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

The member for Sydney has moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. Is the amendment seconded?

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

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

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Sydney has moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House I will state the question in the form that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. These measures seek to ensure or to extend Higher Education Loan Program, or HELP, eligibility to former permanent humanitarian visa holders. We all recognise in this place the value and importance of higher education, and particularly university education. This measure in particular allows those former permanent humanitarian visa holders who transition to a different visa, due to travelling outside of Australia, to retain their HELP eligibility.

I think the Higher Education Loan Program is a program that has been of enormous benefit and value to many, many people over many, many years in that it has given them the opportunity, particularly people on low to middle incomes or lower socioeconomic means, to have the capacity to go to university and study. I know in my electorate of Forde there are parts of my electorate where people, through their socioeconomic circumstances, wouldn't ordinarily be able to go to university, if they had to pay to do so. The HELP scheme has been so valuable to them.

For many of those who have come to Australia through our humanitarian program—in my electorate of Forde and, I would suggest, in that of the member for Moreton there are many people who have come to this country through our humanitarian program—the opportunity to take the step on that ladder of higher education is something that they had been would probably never have dreamt of in their home countries. To be given that opportunity here in Australia is of tremendous value, I think.

Logan City is home to people of some 217 different cultural backgrounds. I know we have a very significant number of people who have come here through the humanitarian program. The problem has been that if they go overseas and travel, the travel component of the permanent humanitarian visa ceases after a five-year period. If that permanent humanitarian visa holder travels outside of Australia after that time, they would lose eligibility or access to their HELP eligibility when they apply for a resident return visa to retain their permanent residency status. In this bill, we want to ensure that those HELP eligibility requirements are able to be maintained for those students to ensure they can continue to study and take advantage of the great education systems we have through our higher education institutions.

I'd like to use the opportunity to thank the team at Griffith University. I know the member for Moreton has the original campus of Griffith University at Nathan, but I also have their Logan campus. Also, many of those who live in the southern part of my electorate, in Upper Coomera or on the northern Gold Coast, would go to the Gold Coast campus of Griffith University. I know from my regular meetings with both campuses of the university about the wonderful work that they do in helping students from a wide range of backgrounds across our community to follow their dreams of obtaining a degree and going on to follow their dreams of a career in health, in medicine, in business and also in the science fields. Griffith University is a great example of what our higher education facilities provide across Australia.

For those who have come from overseas, we know that some 4,300 or more permanent humanitarian visa holders accessed the HELP loan scheme in 2019 alone, and I'm sure that there are many more outside of that. This measure ensures that this cohort continues to hold its HELP eligibility and that it aligns with the eligibility of other Australian residents.

In addition, the bill also makes minor technical amendments to the Higher Education Support Act, requiring higher education providers to refund upfront payments made by students and associated payments that are received from the Commonwealth in relation to a student's HELP loan where that loan has been re-credited under the Higher Education Support Act. It amends the definition of 'grandfathered student' to clarify that an ongoing course includes courses that have been restructured by a higher education provider and to ensure that students do not lose their status as grandfathered students as a result of the default by a provider. It also removes the requirement of conditions in part 2-3 that grant funding cannot be outlined in both the Other Grants Guidelines and ministerial determinations, and it also allows unspent grant amounts under parts 2-3 and 2-4 of the Higher Education Support Act to be rolled over automatically into the next calendar year unless otherwise determined by the secretary of the Department of Education, Skills and Employment. It also makes a technical correction to clarify that certain student protection provisions under the Higher Education Support Act refer to all assistance payable under chapter 3 of the Higher Education Support Act, rather than only FEE-HELP assistance, ensuring that these measures are extended to all providers, and it makes a series of other technical amendments, including to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act. It makes some minor amendments there.

More importantly, these amendments, helping out students and clarifying those measures, are a reflection more generally of the work that we are doing in the higher education space. If we look at our job-ready guarantee package, which is also looking to generate 30,000 additional university places in 2021 and up to 100,000 places by 2030, the most important part of that is the fact that this government is bringing down the cost of degrees in key areas. Under the job-ready guarantee package, we've already seen the cost of agriculture courses go down 59 per cent, the cost of maths degrees go down 59 per cent, the cost of nursing and teaching degrees go down 42 per cent, and the cost of science, engineering and IT degrees go down some 18 per cent. When I look at the Logan campus, which has a very heavy focus on nursing training, given its proximity to Logan Hospital, I am sure that the students at the Logan campus of Griffith University are particularly pleased to see the reduction in costs for them to do their degrees.

One of the things that I have spoken to the universities about is the importance of their relationship in engaging with the business community to ensure that their courses and their material are fit for purpose for the students when they leave study and enter the workforce.

I'm pleased to say there is an increasing amount of work being done by higher education facilities in engaging with the business community to ensure that there's a better link between what students are doing in their courses at university—from an academic point of view, but, equally, understanding and working in the business sector in which they're studying to get that practical experience at the same time as they're studying for their academic qualifications. Speaking recently to somebody who is doing exactly that, they found that the benefit of doing that helps them to not only better understand and apply the academic knowledge that they're learning, but it also gives them the opportunity to take back to the classroom that practical knowledge. They feel it gives them a more rounded view of their potential occupation after finishing study, and it's clarified for them that it's actually something they want to do and pursue long term.

That is a great benefit of those relationships and links, because we do know that there are numbers of students who get into their first year of their degree and discover that it is something they don't want to do. Even worse, there are some students who do a whole degree and then go into the workforce and don't wish to follow that career. If we can continue to see the universities and the business sector build those relationships, and ensure that students, when they come out of university, are satisfied that is the career that they want to pursue, there is far greater value to all concerned.

I commend this bill in its original form to the House. More importantly, I commend the work that this government continues to do with the higher education sector to ensure that students right around this country get the benefit of higher education, can pursue their goals and dreams and the careers that they wish to pursue for the future.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021, and to point out that Labor supports this bill. It is largely administrative in nature, as mentioned by the member for Forde. It's making some small changes that will fix some recognised issues. These small changes are welcome, and I repeat that Labor does not oppose these minor measures.

