prepared by Professor Kwong Lee Dow and Professor Valerie Braithwaite, which contains the following statements:

We believe that the aspects of quality assurance and best practice currently undertaken by TEQSA are better identified and delivered through other means already in place in the regulatory community.

It goes on to say:

Ultimately, our recommendations are to require wherever possible that consideration is actively given to aligning and streamlining regulatory activities and reporting.

As the report identifies, the sector has been constantly at the behest of disruptions that steer the flow of events, and there are more to come. So there was quite strong wording in this report calling for changes to the regulatory framework; and, if I can paraphrase, I think it is a fair summary that there is a call there for lightening the hand of regulation and better targeted and less intrusive and burdensome regulation be applied to the tertiary education sector.

The measures in the bill before the House this afternoon, I am pleased to say, do go in that direction. These measures will increase the efficiency of TEQSA, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. They will cause the agency to focus on its core functions of provider registration and course accreditation and will remove TEQSA's quality assessment function. The enthusiasm with which that function was pursued by the officials of that agency led to much of the frustration I referred to within the higher education sector in the earlier components of my remarks.

I want to congratulate the Minister for Education on bringing forward this extremely important set of reforms and draw attention to the fact that it is consistent with the agenda of the Abbott government to lighten the burden of regulation across so many sectors and to allow those with expertise in their own sector—that is to say, managers at universities—to get on with the job of ensuring this vital sector is contributing to Australia's innovation and international competitiveness.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Education is a very serious business for any nation, and we have been appalled to see the declining standards of Australia's primary and secondary education when it is compared internationally. A lot of that decline in standards has of course occurred on Labor's watch. I am particularly concerned about the decline in rural and regional educational access and standards. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment Bill 2014 focuses on tertiary education quality. It is all about making sure that the universities and tertiary institutions that offer courses in Australia can do so in a way where the standard of new course offerings can be quickly and efficiently assessed and compared with what currently exists.

This bill also aims to cut red tape for institutions and agencies. As you know, we have had an incredible burden of regulation upon our tertiary institutions for a very long time and, of course, in other sectors of the economy as well. We aim to make sure that we do not have institutions spending literally hundreds of hours filling in forms when they could be getting on with the job of developing good curriculum and then having it efficiently and effectively assessed.

The bill aims to make the Tertiary Education and Quality Standards Agency, commonly called TEQSA, more efficient so that it can provide a new tertiary course provider registration quickly and, as I said, with minimum red tape. The bill does not take away the agency's role in helping to ensure that there are quality tertiary course offerings in different places. Rather, the changes encompassed in this bill will mean that TEQSA will no longer conduct thematic, sector-wide reviews of issues that are to do with quality across a number of tertiary education providers or courses of study.

These might be interesting to undertake—those sorts of thematic, cross-sector reviews. But they are typically something of a distraction if you have a number of individual institutions with courses of great value to different parts of the country or sectors of the economy queued up in your agency; those courses cannot be offered because they are literally waiting for months to have their individual assessments take place or if the institution's suitability as a higher education provider is waiting for assessment.

The review of higher education regulation was undertaken by professors Kwong Lee Dow and Valerie Braithwaite. Both of them have a very long and proud history of work in the tertiary education sector. They recommended that the government should reduce the functions of TEQSA to focus on provider registration and course accreditation. That is exactly what this bill delivers.

We hope that in making sure the commissioners and secretariat are more efficient and effective, and in taking away this broad, thematic, sector-wide approach, that the international reputation of Australia's courses will be enhanced. Unfortunately—and largely I put this down to the fault of the states in their failing to properly regulate tertiary education sector quality—we did see for a time Australia's tertiary education offerings come under a cloud as international students failed to find even a stove or power points, for example, in institutions offering high-level courses in catering or cooking.

Of course, and as I said before, we have a significant disparity between the tertiary educational offerings in rural and regional areas compared to metropolitan Australia. You can understand why that might be the case when you look at the different densities of population and the much greater costs that are often involved in offering a range of tertiary education courses in a small community or even a small regional city. I want to draw to the attention of the House, though, the fact that those differences are not diminishing with time. The difference in access to tertiary education and the different quality of experience of rural and regional students are becoming poorer by the year when you compare their experiences with metropolitan students.

I often think of the statistics in my own part of the world. The electorate of Murray is only two, three or four hours from the capital city of Melbourne and yet comparing the life experience and educational access of my young people is like chalk and cheese. We sometimes feel like we are at the back of Uluru, rather than just two or three hours away from a capital city. A lot of that difference comes as a result of the very different socioeconomic status of the people who live in the Murray electorate, given that many of them depend on agribusiness for their living and that agribusiness in Australia is a very difficult occupation to sustain or to make money in. That has been the case for the last decade or two.

