Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion namely:

The government undermining the future of higher education.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a matter of public importance because higher education in this country is at a crossroads. The chief higher education minister of the nation has no adoptable strategy for higher education in this country. At the moment, under the current minister, government policy offers no hope for a bright future for universities. The government has no adoptable plan for higher education. By 'adoptable', I mean one which can convince a sufficient majority in the Senate to vote for it. This is a government who does not believe that its own ideas will be accepted by the Senate, yet it persists with them, wasting valuable time when we need to have a much better debate about higher education. This government says it believes in the deregulation of higher education, but its model of deregulation will lead to higher prices and fewer students completing university.

Every government throughout the history of the Commonwealth has had to deal with the Senate. So why is it that we have a minister for higher education who is proving so incapable of dealing with higher education? This minister loves to refer to himself in terms of Bismarck, Ataturk, Churchill; but in fact this is a minister who has become a parody of himself. His Sky News interview is remarkable, cringe-worthy television. I almost thought that Clarke and Dawe had captured the studio, until I realised that it was the real thing on show.

This week we saw the so-called minister for higher education threaten the jobs of 1,700 scientists and $150 million worth of research funding. I give this minister points for one thing: he has no shame. Yesterday, with a smile fixed on his face, he said, 'I was fixing the problem.' The problem is that the minister created the problem by taking 1,700 jobs hostage. I have never seen such a poorly executed negotiating strategy in all my time in parliament. He goes to the crossbench senators, to Labor and to other senators, and says: 'I have an amazing plan to you. Vote to increase to $100,000 fees, vote to make it harder for working class kids, harder for kids from the regions, harder for adults and harder for mature age students from the regions go to university.' He said, 'If you don't vote for this unfair plan'—which is a broken promise—'the science research of Australia will get it in the neck.' Of course, he now says, 'I never really meant that—or maybe it was just me creating an issue so I could fix the issue.' The truth of the matter is that he said that threatening 1,700 scientists' jobs was inextricably linked with his funding proposals for higher education. He is now desperately looking through his file to try to prove that he did not in fact say that.

The truth of the matter is that that television interview will go down in history as one of the most famous television interviews ever given by a coalition minister. He is desperate to introduce $100,000 degrees. It is always funny to find someone who gives themselves their own nickname—that is never a good sign. He promoted himself to 'Fixer'. Not only did he give himself a nickname; it is not the correct nickname. He has changed his policies three times, and he puts this policy, which is well beyond redemption, up again to the Senate and assumes that people are kidded.

The good news for higher education in this country is that Labor has stood by one principle through all of this: we believe it is not someone's wealth which should determine whether they get access to higher education; it is how hard they work and how good their marks are. Labor has fought the debt sentence of Christopher Pyne and we are winning. Then we see this fellow again, with all the front of Myer, saying: 'No worries, it's only a flesh wound,' like the Black Knight out of Monty Python. He has promised Australia that he will present the same policies at the next election. Please do, and we will beat you on that proposition too. By contrast, Labor has a very positive view about the future of higher education. We do not believe that higher education is in the doldrums. We understand that hundreds of thousands of students, hundreds of thousands of teachers and researchers, great universities across Australia, are working positively for their future. They just need a minister for higher education who is as switched on as they are.

Labor has made it clear that we will not offer a return to the past in university policy. We are listening, we are consulting and we are working with universities. When we talk about working with universities, we do not just mean vice-chancellors, as important as they are. We are talking about students, about academics, about parents and about businesses. There are many more stakeholders in higher education than this minister for higher education ever cites in support of his propositions.

We are committed to sustainable funding for universities. We believe in growth in the system; we do not believe in freezing places. But we also understand that the parliament needs to have a big conversation about the future of research funding, and we say that research jobs should not be held hostage by political brinksmanship. The sheer cheek of this current minister for higher education to verbal Professor Brian Schmidt, Nobel prize laureate, and imply in the parliament, in question time, as he did, that somehow Professor Schmidt endorses his policies, when that is not correct. The selective honesty, the periodic cherry picking of individual quotes, the twisting of the words of respected scientists and researchers to justify the government's unfair agenda, is not on. Those opposite would not let us table a quote from Professor Schmidt during question time. When Professor Schmidt heard about the Fixer's latest hostage-taking issue—when the Fixer said that 1,700 research jobs would get it in the neck, that $150 million would not be funded—he said, 'Australia does not have time for these childish tactics,' and he is correct.

Labor recognises the importance of higher education. By 2020, two out of every three jobs will require a university degree. We understand, unlike the rotten industrial relations agenda of this mob opposite, that we have to invest in skills and training and higher wages, not a race to the bottom, taking away the safety net of our industrial relations system. Labor has goals for higher education of access and equity. That is the right direction for Australian higher education. When Labor was in office, due to its policies, 190,000 extra students got the opportunity to go to university. We are on target that, by 2025, 40 per cent of Australians under 35 will have a bachelor's degree. By 2020, Labor's target was that 20 per cent of children from disadvantaged families would have the opportunity to go to university, boosting enrolments for Indigenous students, kids from the bush, poor families, first-generation migrants.