However, this bill is typical of the attitude that the Morrison government have brought to education. They tinker around the edges without doing anything necessary to achieve lasting beneficial change for students. Fundamentally, the Liberal and National parties see education as entrenching privilege, rather than as the transformative opportunity that education is. It is disappointing, but not surprising, that this government is still not willing to support the education sector, as we saw in that brutal budget for universities on Tuesday night. More than 10 pieces of education legislation have been introduced by the Morrison government, but their main achievements have been to make students pay more overall for their education as well as managing to lock thousands out of university degrees.

The Morrison budget this week almost completely overlooked the education sector. Our universities educate more than one million Australians and employ more than 100,000 Australians, but, rather than support an industry that has been our third-largest export sector, they are cutting funding at a time when universities need it the most. Page 170 of Budget Paper No. 1 clearly says that university funding will decrease by 9.3 per cent in real terms from 2021-22 to 2024-25. That's $1 ripped out of every $10 for our Australian universities. Think of all the damage that will do to our communities, particularly those bush communities that rely so much on their universities.

Last year, in the face of international students being locked out of studying in Australia, the government provided extra funding for research. It would have made a lot of sense for that extra funding to be continued, particularly when the budget revealed that borders are likely to remain shut until mid-2022. But the latest Morrison-Frydenberg budget had nothing for universities. The ANU vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, is quoted in the papers today as saying:

I am worried that we are going to lose huge capacity in the research sector that will take decades to recover.

Professor Duncan Ivison, deputy vice-chancellor for research at the University of Sydney is reported as saying:

My biggest concern is just the long-term viability of research endeavours as a sector because once it goes it's very hard to get back. You can't just turn research on and off like a tap.

Our researchers have never been more important than they were last year during the pandemic. Researchers at the University of Queensland continue their important work in the fight against COVID-19. I particularly mention the work that they're doing on rockets. The space industry will be another important sector for us. I was there last week as part of a committee, and we saw some incredible work. The University of Queensland is currently calling for volunteers who have recovered from COVID-19 to help unravel why people respond so differently to the virus. Without important research like this, continuing our fight against this deadly virus, these things will take longer and they'll be harder to carry out.

Now, we all know that quarantine is clearly a federal responsibility. It says so in our Constitution. The Morrison government has failed in its responsibility to set up successful quarantine locations in Australia for arrivals during this pandemic. There are over 9,000 Australians stuck in India right now who have been threatened with jail if they even try to come to the place they call home: Australia. There are tens of thousands more Australians in other parts of the world wanting to come home but unable to do so. The Prime Minister did say everyone would be home by Christmas, but I must admit I thought it was last Christmas, not a Christmas in the future to be determined. This has been a failure on part of the Morrison government.

For the international education sector, Australia's third-biggest export industry, the failure to set up safe quarantine facilities has been a disaster. International students are an incredibly successful diplomatic achievement for Australia. They go home talking about the country that educated them. Sending students out into the world and back to their home countries is something that every trade minister would be aware of, particularly with our great trading partner China. They go with a greater understanding of Australia and its people, and that all came through the international student sector. Professor Michael Wesley, the deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Melbourne is reported in the Financial Review today as saying that the federal government should be responsible for getting international students back in the country, as it has responsibility for university funding and policy. He said:

We have clear evidence that students are diverting to the UK and Canada, in particular, but also that demand for US-based education is going up.

These are our competitors taking our third-biggest export industry. The situation is so dire that it is reported today that New South Wales has vowed to defy Canberra and allow significant cohorts of foreign students to return almost immediately. It was reported that the New South Wales Treasurer is seeking to minimise the damage coronavirus is inflicting on the state's $14.6 billion international education industry by quarantining international students in purpose-built student accommodation. The state is stepping into the space created by the federal government, despite the constitutional responsibilities clearly resting with the Prime Minister.

New research from the Mitchell Institute reported this morning has found that a third academic year of no international students would cost Australia about $20 billion a year. I'm sure the idea of that trade loss would make the member for Brand weep. That is half of the prepandemic value of the sector. This isn't just a problem for universities. The economic value of international students is far wider than the university sector. They obviously contribute in many other ways, in terms of accommodation and the part-time work that they do. Most of the economic value of international students comes from students spending in the wider economy and from their parents coming to do tourism with them. They go to Cairns and places in other parts of Australia where they might not necessarily be studying but where they spend those travel dollars, making us stronger.

The Morrison budget does nothing to help young Australians improve their educational outcomes and options. The Morrison government has already made it harder and more expensive overall for Australians to go to university. I don't want Australia to become more like the United States of America, where kids are educated but end up with a lifetime of crippling debt. For a basic degree, young Australians will end up with a debt of around $60,000. How can they ever save a deposit for a house with that debt before they even have a job? Forty per cent of students have had their uni fees more than doubled. Students at university right now are paying more than double what they would have paid but for the Morrison government hiking fees last year. The Morrison government is ramping up student debt and ripping away the lifelong dreams of Australian students.

Already, more than 17,000 jobs at universities have been lost because the Morrison government changed the rules three times to stop universities accessing JobKeeper. They're groundkeepers, academics, cleaners librarians et cetera. There are all sorts of people in university communities. These jobs keep universities up and running, and now they're gone. Regional universities in particular have been devastated, including campuses being closed in Central Queensland.

I can't understand why the Prime Minister did not support workers at these universities. I don't know what happened to him when he was studying that he has had such a deep hatred of universities since he's been Treasurer and Prime Minister. I don't know what happened to him, but I really think he should see a counsellor rather than taking revenge on universities, our third-biggest export industry. He was obviously comfortable to see thousands of livelihoods destroyed when he could have prevented these job losses. The Morrison government's record on education is abysmal, and budget 2021 did nothing to improve that record. In fact, it made it worse.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to support this important but technical bill, the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021, that is dealing with three key things: tuition protection, higher education and permanent humanitarian visa holders. The member for Moreton's contribution just prior to me was such that I feel that I do need to respond to some of the important but perhaps erroneous points that he has made there.