The financial pressures on families are the major factors that are cited by our year 12 school leavers when they talk about whether or not they will take up offers of a place in a tertiary institution. We have 35.5 per cent of people in the Goulburn-Murray area compared to 21 per cent in Victoria who defer when they have been offered a place. That is a substantially higher number of students deferring in rural areas compared to Victoria as a whole.

And why have they deferred, given that after deferral many of these students do not in fact return to their studies or return to any studies? The answer is that 88.8 per cent of them say that they have to earn their own money in order to qualify for government support in the form of a youth training allowance before they could go on and afford to study at a university. Typically, the university is located some distance away from their home, costing their family substantially—more than $20,000 or $30,000 a year—and their families simply did not have those sorts of funds.

Another reason, given by 24 per cent of students who deferred their courses, was that the course was not offered locally; and 48.6 per cent have said that they would not go on after year 12 because they needed instead to start a career. Twelve per cent cited public transport costs as unaffordable for them to get to a place of further study. That compares with just 9.6 per cent in the rest of Victoria.

People in this set of statistics also gave another reason for deferring entry to a university or TAFE. I think it is very sad when you hear that more than half the students said that financial pressure on the family meant that they could not start their tertiary courses immediately, given that we know the best way for an individual in Australia to be able to earn a higher income during their lifetime is to be able to gain a university education. But because their families could not afford to put them through that university or to pay for them to live away from home these students were having to defer their training and, in many cases, were not able to take up their offer at any time.

What do these students do when they defer their studies? The most common occupation amongst females and males who deferred study was sales assistant. This is not something that pays very well and not something that typically gives a great deal of insight into a career that they would expect to follow if they had their tertiary degree behind them. The second most common occupation amongst young men who deferred was store person, with 11 per cent of deferrers who were employed citing that. Amongst young women 'waitress was the second most common occupation amongst the just 14 per cent of those who deferred who were able to get any job at all.

This is a serious problem. Of course, it has been exacerbated by penalty rates that were required by the previous government to be paid in the areas of hospitality and catering. That often means that a young person looking for employment in their deferred year is too expensive for the restaurant, caterer or coffee shop because those mostly want to be open on weekends or public holidays.

The disadvantage of rural and regional students in Australia compared to metropolitan students is a serious problem when they look around them to see what is available locally and where they will have to go if they wish to have a whole range of tertiary education courses. In the electorate of Murray, we only have one university with a campus literally on the ground, an actual campus. We have a number of virtual opportunities but La Trobe University is the only university with a campus. That is in Shepparton. It only offers business studies and some teaching and nursing studies. If you want to do engineering, architecture, law, science or agricultural science—no, you cannot study those. You cannot take a course in our local area. Yet of course, the employment prospects in our area are all to do with agricultural science, science itself, food technology and engineering. Those courses are not offered locally.

More and more of our students are finding that, when they do enrol in the first year of one of those courses locally, in the second and third years they are told, 'Well that course will now be transferred to a metropolitan campus. You will either have to go there to study or we will have it online for you.' Online education is always a second-best option, particularly for students who do not have English as their first language or who have perhaps entered their tertiary education as a mature age student. These students often need more support from lecturers or tutors who are in place and who they can talk to, not simply to be sat in front of a screen to interact via virtual communication. I have a real worry that, instead of educational opportunities coming together for metropolitan and regional students in Australia, the two sectors are pulling apart.

La Trobe University has just announced that they are withdrawing a very substantial number of jobs from their university campuses. We have been told that a number of those places are going to be removed from Bendigo. Already students from Shepparton are contacting me saying that they had deferred for a year. They planned to take up a course this year on the Bendigo La Trobe campus and have just been told those courses have been cancelled as staff have lost their positions. This is totally devastating for those students. They do not have the funds to shift to an even more expensive capital city campus. They do not have places offered to them in a capital city campus. They worked for a year to try to become eligible for the independent rate of youth allowance, but now their course has disappeared.

When you look at our results compared to those of some of our nearest neighbours, I say that these problems are all part of the dumbing down of Australian students. I am concerned that we have a very good system of evaluating course offerings in our TAFE sector, our regional training organisations and in our universities. We cannot imagine that university courses will always be of a standard that would make us all proud. Therefore, we do need very good agencies like TEQSA. We need an agency that is not hamstrung by having to undertake broad thematic approaches across the whole sector, which are pretty meaningless at the end of the day. We have to make sure that our university offerings are world's-best. We have to make sure that the universities in Australia who rank in the top universities of the world are not the vast minority. Rather, we have to make sure that we have more universities in Australia that step up and can be seen as elite, offering excellence in education across the board.