We also understand that the future of higher education has to involve making sure that students finish—that they complete year 12 and they complete their opportunities at university. Labor believes in certainty and autonomy for universities and the decisions they make, but we also recognise that taxpayers have a legitimate expectation of accountability. Parents, students and employers should be able to expect that the higher education dollars that they spend are spent in an accountable manner. Labor will develop and find the right balance between accountability and autonomy.

It is long overdue for this government to start talking about better integration with vocational education; it is long overdue that we start putting resources back into the TAFEs sector and sub-bachelor programs—not presiding over the sorts of rorts that we see in the private market of the vocational education sector, where, under this government, we have seen an explosion in the system. They are now saying that there is a problem. Yes, there is a problem: the government policies of this mob on vocational education.

We certainly see that we need to have more inclusive system which give students a pathway to make the right choices for their future. Labor will work on all of these propositions. They are the principles that Australians interested in higher education want to see and they are the ones that we will deliver. We are committed to making sure that Australia is more productive and more innovative. We understand that it is skills and knowledge that will drive the new economy. We are not pessimistic about the future of higher education; we are just pessimistic about the higher education minister. We are tired, as will Australians are, of the constant noise from this minister—the uncertainty, the backflips and the circus performance from a minister who has generated a lot of controversy and indecision, but no outcomes.

It is time for a real conversation with parents, with students, with employers, with universities and researchers about sustainable education. But the conversation must always have at its core that we view higher education not as a private benefit, but as a public benefit. We will never, ever, support the views of this rotten higher education minister, who says that people who have not been to university begrudge those who do.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, the government will not be agreeing with the Leader of the Opposition's motion. The Leader of the Opposition said that Labor was proud of their record in government and that they value education. Let me explain what Labor believed in, Madam Speaker, when they were in government. Let me explain what they did to higher education sector when they were in government—this is record that the Leader of the Opposition says he is so proud of.

In the 2013-14 budget, they saved $902 million by imposing an efficiency dividend of two per cent in 2014 and 1.25 per cent in 2015. They removed the 10 per cent HECS HELP up-front discount and the five per cent HELP refund bonus, saving $276 million. They converted the Student Start-up Scholarships to student loans, saving $1.182 billion. They put a cap on the tax deductibility of self-education expenses of $520 million. In the 2012-13 MYEFO, Labor's very proud record, which the Leader of the Opposition talked about, was a general interest charge on Student Income Support debt, saving $7.5 million. A pause in Student Start-up Scholarships indexation saved $103 million; a change in the rate of funding for the Sustainable Research Excellence program saved $563 million. They saved $200 million by delaying for a further three years the extension of Student Income Support to all students in coursework masters programs. They save $384 million in the cessation of facilitation funding; they saved $42 million by removing the eligibility to CSPs and help for overseas students; they saved $324 million for increased contributions for maths and science students; they saved a whopping $1.03 billion to reinstate band 2 student contributions for maths, statistics and science units. They reduced reward funding by $487 million and they reduced the HECS HELP discount and voluntary repayment bonus, saving $607 million.

In the period from 2011-12 to the time they left government, the Labor Party's proud record in higher education was to cut $6.66 billion from higher education. I table the document listing those cuts. That was the Labor Party's proud record of achievement in higher education and the Leader of the Opposition has the gall to come into the House this afternoon and try to lecture the government about higher education reform. What the Labor Party did was take the higher education sector for granted, assume they would always vote for them and use them as a cash cow to fund their profligate spending in so many other areas of government. So what this government is trying to do is fix the Labor Party's mess; we are trying to put the money back into the national collaborative and research infrastructure scheme, which Labor defunded. In fact, Penny Wong said in the Senate today that it was 'a lapsing program'—in other words, Labor had no intention of re-funding it. We want to re-fund the future fellows midcareer researchers so that midcareer researchers in Australia can access the Future Fellows program—it is another funding cliff left by the previous government.

We are trying to expand scholarships in Australia to make it the biggest scholarships program in Australian history so that more student—from low socioeconomic status background, from rural and regional Australia, from disadvantaged backgrounds—get the chance to go to university and transform their lives. In fact Michael Spence, the Vice-Chancellor of Sydney university, says that, if these reforms go through, he will be able to increase his scholarships from 700 a year to 9000 a year. I do not know which university the Deputy Leader of the Labor Party went to—it may well have been Sydney university—and her vice-chancellor, I assume, wants to increase the number of scholarships from 700 to 9000. And he says that will allow him to change the demographic make-up of his university from six per cent low SES to 30 per cent low SES. This is the reform the government is trying to bring in; this is the reform that the Labor Party and the Greens are blocking in the Senate. It is an expansion of opportunity.