One of the key things that the member for Moreton said was that, in our DNA, we are opposed to higher education. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. If we go back to the days of Sir Robert Menzies, who deserves to be known as the father of modern higher education, you can see that it has been our side of politics, rather than their side of politics, which has transformed the higher education landscape. It's worth just reflecting on the position of the Menzies government and what Menzies himself did to demonstrate that the DNA is not, indeed, what the member for Moreton suggested it is.

When Menzies first became Prime Minister in 1939, there were six universities in Australia and 14,236 higher education students out of a population of seven million. By the time he retired in 1966, there were 16 universities and 91,272 higher education students. In case people think this was just the baby boom, Menzies's achievements in higher education were direct and specific to expanding higher education opportunities more broadly, whether it was establishing the Mills committee in 1950; the establishment of Commonwealth scholarships, undergraduate in 1951 and post graduate in 1959; promoting the opportunity for higher education for non-school-leavers through mature-age scholarships for people aged over 25; taxation allowances for education expenses; or one of the Murray committee inquiries.

The Murray committee was headed by Sir Keith Murray, who was a vice-chancellor from the United Kingdom who had had broad experience in higher education policy throughout the Commonwealth at that time. It's establishment was to ensure that Australia's higher education system, as it developed, would serve Australia's best interests as we emerged from the post-war world and engaged in post-war building of the country to put ourselves in a position where Australia could continue to thrive and continue to ensure that the next generations of students would have the quality education they needed. In 1961, he commissioned Sir Leslie Martin to devise a future plan for tertiary education which resulted in the creation of the colleges of advanced education which existed in our higher education landscape until the Dawkins reforms of the early 1990s.

Menzies, towards the end of his long tenure, said:

My life has devoted itself for years to the development of education in this country. Nothing old-fashioned about it. It's mostly brand new.

He also said his government sparked the 'beginning of a revolution in the university world'. Quite simply, more than any other Australian, it was Sir Robert Menzies—not, as the mythology likes to pretend, Gough Whitlam—who laid the foundations for Australian higher education. Indeed, it is to be remembered that there were more people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who had the opportunity of a university education in the Menzies years than there were in the Whitlam years.

To suggest, as those opposite have done, that there's been a lack of support for universities is just not correct. Today's government, the Morrison government, is providing a record $20 billion investment in the higher education sector this year. Total funding is up more than 37 per cent since we came to government—$903.5 million over four years for more places and support for students.

One of the things that I think the Job-ready Graduates Package—which went through under Minister Tehan's watch—has done is focus students on those critical skills that we need, particularly agriculture and STEM degrees. The cost of an agriculture degree has come down by 59 per cent; the cost of a maths degree is down by 59 the per cent; the cost of nursing and teaching degrees are down by 42 per cent; and the cost of science, engineering and IT degrees have gone down by 18 per cent. I remember Minister Tudge, now the education minister, talking—in response to questions without notice in this place when we were last here—about the effect of those cost reductions in terms of enrolment increases.

As someone who represents a peri-urban area which has horticulture and some small agricultural production, I understand the importance of encouraging more Australians into agriculture as a career and encouraging more Australians into agtech. Agriculture is one of the things that we do so well in this country, yet so few people in recent years have been taking agriculture degrees. The changes that we made have put more funding into the sector and have focused people's opportunities on the things that Australia needs for its future.

I want to come to some of what the bill that is before the House is designed to do, having addressed some of the more broad points. People on permanent humanitarian visas have often faced extraordinary situations in their country of origin before coming to Australia. For many of them, educational opportunities were non-existent because of the nature of the country that they'd come from. Some of those countries have been in strife and war, and many of those people who are in the permanent humanitarian space have been persecuted because of immutable characteristics and so have not had access to education. For those people who have been granted permanent humanitarian visas, having access to the HELP, the Higher Education Loan Program, can be transformative for them. It gives them access to higher education opportunities that can change their life, ensuring that their experience in Australia is such that they can make a greater contribution to the economy, that they can get on with their lives and that they can have fulfilling lives. This is a really important measure for the way in which we settle permanent humanitarian visa holders, ensuring that they can contribute fully to Australia.

A quirk of the legislation that has operated and that this particular legislation seeks to address is that, for the first five years that someone is on a permanent humanitarian visa, they are able to leave the country but, after that time finishes, they have to apply for a different visa. Under that different visa, a resident return visa, they are no longer eligible to access the Higher Education Loan Program. This has a number of serious adverse consequences for the permanent humanitarian visa holder. You can imagine some of them. The first is that they may not complete the degree that they have been undertaking in the higher education space and, therefore, they might not be able to contribute to the country in the same way that they had been hoping to. They might not expand the opportunities that they were hoping to benefit from as a result of their degree. They might not be able to contribute to society, and they might not have the educational and work opportunities. Secondly, they might end up being laden with debt that they just cannot repay, because of their meagre circumstances, given the nature in which they came to Australia in the first place.

This legislation seeks to right the ship. It seeks to say that, if you are a permanent humanitarian visa holder and you've been here for more than five years and you leave the country and return, you can continue to access the Higher Education Loan Program. That is so important, particularly for those people who are midway through a program, but it is also important for people who may be commencing a program. This does not apply where somebody's visa has been cancelled, of course, but it does apply to many people. It is a good amendment; it's a good bill. It's a good technical measure which I think corrects an oversight that wasn't considered during the drafting of the citizenship and residency requirements for HELP. I want to commend Minister Tudge for addressing this and acknowledge the support of both sides of the House for the key provisions of this bill.

