Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Felicity from Geelong worked in admin at Deakin University for nearly 25 years and she's 55 years old. She was made redundant in September, after the government deliberately excluded university workers from receiving JobKeeper. Felicity is locked out of the hiring credit because of her age, and she isn't eligible for mature worker subsidies yet. Why is the Prime Minister leaving women like Felicity behind?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for her question, because this government stood by our universities throughout this pandemic.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We did. They came to us with their No. 1 priority, and that was for us to guarantee the funding that they had this year, and that's what we did—we guaranteed that funding of $18 billion. And then they said to us that the sector had been hit hard because international students couldn't come here because of the pandemic, and they said: 'We want support for research, because, with international students not there, we need support to make up for that.' So what did we do in this year's budget? The highest single payment ever by a government into research for higher education—$1 billion. We guaranteed $18 billion for the sector. In this budget we provide $1 billion for research.

This has been a difficult year for those in the university sector; this has been a difficult year for those in higher education. But we have worked tirelessly with the sector. I have met with them I would think every single week to hear about their concerns and what we need to do about it. And we're not going to stop here. We know that we need to do more to commercialise and translate research, so we're working with the sector to make sure that will be a priority for us. We are putting in place more places for students. Next year there will be 30,000 more places for students in higher education. We've invested significantly in short courses. That was one of the things we did. On Easter Sunday—and I remember it incredibly well—we announced that we were going to introduce short courses for the higher education sector. This is a serious reform in the sector. Already we have seen upwards of 15,000 students take advantage of their short courses, getting the skills they need so that, as we come out of the pandemic, as the comeback continues, they will be able to find jobs. And in the budget we have again invested in short courses because we want to make sure students, including mature-age students, can reskill—students who can be 35, 45 or 55. Mature-age workers are using those short courses so that they can get the jobs that will be there as we come out of this pandemic. We stood by our higher education sector and we will continue to— (Time expired)