We are also trying to expand the demand-driven funding system to pathway programs, sub-bachelor courses, diplomas and associate degrees so that any young person who wants to do a pathway program that leads on to undergraduate education can do so. Labor left the cap in place on those. They took the cap off undergraduate places, and we supported that. In spite of them not taking that policy to the election in 2010, we supported it because we thought it was the right thing to do. Julia Gillard, when she was the Minister for Education, and I negotiated an outcome that expanded youth allowance for rural and regional Australians—not as far as we would have liked but it did some good work—and we supported that reform.

We want to expand the demand-driven system to pathway programs because we know, because of the Kemp-Norton report, that young people who do pathway programs have a one per cent dropout rate; but, if they do not, they have a 24 per cent dropout rate. And who are the people who most use pathway programs? They are the low-SES students and the first-generation university goers.

Again, this side of the House is trying to expand opportunity at universities to support aspirational Australians, as has been our party tradition since we were founded in 1944 by Sir Robert Menzies—opening up the university system, creating universities across Australia. When Sir Robert Menzies was elected Prime Minister in 1939, there were six universities; by the time he left, there were 18 universities. He increased the number of students at uni by 10 times. The Howard government continued, and this government is continuing, that tradition of expanding opportunity, particularly for low-SES and first-generation university students.

We are trying to expand the Commonwealth Grant Scheme to non-university higher education providers. We are taking away the 25 per cent and 20 per cent premiums on VET FEE-HELP loans and HELP loans. Why are we doing that? Because it will help 130,000 Australians with the costs of their education, expanding opportunity by reducing the costs for those students. Our measures will lead to 80,000 more students a year getting the opportunity to go to uni by 2018. A total of 210,000 students will benefit from our reforms. They are the reforms that Labor and the Greens are blocking in the Senate. Through these reforms, we will improve the university system and make a big difference to students at university and to those who will go to university in the future.

Labor's alternative represents an existential threat to universities, because Labor want to bring back caps, they want to pay on outcomes, they want compacts with universities. This will lead to a $520 million hit in revenue to universities and lead to 37,000 fewer students. Chris Bowen, the member for McMahon, and Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister, described the demand-driven funding system for undergraduate degrees as one of their proudest achievements. The current opposition, led by the shadow minister for education—who has led them up the garden path—are looking at slamming the door on those reforms that the previous, Labor government introduced. I am shocked that the member for Sydney, who is sitting at the table, would support that. I am shocked that the Leader of the Opposition would allow Senator Carr to run this agenda in such a way that it will shut the door on future students being able to go to university.

Many of the Labor Party's own figures agree with the government, whether it is Peter Beattie, whether it is Gareth Evans. People like John Dawkins, the former Treasurer, and people like Bruce Chapman are saying that the Labor Party needs to get into the conversation because higher education reform is too important to cede responsibility for it to the coalition. Andrew Leigh, the shadow Assistant Treasurer, has himself said: 'Australian universities should be free to set student fees according to the market value of their degrees. A deregulated or market-based HECS will make the student contribution system fairer because the fees students pay will more closely approximate the value they receive through future earnings.'

So we know the Labor Party is split on this matter, when people like Gareth Evans support the reforms. The Chair of Regional Universities Network—which many of my colleagues who are here in the chamber today pay a lot of attention to, and they should—Peter Lee, the Vice-Chancellor of Southern Cross University, said today:

RUN urges the Senate to end the uncertainty for students and universities and to pass the package.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have seldom heard a contribution in this place that bears less relation to reality than the one we just heard from the Minister for Education. 'The fixer' certainly displayed his tenuous grip on reality in that contribution! He talked about the University of Sydney and the University of Technology in my electorate. I have been with students and academics at both of those institutions in recent weeks, particularly during O week. The students are desperately worried about the financial penalties that they will incur in undertaking a degree, while the academics are desperately worried that young people will not be able to afford to do the courses that they are offering.

The Minister for Education talked about how great it would be when Sydney university could offer more scholarships. I have two things to say about that. First, these scholarships are funded by the fees of other students. They are not through the generosity of the universities or the generosity of the education minister. Second, the reason that you need 9,000 scholarships is that ordinary kids will not be able to afford to go to university under this minister's education plans.

We say that bright kids should be able to go to university based on their ability, based on their desire to work hard, based on the passions that they have and the interests that they want to pursue professionally. We know that, after those bright kids go to university, they will repay the investment we as a community make in their education by working hard for our nation and by paying their taxes—by earning well and paying more taxes over the years. Eighty-eight per cent of people want their kids to be able to go to university. The minister says, 'Why should a factory worker, why should a taxi driver, why should a shopkeeper pay for someone else's kids to go to university?' I will tell you why my dad, who was a plumber, and my mum, who was a housewife, were happy to pay their taxes: because they were delighted that they had three children who, if they worked hard, if they tried hard and if they were bright, could one day go to university.

I am reminded of that brilliant speech that Neil Kinnock made in 1987. He asked why he was 'the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university' and why his wife, Glenys, was 'the first woman in her family for a thousand generations' to go to university? Was it because their predecessors were dumb? Was it because they were weak? It was not. It was because the previous generations did not have the structures, like those we have now, to collectively contribute to the education of all children so that those children are raised up as individuals. They benefit and their families benefit, but we as a nation benefit too.