I think it's worthwhile noting how many people have taken up the HELP program and are permanent humanitarian visa holders. Four thousand, three hundred and forty-six permanent humanitarian visa holders accessed a HELP loan in 2019. That's not a huge cohort, but this measure ensures that those people can continue to be eligible, along with other Australian residents, to access the Higher Education Loan Program. One of the other technical amendments in the bill that I think is worthwhile drawing attention to is the technical correction to clarify that Indigenous languages are included in funding cluster 3 of HESA and are not foreign languages. This is very important, and I say this as the chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs. It's very important that we encourage more Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians to study Indigenous languages. It gives us a deeper appreciation of Indigenous culture and a deeper understanding of their history, but, also, language is very important for Indigenous people in terms of their connection to tradition, their connection to land, their connection to their history, and so on. The proper acknowledgement in this amendment bill of the status of Indigenous languages is absolutely vital.

The final elements to this bill that I will touch on are the measures in it that are designed to bolster the Tuition Protection Service. I've spoken in this House on previous occasions about the importance of the Tuition Protection Service and amendments that were made previously to the Tuition Protection Service that were suggested by the Broken Bay Institute. That is a higher education provider that operates in Pennant Hills, in my constituency. In fact, it's just across from my electorate office. The measures in this bill further bolster the Tuition Protection Service and remind us that it's a funder of last resort. They ensure providers who cease to be registered or go into liquidation continue to meet their obligations and ensure overseas students don't rely on refunds or placements from the Overseas Students Tuition Fund, administered by the TPS director. The TPS is a critical pillar of our international education legislative framework. These amendments bolster the sustainability of the Overseas Students Tuition Fund and reduce the likelihood of taxpayer funds being needed to replenish it in the future.

These are good measures. These are sensible measures. These are measures that support people who have come to Australia to take advantage of educational opportunities and, through quirks of their own travel and circumstances or quirks of issues that have befallen the higher education provider who is providing them with educational opportunities, it provides the necessary protections. I commend the bill to the House.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My remarks on this legislation will be brief. Nonetheless, I rise to support it and its objectives around making sure that those who seek to come to Australia to pursue opportunities for education are able to do so in a flexible framework. The government recognises and respects the visa classes and arrangements necessary for them to be able to do so. When I speak to people in the Goldstein electorate, I find that, as is true in any other part of the country, more than anything else, when Australians think about those who come to this country, what they want are the foundations to be laid for them to be good and responsible contributors to our country. Of course, education is a critical pathway that Liberals have always understood. It is essential to the development of successful and responsible individuals so that they are able to support themselves and their families. We have seen the potential of education, not just as an empowerer of people but also as an empowerer of a sector of the economy, to be part of the strength of export industries that can provide assistance and support and a mutual benefit to Australians as well.

Currently, we have legislative restrictions which raise questions and doubts about the eligibility of people to access the Higher Education Loan Program based on their different visa classes. We want to make sure that for those Australians who are here and who have started the pathway to securing education by using that program that the structures exist to respect their decisions and their choices to study and learn and to take on the responsibility for the cost as it shifts with different visa classes, consistent with the legislative framework that this parliament has written out. Of course that means, particularly for permanent humanitarian visa holders, providing pathways for them to continue to engage with education so that they can go on, build themselves up and harden their contribution and capacity to contribute not just to themselves in Australia but wherever their life takes them.

Also, of course, it provides a pathway to security for our great tertiary institutions to attract students who can utilise the knowledge and the skills that they can provide as a basis for engagement with a cohort of students who may otherwise be denied. This is the foundational principle on which the Liberals have always approached education: to see and to drive excellence in outcomes and to see and to drive opportunity in terms of the structures of education so that it's accessible for everybody, and also to address issues of equity so that those people who may be denied or held back have pathways to utilise education for their own success.

This government is adaptable to the changing circumstances that people face when they're in Australia or when they take temporary pathways out of the country, for them to be eligible to secure an education that follows. With the other members in this chamber, that is the foundation on which I support this bill. We want to see those people who come to Australia able to realise the fullness of their ambitions, when they do so, wherever their life takes them—including through to the ultimate pathway of citizenship. The strength of our country is the sum of our people. If we have strong citizens then we have strong families; if we have strong families then we have strong communities; and if we have strong communities then we have a strong nation. That is the foundation of a Liberal vision for this country: one built on the foundations of strength, anchored in citizens, families and communities and not from those fiddling from Canberra down.

That's why this legislation is important: because of what it will enable and what it will empower. That's what we wish to continue to see into the future. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These changes to the ESOS Act through this Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021 are important. It's an opportunity today to talk about the importance of international education. Obviously, the bill goes to the involvement of those on humanitarian visas and the potential interruption to their education where they have to leave the country. I believe there are just over 4,000 Australians who are permanent residents under protection visas who are affected and who will be better served as a result of these amendments.

In a broader sense, though, my observations today are about how we run our immigration system and, in particular, Australia's proud record of having firewalled UNHCR places, second only to one other nation in the world in generosity. That's because Australia truly has a proud record of immigration in this country, being free of judgement by race or nationality—these are things that we have to be incredibly proud of. They're often not talked up though, and they need to be talked up more. Sadly, I don't come from an electorate that is highly ethnically diverse, but many in this chamber do. They can attest to exactly how our communities have been strengthened by our immigration.

Of course, it's incumbent upon government to make sure that it's done effectively. We're aware of the stresses that can come with immigration and also the important role we have in welcoming those who arrive in this country on a citizen pathway, to have both the opportunity to study and to work. My point today is primarily noting that while education continuity is incredibly important—and there's no disagreement about that; it's why we are having this debate today—we can do better in making sure that families are connected into the economy even before they land.

I'm arguing today that, while we may be amending this act to ensure that there is continuity of study, we can be doing way better even before people leave their origin locations, where they have been determined to be eligible, allowed a visa and due this protection. We could be making these educational bridges even before they arrive, potentially including English language courses before they depart and starting on the reading of resumes and identifying prior learning and experience to make sure that they are able to engage with the Australian economy as soon as they land and are ready to. Our immigration system doesn't do that as effectively as it should. The best data that I'm aware of is nearly a decade old, so we haven't really looked closely, by country of origin, at how successful we are at getting working-age people into study and work.