We have got to make sure that students from country areas like mine, particularly my Aboriginal students and my refugee students, do not continue to miss out in the ways that they do now. I certainly am most concerned when I look at the school retention and completion rates. For example, in my Shepparton area we have amongst the lowest of school retention and completion rates across all of Victoria. Our school absence rates are higher in Shepparton than they are in Victoria on average, particularly years eight and nine. We have all these indicators of stress in our educational system in my region.

In January 2010 we had teenage unemployment rates in Greater Shepparton five times higher than the working age population in Shepparton. This rate is much higher than in Victoria. In Greater Shepparton, 32.5 per cent of our young teenagers are unemployed, whereas 30 per cent are unemployed across Victoria. Even that rate is still far too high. We have a third of our young people in Victoria unemployed. If we have 32 5 per cent unemployed in Greater Shepparton with no real access to excellence of education in the tertiary sector and no access to a whole range of courses that they can afford to attend, then that is a real problem for our country.

A lot of the families I have in Shepparton have cultural backgrounds that mean they do not wish to see their sons, and particularly their daughters, leave home until they are married. There is great concern that those families remain intact until the sons and daughters are much older than 18 and 19. We really do need local education access. We do not have that and it is not good enough. I am saying that this bill is going to make a great difference and improve access to quality, efficient educational evaluation. That is a very good thing and I strongly commend this bill.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise in support of the amendments to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 moved by the Minister for Education in the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment Bill 2014. The amendment bill delivers on the Abbott government's election commitment to reduce red tape. Red tape is a handbrake on our economy and our national productivity. We in the coalition are getting on with the job of getting things done. The government is committed to enhancing the quality of tertiary education. The Minister for Education just last week recommitted himself to the sector saying:

It is my goal to do all I can to make a good university system even better, and indeed to promote the development in Australia of the best higher education system in the world …

This is a noble cause. He goes on to encourage the university sector to embrace with enthusiasm its new freedom and autonomy. This amendment not only focuses on freedom and autonomy but also works to reduce the regulatory burden imposed on our university sector.

This is not a new theme for the Liberal Party. Our party has a long history in driving higher education in Australia dating back to our party's founding father Sir Robert Menzies. When Menzies first became Prime Minister in 1939, there were six universities in Australia and only 14,236 higher education students in a population of seven million people. By the time he retired in 1966, there were 16 universities and 91,272 higher education students.

Today the coalition government stands to once again strengthen the university sector by encouraging competitiveness and autonomy and by delivering on our commitment to reduce red tape. The Abbott government's deregulatory agenda will ensure universities can devote more time and resources to do what they do best—that is, delivering the highest quality education through teaching, learning and research. This is yet another opportunity to highlight 26 March, a key date in the parliamentary calendar that the government has set aside specifically for deregulation. I hope the opposition can see the merit in removing red tape that strangles businesses, universities and families alike.

Essentially, these amendments strengthen the core focus of TEQSA, which is, firstly, course accreditation and, secondly, provider registration. Each of these functions plays an extremely supportive role of individual institutions and, I note, has been broadly welcomed by the sector. Further, the amendments seek to remove TEQSA's quality assessment function which, generally speaking, allowed the agency to conduct sector-wide thematic reviews of institutions or courses of studies. Such reviews are time and resource intensive for TEQSA itself, but also for the universities which are asked to provide input to the reviews. I also note this type of information is collated by a range of departments and businesses and is really just an additional layer of red tape; hence, Australian universities welcome the removal of this function.

The Minister for Education, upon introducing this legislation, made a comment that this function and broader issues around quality in higher education and risks to quality are better supported through the constructive engagement with initiatives and programs of the institutions themselves. As I am sure all members of the House agree, universities are a vital part of our social and economic fabric. They employ over 107,000 people and in excess of $20 billion in total revenue annually.

I would like to acknowledge the outstanding work and contribution of the University of Western Sydney whose chancellery is housed within my electorate of Lindsay. The University of Western Sydney is a self-accrediting institution with robust and longstanding internal quality assurance mechanisms. Sure, I might be biased—I am an alumnus, after all—but I believe it is a testament to this fine institution that I am standing here today. Further to this, UWS has rigorous procedures in place for monitoring and ensuring quality processes, systems and outcomes. Prior to speaking on this legislation today, I sought advice and feedback from our new vice-chancellor Professor Barney Glover—and I would like to read his letter, which says:

The University of Western Sydney … supports this first step by the Minister to implement the findings of the Review of Higher Education Regulation and reduce the regulatory burden on universities …

He goes on to say:

… TEQSA’s core function should be to provide registration and course accreditation—removing the remit for quality assessment.