We know that our prosperity in the future will not depend just on what we dig out of the ground and it will not depend just on what we grow. Those things will always be important, but it is how we transfer those raw materials—through our hard work, through our brains, through our inventiveness and through our intellect—that will really count in the world of the future. By 2020, two-thirds of jobs will require a university education. That is the answer to why the taxi driver, the shopkeeper and the factory worker do not mind paying their taxes. They know that their kids will have an opportunity to benefit individually, and they know also that this is an investment in the prosperity of our nation.

John Adams, 200 years ago, in the beautiful series of letters that he wrote to his wife, Abigail, said:

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

What he was saying is that every generation wants life to be a bit better for the next generation. That is true of us as individuals in what we want for our own children; it is true of us as leaders in the federal parliament in what we want for our nation. We want the best, brightest, hardest-working kids—irrespective of their family background, irrespective of the parent's ability to pay and irrespective of their own ability to pay—to be able to choose a university education or a vocational education, whatever it is that suits them, their interests and their abilities. A system that only relies on scholarships for those kids is not a system that I can support.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that this is a great discussion to have—not so much the topic of the MPI, but I think that the discussion around higher education is a great one to have. I go back to a previous MPI that we had on this. The member for Pearce gave a great speech where he outlined why he thought this was a great discussion to have. Under the Menzies system, there were Commonwealth scholarships. So it was not as if everyone had to pay to go to university. John Howard went to Canterbury Boys’ High School, a state high school. He was the first Prime Minister ever to go to a state high school. He won a Commonwealth scholarship because he was one of the best and brightest. Lots of people went through that system.

The question asked by Gough Whitlam in the early 1970s was: could you get more people from lower SES backgrounds to go to university if you removed all the costs? I think that was a great question to ask. They took away all the costs. I notice the member for Chisholm is in the chamber. She did not pay for her first degree, and I remember that story. By the time that 1988 came around and Labor brought in HECS, the answer was: no, it would not. Free education would not necessarily raise the number of low-SES students, because the fact was that the numbers had not changed substantially. So Labor brought in HECS.

On this issue, you always hear the Labor Party say that we did not take this to an election and that it is a budget bill not an education bill. I point out that every bill is a budget bill, because everything passes—including HECS. I quote from a speech that I gave earlier in relation to higher education:

Liberal Senator Bill Teague led our response to the package of bills, which included HECS, in a major change to higher education, which, incidentally, in 1989 was not taken to an election. This is what then Senator Teague said:

We in the Opposition are opposed to the graduate tax, but we will be supporting the higher education contribution scheme in this legislation, for several reasons. First, it is a Budget Bill and we respect the ability of an elected government in the House of Representatives to determine a Budget and its financial provision for higher education.

That is what a responsible opposition does. It respects the government's right to set a budget.

This debate gets down to the argument that a degree should cost the same in every context. My university in Townsville is James Cook University, and it is a Menzies university. We have a science degree which includes access to Orpheus Island, to a working cattle station and to the Great Barrier Reef; it offers all of these things. Why should that degree cost the same as a degree in the concrete jungle in Melbourne? Surely, there should be some differentiation.

HECS was brought in, and the number of students from lower SES backgrounds did not drop; in fact, it rose. Towards the end of the Keating government and into the first Howard government, we actually had increases of up to 800 per cent in HECS.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Howard in 1996.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Keating put it through, mate. Did that discourage people from going to university? Did that discourage people from lower SES backgrounds from going to university? No, it did not, because the numbers went up and up. All the way through, the numbers have gone up. Labor cut $6½ billion from education funding over the last two governments, and numbers still went up.

We had the Leader of the Opposition standing there for 10 minutes, and he had a chance to outline how we are undermining education or what he is going to do. He quoted, of all things, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He said it was the Black Knight. I find it amazing after his Jon Faine interview where he said, 'Everybody is somebody'. Maybe he should have quoted from Monty Python's Life of Brian, because we are 'all individuals'. I would suggest that he is not the Leader of the Opposition, and he is certainly not a Prime Minister, 'he's just a very naughty boy'. So what is his plan? He does not have a plan, and he spent 10 minutes there saying absolutely nothing.

What we are doing with higher education is expanding access to TAFE to allow people with diploma skills to get diplomas and, for the first time, get the costs of those put onto a HELP loan. Once again, a very vast majority of people in this much undervalued part of our education system can access that support to go through there. We have an education system around the world which is in global flux. It is in rapid change. If we do not keep up with that change, we will be left behind. Education is a major export industry for this country. It should not be bandied about. It should be something around which our universities can be as competitive as they possibly can in a global environment, taking into account the challenges that we face today, not just here or in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville, but across the world.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the last statement from the member for Herbert: education is one of our largest export earners. That is no more evident than in my electorate, which is home to Monash University's Clayton campus, one of the largest university campuses in Australia, and the city campus of Deakin University, in Burwood. Between them they educate in excess of 50,000 students on campus and it is probably 100,000 when you take in the offline students and students around the world. Monash has a campus in South Africa, of all places.