I argue that, when it comes to immigration, we should have a very, very clear policy that there should be a 100 per cent success rate for people of working age and studying age to be able to do that, should they choose. At the moment, according to the research done back in 2012, we have some very, very poor outcomes for particular economies, although other countries do very well. We can do better, I believe, at the points of departure to be preparing those families or individuals for genuine connection not just to culture but to economy. I don't need to go into detail about the price this nation pays because we don't do that well. I don't need to go into detail about the potential social problems that can befall a household for which under that roof not a single person is employed. It's not impossible that up to 90 per cent of the cohort I'm describing on humanitarian visas can find themselves in that situation.

The current arrangements, where you're directed to a Centrelink office and provided services such as offers of language training but are given no more expectation, fail the Australian value of mutual obligation. While I agree that many of our humanitarian arrivals come from very, very difficult places and have been subject to incredibly traumatic events, that doesn't prevent us initiating the journey towards education and employment assiduously and with the goal of 100 per cent success. Why would you come to Australia, other than for the protection we offer, if not for the opportunities this country has? To be not connected to either education or work puts our system under significant strain and actually undermines the immigration system and the way the rest of our nation views immigration. I think it's really important to take this work first, study first approach. So the tiny change here will prevent interruption and humanitarian visa holders falling out of eligibility for higher education HELP loans. That's great, and that addresses a tiny proportion of those arrivals.

I will conclude where I started. We need to be doing way better, particularly with working-age humanitarian arrivals, to ensure that they have all services available to them even before they leave their points of departure. We need to do tailoring for work, identifying their skills, doing potential matching, identifying a workplace and ensuring they are living somewhere where they can easily get to that work, so they get the best possible start on their path to citizenship in this great nation.

Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to speak in favour of the bill put forward, the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. This bill makes a number of amendments to the Higher Education Support Act and the Education Services for Overseas Students Act, and while none of them are particularly large-scale changes, they will beneficially impact on a number of students and improve the efficient operation of the acts.

The first and most significant of the changes which I want to focus on addresses an oversight that was not considered during the drafting of the citizenship and residence requirements under the Higher Education Loan Program. Permanent humanitarian visa holders are eligible for a HELP loan under the HESA, the Higher Education Support Act, which assists this vulnerable cohort of students to participate in and contribute to the Australian economy. It helps them to integrate. It helps them to get skills to participate. The travel component of a permanent humanitarian visa ceases after a five-year period. If a permanent humanitarian visa holder travels outside of Australia after that time frame, in order to come back into Australia they must apply for a resident return visa to retain their permanent residency status. Under the current legislation, a former permanent humanitarian visa holder in this situation would lose their HELP eligibility.

It's this situation that's being addressed by the first amendment in this particular bill. It's based on the goal and the original intention that HELP eligibility requirements remain stable for students who have met the citizenship and residency requirements under the HESA and reside in Australia. This measure will allow former permanent humanitarian visa holders who transition to a different visa due to travelling outside of Australia—outside of the travel component of their visa—to retain their HELP eligibility. Correcting this oversight supports a positive outcome for both the student and the taxpayer, as it prevents a student from losing their HELP eligibility part way through their course. If a student loses their HELP eligibility, they might be unable to complete their qualification and work in their chosen field. Notwithstanding that, they would retain liability for their HELP debt, which would have already been incurred. Obviously, this is not a good outcome for the student or the taxpayer.

The minister for education will determine the applicable visa subclasses that retain HELP eligibility for former permanent humanitarian visa holders through a legislative instrument. This will ensure that these amendments remain flexible and responsive to any future changes to the Migration Act so that we don't have to coming back and make further changes to the HESA. In 2019, 4,300 permanent humanitarian visa holders accessed a HELP loan. This is not a large cohort, but it's a significant cohort. Every student is important. Every person is important. This measure will ensure that that cohort will not have to worry about their continued HELP eligibility, and that their continued HELP eligibility is aligned with all other Australian residents. It's also important to note that this measure does not extend HELP eligibility to permanent humanitarian visa holders whose visas have been cancelled. There are other measures in this bill which are more technical in nature but, as I said at the outset, they go to the efficient operating of the bill.

Just before I finish, I want to pick up on a number of comments about higher education in Australia, including the thought that this particular government doesn't support higher education in Australia. I note that a number of my predecessors have talked about the history of higher ed in legislation. I want to look at more recent times. In 20 years, the number of domestic students enrolled in higher ed in Australia has more than doubled. In 1988, there were 400,000 domestic students enrolled at universities across Australia. That is now more than one million domestic students at universities in Australia. Yes, the population in Australia has increased, but it hasn't increased by that number. We have seen a large-scale increase to the number of domestic students enrolling in higher education in Australia. In 2000, less than 16 per cent of Australians aged between 15 and 64 held a bachelor's degree qualification or higher. In 2018, that was 31 per cent. In the course of less than 20 years, the number of people holding bachelor's degrees or higher has almost doubled as well.

As somebody who previously spent quite a considerable amount of time in higher education, I think, obviously, that studying higher education is beneficial. It's optimum. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for people to develop their education, knowledge, skills and passions and to find a profession—all of those things. But I also think that we're at a critical time in our country, where we're facing a period of transition when it comes to further education post schooling.

All universities are looking at different models and different ways of offering qualifications, and that is what this government is supporting—different ways of achieving qualifications, such as short courses, add-on diploma courses to undergraduate degrees and allowing people to undertake lifelong learning so they can upskill and change professions. Gone are the days where somebody goes into the same profession, or even the same job, and stays there for life. I'm not talking about the gig economy here; I'm talking about the real—and the data, which shows that people follow different career paths and make changes. I have come across many of them in my own involvement with universities, with people going back and following a completely different career course after doing something for 10 or 20 years. That is to be welcomed and to be encouraged. But, in so doing, we have to keep reshaping how we offer higher education in this country. This government is seeking to allow universities that freedom to change and explore different models—different models of teaching, different models of delivering and different types of qualifications.