The amendments … are mainly technical in nature, leaving the Act's core objectives intact. If managed with the appropriate level of caution and direction, the proposed changes to the Agency’s governance structure, including provisions for Ministerial oversight and authority delegation, should bring renewed focus and efficiencies to the work of this important regulatory body.

This realignment of TEQSA’s functions will see it fulfil a more enabling rather than an imposing role on the nation’s universities. These amendments will free universities up to focus their energies on delivering the highest quality teaching, learning and research needed to foster Australian economic development and international competitiveness; this has never been more important, considering the challenges facing our manufacturing industries.

The quality of our higher education institutions is pivotal if they are to fulfil their community remit as well as their core functions of teaching and research. This is particularly true for Greater Western Sydney, where the University of Western Sydney’s focus on quality has been a key feature of its growth into an institution making a major economic and employment contribution to the region.

If implemented with the genuine support of the sector, the TEQSA Act amendments will meet their aim of reducing the regulatory burden on universities. A view is emerging that the issue of ‘quality’ is less so something that can be regulated centrally, rather it must be the main focus of universities that wish to remain viable in an increasingly competitive international environment. This amendment will enable that to happen.

Thank you, Professor Glover.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He's a good man, Barney Glover!

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is a very good man. In receiving this positive endorsement from the university, I too am pleased to rise and support these amendments. I note that the University of Western Sydney also made two submissions in 2013 to the review of higher education. As you can see from the letter from Professor Glover, UWS has a very strong view on these amendments. If these amendments are implemented with the genuine support of the sector, the influence and support of TEQSA will continue to grow for the betterment of the industry. I seek leave to table these three documents.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is leave granted?

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I am a great fan of the University of Western Sydney, a great fan of Professor Glover and a great fan of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Development, Professor Holmes. On that basis, I am more than happy to allow the tabling.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, member for Hunter. I am proud to be part of the government that is getting on with the job of reducing regulatory burden in our economy. I support this amendment that will assist universities across Australia, including the University of Western Sydney, and will help maximise their international competitiveness. I commend the bill to the House.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank those members of the House who have spoken on the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment Bill 2014—from my own side of the House, the members for Ryan, Bowman, Swan, Tangney, Bradfield, Murray and Lindsay; and from the opposition, the members for Cunningham, Perth, Melbourne, Parramatta, Bendigo and Lingiari. From what I can gather, the opposition are not opposing the bill and that is very much a step in the right direction. The bill gives effect to the government's decision to implement the recommendations of the August 2013 independent Review of higher education regulation. The amendments will help higher education institutions to focus their energies and resources on their core business of delivering the highest quality teaching, learning and research. The bill contains a number of measures intended to ensure that the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, TEQSA, is able to deliver its activities in a more streamlined and deregulatory fashion. The measures will enable TEQSA to focus on its core functions of provider registration and course accreditation, and develop more efficient processes around these functions.

To support TEQSA's focus on its core functions, the bill will remove TEQSA's quality assessment function, which enables the agency to conduct sector-wide thematic reviews of institutions or courses of study. The bill will enhance TEQSA's capacity to delegate its powers to appropriate TEQSA staff. This will support swifter decision making and faster turnaround of provider applications. This amendment will also ensure that applicants seeking to appeal a TEQSA decision can access TEQSA's internal review mechanisms rather than always having to seek review through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Furthermore, the bill will improve TEQSA's ability to manage the registration and accreditation processes more flexibly by enabling TEQSA to extend periods of registration and accreditation. As a result, where these have been out of sync previously, institutions will be able to make a concurrent application for both processes.

In line with TEQSA's refined functions and improved efficiency, the bill provides the minister the flexibility to better determine the number of commissioners required to support TEQSA's renewed focus on its core activities. Currently, the act contains a rigid requirement about the number of commissioners and the basis of their employment. In light of the review report, it is clear that this is not appropriate. As such the bill allows for the appointment of fewer commissioners, removes the requirement to appoint full and part-time commissioners and separates the role and responsibilities of the chief commissioner and the chief executive officer. This will give greater flexibility in determining the most efficient and effective structure for TEQSA, consistent with its strategic and operational requirements. To give effect to this, the bill provides for the current commissioner appointments to be curtailed to 21 days after royal assent for the position of chief commissioner and three months after royal assent for the positions of commissioner. This will allow for appointments to be made under the new arrangements. Incumbent commissioners are eligible to apply for appointment to the new positions.

The bill standardises the existing direction power to allow the minister to give a general direction in relation to the performance of TEQSA's functions in the exercise of its powers. The amendments also ensure that TEQSA seeks the minister's approval before making changes to the fees it charges higher education institutions. Finally, the bill provides for a number of technical amendments suggested by TEQSA. I commend the bill to the House.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that the bill be now read a second time to which the honourable member for Cunningham has moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.