So this is a huge issue. It is not something to be bandied around and made fun of with Monty Python skits, even though I am a great Monty Python fan. A bit of Monty Python on the record is not something that goes astray, but nor should this be used as a political football, which the Prime Minister did at the election when he said there would be 'no cuts to education'. The Minister for Education, when he was the shadow minister, said there were not going to be any rises in fees. Both of these statements were absolutely false. I will not use the other word because I know the rules of the parliament, but these statements before the election were completely and utterly false. Not only was this not an election commitment anywhere; this is a completely nasty surprise—a complete falsehood from both the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education—and it is not something we can just joke about. This is one of the nastiest surprises from the unfair budget, in which, again, we were not going to have any surprises or shocks. It is Gomer Pyle on steroids—'Surprise, surprise, surprise!' The surprises are out there and happening, including $100,000 degrees. You might quibble about it, but it is now been proven that that is how much they are going to cost.

Why do we want to go back to the days of having scholarships? Why do we want to go back to the days when my father-in-law had to sit his matriculation twice to get a perfect score to get into medicine at Melbourne? Why would we want to deny this populous of one of the best doctors I know because his father was a tram driver? Surely, he should have been able to just enter that university on the score he got the first time around, which was in excess of what was needed in that day to get into medicine—but, no, he needed a full scholarship. There was no way his father, a tram driver, was going to get his son through university. Did my parents get to go to university? No, they did not.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did he get a full scholarship?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, he got a full scholarship; he had to sit it twice—but that is the point. That is wrong. It is fundamentally wrong and you don't get it. You do not get how obscene that is. You now want university students, poor kids, to pay for the scholarships of other students, and you have put no parameters around them, have you? You have not said they will only be for poor kids. You have not said they will only be for rural kids. How decimating to kids in my electorate who live in Clayton and know that they will never be able to afford to go to that university in Clayton. They are not rural; they are not wealthy. This is what is fundamentally wrong and why you just do not get it.

It is obscene to threaten 17,000 scientists' jobs on top of the cuts that are already happening. At the largest CSIRO institution, again in my electorate, I have seen jobs lost. I have seen, for the first time, hefty rises in unemployment in my electorate. As one scientist living in my electorate, who was in contact with my office this week in a despairing situation, said, after two decades of research excellence, a mortgage and four school aged children, he has no certainty of a job in six months, when his funding runs out. There is no certainty about this. He was openly wondering whether getting his PhD and pursuing his research was even worth it. He cannot move to private industry now; he is locked into his career and even wonders why future students would want to follow in his footsteps. With $100,000 degrees, why would the young people with the extraordinary intellects we need in science research follow in his footsteps to be rewarded only with constant career uncertainty, job insecurity and crippling debt?

This is what you are doing: creating uncertainty in an environment where we need children to go to universities; we need kids to go to TAFE—we need kids to get the education they need for the jobs of the future, jobs we have not even been able to think of yet. We are not skilling up our society, we are not making quality citizens and it is down to the current government of this day.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that this is a matter of public importance that the Leader of the Opposition proposed. He is not here, of course. He is not here to listen to the debate about something he regards as a matter of public importance. Labor has five people in the chamber at the moment. For those who might be listening, they have five people and they regard this as a matter of public importance. I will tell you why they do not really regard this as a matter of public importance. If you had listened to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, you would have heard no alternative policies given—none. That is how important they regard this issue. In their so-called 'year of ideas', they have not put forward a higher education policy at all.

The Leader of the Opposition is the man who famously said recently: 'If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.' During the course of the last government, where did they get us? In the last two years of their government, they cut $6.66 billion out of higher education. That is actually the Labor Party policy and I suppose that remains the Labor Party policy.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much?

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was $6.66 billion. It is just amazing. So you cannot rely on the ALP to look after universities. But there are things you can rely on the Australian Labor Party for. You can rely on the Australian Labor Party to stand in the way of important and beneficial reform, you can rely on the Australian Labor Party to place politics ahead of policy and you can rely on the Australian Labor Party to place their own interests ahead of the nation's. A case in point is their obstinate refusal to get on board with these higher education reforms. In the face of near universal consensus and support for the coalition's reform package, the Australian Labor Party crouch there, heads in the sand, and flatly refuse to engage in the issue in any serious manner—obstruction for obstruction's sake.

Thankfully, there are those stakeholders who do engage the issue in a serious manner. Universities Australia in January of this year said:

Our appeal to Senators as they return to Canberra is not to ignore the opportunity they have to negotiate with the Government in amending and passing a legislative package that will position Australia's universities to compete with the world's best.

The Regional Universities Network play a vital role in the development of regional economies and communities. What did they have to say? They said:

It’s not in the interest of students or universities to continue to let this issue drag on. We urge the Senate to consider and amend the new bill and to pass it early in the 2015 Parliamentary sittings.