I have just one word of caution on this, before I finish. At the end of last year a number of people in my electorate, knowing my background in universities, contacted me to talk about their children who had been studying last year throughout COVID. As we know, at many universities they had to move a lot of things online in the time of COVID. Online learning is great. Online learning brings education to a whole lot of people who otherwise wouldn't access it. But there are limits to online learning, and not everybody benefits from online learning. There are lots of people who have different ways of learning, and we've got to make sure we engage all of them in the learning process.

The constituents who got in touch with me were very concerned. While they understood that online learning was a necessity for their first-year undergraduate children who had started university last year, they were concerned this was going to continue, because, in their mind, their children had not had the benefit of face-to-face instruction and hadn't had the benefit of everything else that goes with university undergraduate life, which is where you're supposed to learn about life a little bit more—and often it is outside the classroom where most of that learning happens. They were also concerned that their children had not been able to entirely embrace the whole learning experience because of the fragmented nature of and the distance in online learning. Parents raised with me their concern that the universities would continue to implement a fully-online approach for everything across the board.

In response to these constituents contacting me, I contacted all five universities in Western Australia to outline these concerns and to ask for their feedback and their responses. They all responded, and they all re-emphasised to me that their prime goal is to make sure that their students get an excellent education. Yes, they noted that they were going to continue some online education, but they were also mindful of the fact that many students don't benefit from online education and that there has to be more face to face. I was really pleased with the five universities in Western Australia for acknowledging and taking the time to respond to that query about how they were continuing to look after their students, particularly those at undergraduate level. As I said, we're educating a lot of people at the moment and not all of them come as prepared as each other for university study. That step up from school, from year 12, into higher education can be a vast jump, and when you're not doing it face to face, when you're not meeting people around you, that can be a really big hurdle.

I want to commend the five WA universities for their commitment to students and for their commitment to ensuring that the students that enrol with them are getting a high-class education. They are concerned about what is being delivered to their students and that their students get the best outcome.

Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. The amendments proposed in this bill may be small, but their impact is significant for those individuals affected by them. I understand that many who come to Australia do so to build a better life for themselves and their families, and a large part of this includes access to our world-class higher education system. The flow-on effects of this benefit the entire cross-section of society, from the individual getting a skilled post-study job to the family who are having improved living standards as a result to a better educated population who can then engage with the better paying jobs that are now proliferating in the age of the knowledge economy.

The primary aim of the this education legislation amendment is to protect a vulnerable cohort of students, former permanent humanitarian visa holders, by helping them to retain their Higher Education Loan Program eligibility and therefore participate in the economy, an outcome where all of us will reap the rewards. Anyone who plans for the future needs certainty, and that need for certainty is no different for visa-holding students in the higher education sector. That certainty then leads to students' continued investment in the higher education sector, as well as incentivising new students now and into the future. Certainty allows all students to excel in their education and confidently participate in and contribute to the economy. That is exactly what this bill will ensure.

The schedule 1 amendments to the Higher Education Support Act 2003 are designed to help extend HELP eligibility to former permanent humanitarian visa holders, assisting a vulnerable cohort of students to participate in and contribute to the Australian economy. Currently the travel component of a permanent humanitarian visa ceases after a five-year period. If a permanent humanitarian visa holder travels outside of Australia after that time frame, they must apply for a resident return visa to return to their permanent residency status in Australia. This measure allows former permanent humanitarian visa holders who transition to a different visa due to travelling outside of Australia to retain their HELP eligibility. A former permanent humanitarian visa holder in this situation would otherwise lose their HELP eligibility.

The measures in this bill correct the unintended consequence that was not considered during the drafting of the citizenship and residency requirements for HELP. Correcting this oversight supports positive outcomes for the student and also indirectly the taxpayer, as it prevents the student from losing their HELP eligibility partway through their course. We all know that, if a student loses their HELP eligibility, they may be unable to complete their qualification and therefore work in their chosen field. This means that they remain liable for their HELP debt already incurred. In this case, Australian employers and society lose out because of this untapped talent not realising their full potential.

The minister for education will determine the applicable visa subclasses that retains HELP eligibility for former permanent humanitarian visa holders to ensure these amendments remain flexible and responsive to any future changes to the 1958 Migration Act. There were 4,346 permanent humanitarian visa holders who accessed a HELP loan in 2019. The measure in this bill will ensure this small cohort continue to have HELP eligibility and are aligned with other eligible Australian residents.

Measures included in this bill also make minor technical amendments to improve the operation of the Higher Education Support Act. This small set of amendments will improve efficiency in the system, ultimately saving money for taxpayers. This bill will require higher education providers to refund upfront payments made by students and any associated payments providers received from the Commonwealth in relation to a student's HELP loan where that loan is recredited under the Higher Education Support Act.

This bill will also amend the definition of 'grandfathered students' to clarify that an ongoing course includes a course that has been restructured by a higher education provider and to ensure that students do not lose their status as grandfathered students as a result of the default by a provider.

Importantly, this bill will make a technical correction to clarify that Indigenous languages are included in funding cluster 3 of the Higher Education Support Act and are not classified as foreign languages but rather native languages. It's amazing that this wasn't the case previously—that Indigenous languages weren't regarded as native to this continent.

Lastly, this bill will repeal sections under the Higher Education Support Act that are no longer required due to other amendments making other minor consequential amendments to the act. Another small amendment in this bill makes changes to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000. The Education Services for Overseas Students Act provides important protections for international students by ensuring rigorous standards are applied to any course delivered to international students. This protects international students' investments in Australian education and upholds the integrity of the visa system at the same time. But, of course, it also speaks to the greater and higher cause of ensuring that our education system retains its brand of excellence.