I am sorry, Regional Universities Network, but the Australian Labor Party has a different view. They have a different focus. That focus is not on the students or the universities that the Regional Universities Network speak for. It is on themselves. What does the Group of Eight have to say? It said:

If the Bill is passed it will provide a more coherent and financially sustainable foundation for continuing development, open up extensive and diverse opportunities for future generations of learners, and underpin a more globally competitive economy.

If the Bill is not passed, there is no plausible default.

'No plausible default,' said the Group of Eight.

It is not only universities. What about TAFE? Only last week I was given a useful briefing by Institute Director Lucy Arundell and District Manager David Guthrey of Illawarra TAFE, who have a campus in Cooma in my electorate of Eden-Monaro. What do TAFE Directors Australia have to say? This is what they had to say:

Blocking this legislation will also disadvantage many students who want to undertake higher education at a TAFE Institute.

Many TAFE students from regional and rural and remote areas and those from disadvantaged backgrounds will also continue to be discriminated against by entrenching the flaws of the current system.

Our reforms will lead to 80,000 more students attending universities, including through the pathway programs through TAFE.

Across the ACT border from my electorate of Eden-Monaro is the home of the great Australian National University—a university that I am proud to say I attended some years ago. What does the Australian National University say? Professor Ian Young and Gareth Evans—a name well known to those opposite—had this to say:

The bottom line is that if Australia is to develop universities which can truly compete internationally, that can provide an excellent educational experience for students and provide outstanding graduates of the kind that are so vital to our nation's future, we have to not only allow, but encourage, diversity by removing constraints that prevent innovation.

(Time expired)

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This matter of public importance shows how delusional so many members of the government are about what the Australian people think about their plans for higher education. It does not matter how many times you tell yourselves otherwise, these reforms are unpopular. They are unpopular because people know that deregulation means one thing. It means it will cost regional students—any students—over $100,000 to do a degree which does not cost that much today. If you deregulate university fees, that allows universities to set their own fees. We already know from universities that have done their modelling, like UWA, that they are going to double and triple their fees. That is what is already out there. We know that this is a guarantee, because this is the same government and the same minister that have not backed down from their 20 per cent cut to the government's contribution towards student university fees. That is how we will get $100,000 degrees within one year of this reform coming in.

This is not HECS. This is not HELP. This is not Dawkin's original vision for higher education. When HECS was first brought in it opened up the number of university places and increased the number of working kids and people from middle-class backgrounds who could access university based upon their ability. They did not have to be the brightest. They did not have to get 100 per cent—they still had to do well at their school studies—but they still got access to university. That is what Dawkins did. He said if you pay a modest fee, a small contribution, then the government will back you and pay the rest. What the government is trying to do is completely reverse that and say that you should pay the absolute most—up to $100,000—and we will chip in the last couple of grand. That is not a fair education system. This government is trying to unwind that fundamental principle where your brains and your ability decide whether you go to university.

This government is touting the scholarship system and saying it is great. There will be scholarships for kids from working class—low SES—backgrounds. What this government does not tell you is that you have to be the absolute brightest. You may be bright and you may have the skills, but if you do not have the money—the trust fund—then you cannot have access to that place. Scholarships and these fees do one thing: the absolute brightest—that top one per cent—can go to university. The rest of you—unless you have the money in your bank account—cannot go to university. Unless you are willing to get into debt, you cannot go to university.

As we have ready heard from the speakers on this side, by 2020 two out of three jobs will need a higher education. They will need a university degree. This government just wants to exclude people from going to university. This government also does not understand the importance of having a highly educated workforce to be able to do those two out of three jobs. The minister likes to stand up and say that factory workers resent having to pay their taxes so that people can go to university. I have never met a factory worker or a cleaner who did not want their children to go to university. Jamal Babaka, who is an office cleaner in Melbourne, said to me very clearly: 'I'm a cleaner. I don't want my children to be cleaners. I work hard and pay my taxes so my children have the opportunity to go to university.' That is what is great about Australia—that a shopping centre cleaner can have three children go to university and go on to be psychologists, teachers and early childhood educators. That is the Australia I am proud of. That is what this government should be standing up for. This government should be making sure that the children of every cleaner and every factory worker have an opportunity to go to university.

These reforms do not do this. They attack working people. They attack people in the regions. They attack people who simply want a better Australia and an opportunity for everybody to go to university. This government should stand condemned for being a government that is going to deny a generation of young people the opportunity to go to university.

This young generation will be the first generation in many decades not to have the opportunity that I had and many on the front bench had. That is the problem with the government. They are out of touch and do not understand the implications of their reforms. (Time expired)

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I really will have to come to the member for Bendigo's remarks on this MPI, because that was one of the most absurd speeches I have heard in the last 18 months in this place. But I want to start out by talking about the 'Year of Ideas' because, as you know, this is the 'Year of Ideas' for the opposition. So far, we have had one idea from the opposition. That idea, surprisingly, was a new tax that will not raise a lot of money but will result in the loss of Australian jobs. It will lead to substantially less investment in Australia. That is the one idea that is so far out there. Interestingly, if we look back at just last week, in a speech at Monash University, the opposition leader said:

This is the big conversation Labor is having with the university sector right now.

Then, on the next day, The Guardian told us what that big conversation was about. The Guardian of course is not known as an attacker of the opposition. Far from it. The Guardian headline said 'Labor signals shift from demand-driven funding system for university places'.

And further:

Education spokesman Kim Carr rules out bringing back crude caps on student numbers, but says Labor would exercise "greater control".

A greater control over universities—doesn't that sound like an appealing prospect! Of course, under the demand-driven system universities and students decide how many people will study different courses based on the level of demand. Indeed, that was a policy introduced by the Labor Party. What of course occurred was that more students have gone to university, which is a good thing, and that has led to an increased cost. So what the Labor Party is very clearly telegraphing it will do is pull back on the demand-driven system, reduce the number of places available in universities and actually intervene on a case-by-case basis and tell them who they can enrol and how many. Senator Carr, who is of course the spokesman in this area, said:

… Labor expects universities to work with the commonwealth to help address national and regional priorities …

And further:

The key to making this partnership work is to find a balance between institutional autonomy and accountability for the use of taxpayers’ funds.

He went on: 'There are lots of ways in which governments can influence decision making at the university level.' That means that Labor will pull back from the demand-driven system and will intervene on a university-by-university basis, and say, 'We want you to enrol this many people in this course and we want you to enrol this many people in that course.' That is of course the absolute antithesis of the demand-driven system. The reason that Senator Carr wants to do that is that it is (a) consistent with his interventionist tendencies and (b) it will reduce the number of people who are at university and therefore the cost to the government.

The proposition in this debate by those opposite that they are the promoters of university access is absolutely false because, as we know, under the government's reforms there will in fact be an additional 80,000 places for students under the HECS-HELP system by 2018. That will extend the government support to people who are in associate diploma courses and various TAFE courses. Currently, you do not get that government support. An additional 80,000 people will be funded.

Another thing we know—and the member for Bendigo said some extraordinary false statements moments ago—is that nobody is required to pay fees up-front. It is very, very clear. Nobody in the undergraduate system is required to repay any fees until they earn at least $50,000 a year. So no-one is required to pay fees up-front. No-one is required to pay anything until they earn at least $50,000 a year. And they will pay approximately half of the cost of their education through that HECS system after they graduate, when they are earning at least $50,000, and the other half will continue to be borne by taxpayers, who of course do not gain the same direct benefit from that course as the individual does. That is exactly what is happening under this system.

So there will be an additional 80,000 people funded to study at university through the deregulation of the system. We allow universities to focus on what they do best and that will mean that there will be greater investment in the areas of greatest growth. That means that where students want to study there will be more investment. Rather than Senator Kim Carr sitting around with academics, telling them what to do on a university-by-university basis, the demand-driven system, coupled with the deregulation of fees will allow universities and students to focus on what they each do best. And that is why these are good policies.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know, inequality is a threat and a risk to economic growth. That is not just my view; it is the view of the International Monetary Fund. It is a threat to peace and security. Inequality in Australia has been rising over recent decades. It has been rising here and it has been rising overseas. It is true that the best way to deal with the risks that are inherent in rising inequality is through education. It is through making education available to everyone and that is as it should be. Education should be a right. Education should not be a matter of the rich deigning to give a gift of a scholarship to the poor. It should not be a matter of rich students funding scholarships for poor students. That is not the Australian way when it comes to education. The Australian way is that every child, every adult, every person who has the aptitude, the gumption and the guts to work hard to get the marks that they need to go to university should be able to go there, regardless of the size of their parents' bank account and regardless of the size of their own pay packet.

That is such a clear theme that has run through Australian society and that is why this government's rotten so-called higher education reforms are so unpopular in the electorate because Australians know, as a matter of absolute fairness and in accordance with Australian values, that education should be accessible to everyone. No-one should have to get a debt the size of a second mortgage to get a higher education. No mature age student or school leaver should have to choose between getting a higher education, and going into significant debt, and not getting a higher education or not furthering themselves at all. It is an utter disgrace what this government is proposing.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It should be free; is that what you're saying?

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The other side can yell all they like and they can verbal Labor figures all they like. I have heard that the former member for Rankin has been verballed today. And might I say that the former member for Rankin has made it quite clear that he believes that the Senate should knock back this outrageous bill. I stand with the former member for Rankin on that perspective because this bill and every bill that has preceded it and every attempt that this shambolic minister has made to try to change the face of higher education in this country and to wind the clock back to pre-Whitlam and every single attempt that has been made to attack the very foundations of our higher education system has been an utter disgrace not just because of the effect on the lives of individual working class and middle class kids—because we are talking about individual working class and middle class kids—but because of the effect that these changes will have on our economy as a whole.

We all know that we have a changing economy. If you just look at what is being said out there, what business is saying about the skills that are going to be needed for the future, what our science community is saying about the science needs of the future, what our information technology specialists are saying, we all know that high-skill jobs are the way of the future. In this country, if you want to get a higher education, you should be able to get one, provided you have got the hard work and the aptitude. If you want to get a vocational education, you ought to be able to get one, provided you have got the hard work and the attitude.