The tuition protection scheme is a critical pillar of our international education legislative framework. It aids international students whose education providers are unable to fully deliver their course of study and who may need to seek refunds. These amendments work to protect the role of the tuition protection scheme as a refunder of last resort. They will guarantee that providers who cease to be registered or go into liquidation continue to meet their obligations. This ensures that overseas students do not rely on government and taxpayer refunds. These amendments bolster the sustainability of the Overseas Students Tuition Fund and reduce the likelihood of taxpayer funds being needed to replenish it in the future. These amendments support the efficient operation of the tuition protection scheme and the Education Services for Overseas Students Act more generally and complement the measures the Morrison government has already put in place to support the international education sector through the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including significant regulatory and fee relief and deregulatory measures.

We all know that COVID-19 is raging around the globe, but the Morrison government has stood firmly behind our higher education sector, whether it has been providing continuing and ongoing support to the sector through billions of dollars of investment in 2020 or increasing funding for research to help them through the transition that has happened because the international student intake has significantly decreased through no fault of the universities. We know that the higher education sector has suffered with the loss of international students throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These amendments will work to promote long-term investment in our institutions by giving students the certainty that they require to commit to an Australian education and also by tightening up inefficiencies to open up more opportunities for higher education. Therefore, this bill is a triple win: a win for students, a win for Australian education institutions and a win for the taxpayer.

The amendments proposed in this bill are reasonable, sensible and pragmatic. Though most of these amendments are minor in nature, I believe that the impact on the sector will be important. This bill not only helps permanent humanitarian refugee visa holders—a noble goal in itself—but also increases certainty, driving further investment in our higher education sector which in turn opens up funding for additional university research. Simultaneously this bill reduces the burden on taxpayers, through increasing efficiency and correcting oversights in the system. I'm particularly pleased that this bill finally acknowledges that Indigenous languages are native languages, not foreign languages, in this country. I commend this bill to the House.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have often said in this chamber that my electorate of Bennelong is Australia's capital of innovation, and it is. We're the home of wi-fi, Cochlear, Australia's first hydrogen refuelling station and the world's first granny smith apple. Behind these innovations is the massive centre of innovation at Macquarie Park.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You like an apple, do you? Macquarie Park is the home of dozens of multinational and local companies at the cutting edge of medical, transport and communications technologies. At the heart of this innovation precinct is Macquarie University, the driver of so many of our breakthroughs. We must always remember that behind these institutions, the breakthroughs, the companies and the university are people. No-one makes the exciting journey without the ability to attend classes and step on the first rung of the ladder and, more prosaically, without the ability to pay for it. This is why the Higher Education Loan Program, HELP, is such an integral part of our education system. HELP allows people to go to university who wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. It allows thousands of Australians to access higher education.

Getting as many people from as many different backgrounds as possible is essential to bring together the different viewpoints that make our universities more dynamic and to create the outside-the-box thinking that provokes the next great breakthrough. So it is important that this act will extend the Higher Education Loan Program, HELP, eligibility to former permanent humanitarian visa holders. Former permanent humanitarian visa holders who transition to a different visa due to travelling outside of Australia will now be able to retain their HELP eligibility. Permanent humanitarian visa holders are eligible for a HELP loan, which assists this vulnerable cohort of students to participate and contribute to the Australian economy. This is not a negligible cohort. In 2019, 4,346 permanent humanitarian visa holders accessed HELP loans. These students have the potential to see the greatest transformation of their fortunes through education, and the contribution they can make to Australia is exciting and inspiring.

HELP eligibility requirements are intended to remain stable for students who have met the citizenship and residency requirements and who reside in Australia. The measure corrects an oversight that was not considered during the crafting of the citizenship and residency requirements for HELP. Correcting this oversight supports positive outcomes for the student and the taxpayer and it prevents the student from losing their HELP eligibility pathway through their course, which could have terrible outcomes, especially for this vulnerable cohort of students. The Minister for Education will determine the applicable visa subclasses that retain HELP eligibility for former permanent humanitarian visa holders through a legislative instrument. This will ensure these amendments remain flexible and responsive to any future changes to the Migration Act 1958. This measure ensures that this cohort's continued HELP eligibility is aligned with other eligible Australian residents, and is an important reform.

The government is committed to our universities and particularly committed to STEM, which is the driver for everything that happens in our innovative corner of Sydney. According to universities and tertiary education access centres, new commencements across Australia are up 7.3 per cent, including 13 per cent in science, 12 per cent in IT and 10 per cent in engineering. This is very promising news. To build on this, we're creating up to 30,000 additional university places in 2021 and up to 100,000 places by 2030 and bringing down the cost of degrees in key areas. The cost of a maths degree is now down 59 per cent; the cost of nursing and teaching degrees has gone down 42 per cent; and the cost of science, engineering and IT degrees has gone down by 18 per cent. These are the degrees that will keep us growing, inventing, caring and learning. These are the degrees that will set our students up to compete around the world in new and exciting fields.

We know that 2020 was a tough year for students and particularly for universities, that have not been able to rely on the funding from the international students who have been such a large part of their model. Obviously we can't open the borders soon enough for this and other sectors. But, with COVID cases spiking in many parts of the world, we must always balance our economic desires against the safety of Australians. So I'm glad to see that the Morrison government is providing a record $20 billion investment in the higher education sector in 2021. Total funding is up more than 37 per cent since we came to government. In the 2020 budget, there was $298.5 million in additional funding. This year for undergraduate places there is $252 million for up to 50,000 additional short course places. We also injected $1 billion to back university research during the pandemic.

Our policies have already seen the youth unemployment rate recover by 1.7 per cent in December. We will continue to back young Australians to get into a job. Though 2020 was tough for unis and many young people, I'm confident that Australia's management of the COVID virus and the ongoing rollout of vaccines both locally and around the world will mean that our universities will soon be back to the cosmopolitan and international centres they have been in the past. Bennelong and Australia have a great innovation heritage thanks to the excellence of our universities, and I look forward to seeing them continue going from strength to strength in the coming years.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. I would like to start by acknowledging that it has been a tough 12 months or more for the tertiary education sector, and, in my home state of South Australia, for the three universities there: The University of Adelaide, my alma mater, the University of South Australia and Flinders University. I've been staying very close to the leadership of all three of those institutions, meeting regularly with the vice-chancellors. I had the honour of addressing one of the graduation ceremonies at Adelaide university a few weeks ago.