This country ought to be a country of opportunity, not the false opportunity, not the sham opportunity of the Liberal Party, who just mean opportunity for the very rich. They do not care about the middle class. They do not care about the working class. They only mean opportunity for their friends and themselves. It ought to be the genuine opportunity that comes from living in a strong economy, in an economy where governments actually tackle unemployment, not throw their hands up about it, in an economy where people can get a higher education, a vocational education or a quality school education—regardless of which part of the country or city they live in—and where they can get a quality early education. That is the sort of society that delivers real prosperity and real benefits. That is the sort of society where you can put a curb on the growing inequality which, as I say, threatens future growth and threatens, more to that point, peace, security, the Australian way of life, the prosperity of our people and the ability for people to get a job, regardless of whether they have got a higher education or a vocational education, because a job depends on a strong economy. A low unemployment rate depends on a strong economy.

All of these things are linked. It is not possible to take these rotten changes in isolation and say, 'It's all right. It's okay if you have to have a debt the size of a second mortgage to get a university degree. It's okay if we hold 1,700 scientific jobs hostage to get our changes that we want through the Senate.' Those things are not okay. Those things are not the way that this country does business when it comes to ensuring that our people, that the people who live and work here, get the higher education, the vocational education, the school education and the early education that they deserve as a matter of right because they are Australian citizens. (Time expired)

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The future of higher education is certainly a matter of public importance, and it deserves to be debated here today. But it is simply absurd to suggest, as members opposite today have done, that we as a government are somehow undermining higher education when, on the contrary, we are setting it up for success. So it is even more outrageous that members opposite would make these claims, flanked either side by their own scare campaigns and misinformation. I am proud to say that I support this government's proposed reforms, including our amendments in the Senate this week, and I will fight alongside my colleagues, including the Minister for Education, for as long as we need to see our reforms become a reality, because they will help to secure a stronger and better future for our next generation.

These reforms have got enormous benefits for students. You just have to ask any of the higher education peak bodies. All of them support the reforms with the amendments. Despite this, the Labor Party is threatening to tear down a stronger future for higher education students of all ages and all backgrounds, and even school students, who dream of a world class education not in London or New York but right here in Australia—in Sydney, in Melbourne, in Perth and, dare I say, even in areas in regional Australia, particularly the Central Coast of New South Wales.

My drive and my passion to see these reforms succeed come from my own experience growing up as a teenager on the Central Coast around 25 years ago—although perhaps I should not admit that. I could study a bachelor of arts at many universities around Australia, but I could not choose to study locally at my local university because the choice simply was not available. Twenty five years later, this issue of choice is still a reality for more than 4,600 students who still leave the Central Coast daily to commute to Sydney to their chosen metropolitan university. There are also about 3,000 who leave to attend a technical institution. These reforms will free up the university sector and will mean that the reality of tertiary educational opportunities for people in my electorate of Robertson today may not remain the reality for people in my electorate tomorrow.

We know that higher education study leads to more opportunities, higher wages, pathways for further education and careers and to genuine aspirations. We know that university graduates earn, on average, 75 per cent more over their lifetime than non-graduates and typically earn around $1 million more over their working lives. Further educational opportunities are also made possible by encouraging pathways programs like those from the University of Newcastle, who have a Central Coast campus not far from my own electorate at Ourimbah. More than 900 students were enrolled through the pathways program in 2013, and 40 per cent of these were from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Over half were mature age students.

Directly as a result of these reform proposals, I have had the privilege to be able to work closely over the last six to eight months or so on a shared dream in my electorate to see a university campus in Gosford. We have worked with the world-class University of Newcastle, the Central Coast Local Health District and Gosford City Council, and recently I have been lobbying the New South Wales government for capital infrastructure funding. As a result of this collaboration—made possible because of, not in spite of, our reforms—we have developed now plans for a globally connected, fully integrated Central Coast health and medical research institute. Because of these conversations, made possible by this government's reforms, we have been presented with a unique opportunity to deliver a shared vision of a centre of excellence in tertiary education right in the heart of a city that definitely needs rejuvenating. It is a plan that would help tackle emerging health issues on the Central Coast, as well as attract high-quality students, clinicians, researchers and healthcare professionals to Gosford. It has got the potential to become a base for world-class health care and medical research and education to deliver real hope, real aspiration, growth and opportunity, and there is no reason why Gosford students cannot, one day, enjoy a world-class education in medicine or medical research if these reforms could pass.

Are these not the sorts of conversations we ought to be having instead of this matter of public importance? Instead of denying the need for reform, should we not be unlocking the potential for world-class higher education in regions like the Central Coast, considered by some to be regions of disadvantage today? Thanks to the opportunities made possible by these deregulation reforms, it could potentially become a region of advantage in the future. Today, let it be known to the House how these reforms can transform an area like the Central Coast.

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

Order! The discussion is now concluded.