It has been a difficult 12 months, and the outlook is still concerning insofar as the international student market is concerned. That market is a significant part of most tertiary institutions' financial models in this country, and has been for many decades. There are critics of that. I don't happen to be one of them. I'm a strong supporter of the international student sector. Not just because, as an industry, it's an export earner—that's a happy economic outcome from engaging in that sector—but because it is excellent for the institutions and for the financial viability of them. They have the ability to invest more than they otherwise would in important research activities because of the scale that has been created by international students, and the fact that these students meet the entirety of the cost of their own studies and contribute into the funds available for our institutions to invest in research activities and the like.

Obviously, with international borders closed, this has created a lot of stress for our institutions. In the first few months of COVID, there was an ability to hold things together as far as holding out hope that international students would return soon. It is now clear that will not occur, but I do hope that institutions are working through contingencies to make sure that, once we can safely bring international students back into this country, they're ready to take full advantage of that. I would hate to see the sector significantly deteriorate because of the challenges of COVID, and not see the sector bounce back as quickly as possible. Engaging in attracting foreign students, at their full cost, to come and study in this country again is important, and provides a benefit for those institutions, particularly in the ability to finance a lot of significant research capability in this country.

There are broader economic benefits that come from the international student sector, and some of my colleagues, in contributing to this debate, have already made some of those points. It's not just the tuition fees and the benefit of those tuition fees for those institutions; it's clearly the broader expenditure that those international students undertake in the economies that they're engaged in. In my home city of Adelaide, it has been a significant sector for a long time. If I reflect on when I was an undergraduate, and also in my post-graduate studies—particularly in my post-graduate studies—the vast majority of my cohort were international students. I suspect that the course I undertook wouldn't have been provided by Adelaide university if they didn't have the international student cohort participating in it. If it hadn't been available to me, I would have missed the opportunity to make excellent friendships with people. Some are still in this country, some have gone back to significant careers in the countries from which they came. I would not only have lost that engagement but I would also probably have paid a lot more for my qualification, because it wouldn't have been supported by the contribution of international students.

Some of the important elements that we're addressing here go to that, particularly the humanitarian side. I think that we can all accept that this reform is important, in many ways, to address some loopholes. I won't go through the fundamental detail of what has already been canvassed by previous speakers in that regard, but it is important that we address this. The principle of supporting those who are here on a humanitarian basis is important. We always intended to support them with FEE-HELP, so it's important that they still receive that support and aren't disadvantaged by way of a loophole. That's what we're addressing here, as well as some of the other important things related to international students and to Indigenous languages.

One of the silver linings in the 14 months since the COVID pandemic struck us in so many ways, particularly the higher education sector, is that we've had to refocus on the importance of sovereign capability and, within that, how important it will be for our higher education institutions to engage with government and the private sector as part of the innovation agenda to restore fundamental sovereign manufacturing capability here in this country. Since the budget last year and some of the manufacturing investments that we'd already committed to as a government, I've had the opportunity to go to a number of collaborations between our higher education institutions in my home state of South Australia and a wide array of industry sectors, which have a very bright future because of the partnerships that are in place between the higher education sector, the Commonwealth government and industry.

I'm excited about the further rounds of funding that have already been announced—but the projects themselves haven't been confirmed—around the collaborative research centres. I'm very passionate about one in particular, which the Adelaide university has put forward, but I'll wait for the merit based process of decision-making to find out, hopefully, that there's good news in regard to that project. But, of course, in the defence sector, in the space sector, in the cybersector and in the satellite sector, there are so many excellent partnerships now being entered into between the tertiary education sector, the Commonwealth government and the private sector. That's a great trinity of hope for future job creation in this country, addressing not just the challenges we've got but the opportunities as well. It's the higher education sector that's vital for that, and the important amendments that this bill puts forward will continue to support the strength of that sector.

As I said earlier, I hope to see the international student market revived as soon as possible, because it makes a very significant contribution towards the research capacity of the higher education institutions. I know that, like every other higher education institution, it will benefit the three in my home state of South Australia—Adelaide university, Flinders University and the University of South Australia. I look forward to continuing to work with them on the other important undertakings that we've made in the recent budget and previous budgets to support them and work with them to make sure we're using them to enhance, expand and maximise the benefits of future industry development in this country.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank those members, particularly the member for Sturt, who spoke on the Education Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. This bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003, or HESA, to ensure resident return visa holders who previously held a permanent humanitarian visa remain eligible for Higher Education Loan Program, or HELP, assistance. This measure corrects an oversight that was not considered during the drafting of the citizenship and residency requirements for HELP. In doing so, the measure supports positive outcomes for the student and the taxpayer by providing continuity in study assistance support for permanent humanitarian visa holders.

In addition, the bill improves the operation of the HESA by aligning provisions across all HELP programs for student protection measures, clarifying references to Indigenous languages, streamlining the operation of grant funding and clarifying grandfathering arrangements. These measures will ensure the efficient functioning of the HESA.

This bill also makes minor amendments to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 to ensure the efficient functioning of the Tuition Protection Service and the ESOS Act more generally. These minor amendments safeguard the role of the TPS and bolster the sustainability of the Overseas Student Tuition Fund by clarifying existing provisions and provider obligations in relation to overseas students. The measures are complementary to those the government has already put in place to support the international education sector through the impacts of COVID-19 and to ensure students who invest in an Australian education will continue to receive the necessary protections beyond the existing strong domestic regulations.

I thank members for their contributions debating these measures that support continuity of access to HELP for permanent humanitarian visa holders and ensure the ESOS Act and TPS remain fit for purpose. I commend the bill to the House.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Sydney has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.