Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that the Government's Job-ready Graduates Package is getting more Australians into the degrees that will get them the skills and qualifications to get a job;

(2) further notes that the latest data shows there are more Australians studying at university than ever before;

(3) recognises that the largest increases in new enrolments are for courses made cheaper by the Job-ready Graduates Package; and

(4) notes that the Government is providing a record $20 billion investment in the higher education sector in 2021.

When that final school bell rings and our high-school years come to an end, we make what is possibly one of the hardest decisions of our lives. At school we all had much the same subjects to choose from—English, maths, science, physical education and so on. It was a daily routine we all stuck to. But, when we leave school, our lives are our own and we must forge our own paths. Some people might decide to take up a trade and some might decide to go straight to university while others might hold off on university and travel the world. Whatever you choose to do in this country is okay.

These days there are many pathways towards your ultimate career goal. For those people who choose to attend university and get a degree, the Morrison government is creating more opportunities and programs that will provide the best opportunity of getting a job upon graduation. The Job-ready Graduates Package is creating up to 30,000 additional university places in 2021 and bringing down the cost of degrees in key areas. This is just the first step in our plan to create up to 100,000 extra university places by 2030, which will pave the way for even more opportunities for our school leavers and job-ready graduates.

Degrees are expensive, and we understand that it's not easy to pay for your university degree straight out of school, particularly for those people who are unable to be supported by their parents. Even if a student chooses to take out a HECS-HELP loan, that money has to be paid back eventually. The last thing we as a government want is for a young person to rack up a three- to four-year university debt and graduate with a degree that has very little likelihood of helping them find work. That debt can follow a person around for years or even decades.

We also want to reduce the chances of having skills shortages now and in the future, particularly in emerging industries. We want our university graduates to have the best chance of getting work once their studies have been completed, and the way to do that is to steer them towards studying for industries that need workers.

One way to entice people into these programs is by lowering their cost. Under the Job-ready Graduates Package the cost of an agriculture degree is down by 59 per cent. The cost of a maths degree is also down by 59 per cent. The cost of a nursing or teaching degree has gone down by 42 per cent. The cost of a science, engineering or IT degree has gone down by 18 per cent. Importantly, we are already seeing evidence that the Job-ready Graduates Package is getting more Australians into the degree that will get them the skills and qualifications they require in order to get a job. In fact, the data from our universities has shown that the largest increases in new university enrolments are for courses in these in-demand fields. The University of Queensland has offered double the number of places in its agriculture program.

In my electorate of Longman, the University of the Sunshine Coast, with campuses at Caboolture and Petrie, offers a wide range of these key programs right on our doorstep. In fact, more Australians are now studying the courses that will give them the best chance of getting into a job. Commencements are up 14 per cent in science, 13 per cent in IT, 10 per cent in engineering, 14 per cent in agriculture, 11 per cent in education and eight per cent in health.

We are providing a record $20.4 billion investment in higher education in 2021, while funding is up more than 37 per cent since we came to government. We are now seeing the results of our policies. Australia's unemployment rate has fallen to 4.9 per cent under the Morrison government, which is the lowest it has been in a decade. Youth unemployment is at its lowest rate in 12 years. I am so pleased that a commonsense approach has been used and that university funding is now demand driven, rather than the old model where students were graduating and in some cases were never able to use the degree they worked so hard for, as there were no jobs in that field. This government will continue to back Australians to get into a job now and into the future.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The convention on these things is to thank the member for Longman for bringing on the debate and to say how pleased I am that he has done it, but I'd be a hypocrite if I did that. The fact is that this is the most antiuniversity government in Australian history. It is bizarre that the member would bring on a motion praising the government's university policies. He should hang his head in shame for the way in which this government has treated universities. Universities are vital to Australia's future. Attending university boosts earnings by around 50 per cent compared to finishing high school, translating to some $600,000 of additional earnings for the median woman and $800,000 for the median man.

Universities are also critical to Australia's exports. They were our fourth-largest export earner before the pandemic hit. Universities employ some 130,000 full-time equivalent workers, and in regional areas they support some 14,000 jobs. The research done in universities is fundamental to Australia's prosperity, and at a time like this even those opposite should recognise the value of funding science. Yet the sector is set to lose nearly $4 billion in revenue in 2020 and 2021. The mere $1 billion the government provided in last year's budget hasn't been renewed in this year's, and when it came to JobKeeper the government changed the rules three times to keep out universities. No, wait; it wasn't all universities. No, they let a couple through. Who did they let through? It was the private universities. Bond University got millions of dollars and New York University's Sydney campus got JobKeeper, yet Australian public universities were excluded from JobKeeper.

The government's own budget papers show that, because of the Job-ready Graduates Package, Commonwealth funding of universities will be lower and student debt will rise. The fact is that this comes after an ongoing series of attacks by the Morrison government on universities. They killed the demand driven system, bringing back command and control by the Molonglo. You'd think that a party that calls itself Liberal might actually support the demand driven system which allows students to decide where places will be, but, no, they went back to command and control. They botched the China relationship, causing significant challenges for Australia's higher education sector. Then, as a result of their bungles in vaccination and quarantine they are further hurting the higher education sector—not just because international students can't come, but because domestic students are caught interstate and because valued faculty can't be brought here to Australia.

Let me go through a couple of the particular universities. Charles Sturt University is having to cut bachelor degrees in outdoor education, sustainable agriculture and information technology. Macquarie University is having to cut up to 31 programs in science and engineering. The University of Newcastle is cutting eight undergraduate degrees, including in technology, renewable energy systems and computer science. Swinburne University of Technology is cutting design and languages programs. Central Queensland University is closing campuses. The University of the Sunshine Coast is cutting programs in STEM. The University of Queensland is cutting programs in agriculture and engineering. Murdoch University is cutting programs in physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology and engineering. Across all institutions we've had nearly 2,000 courses cancelled and nearly 200 programs cancelled.

At my former university, the Australian National University, the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, which has done groundbreaking work in plate tectonics, has lost five professors. ANU's physics department, clearly the best in Australia, has lost 20 professorial positions and 40 per cent of PhD students. This is despite the fact that it is one of the most successful centres at research commercialisation. Deakin University has lost nearly 3,000 staff. La Trobe University has lost over 3,000 staff. Monash University has lost 1,000 staff. The Australian National University has literally been decimated—one in 10 staff have gone. Of course, these are only the numbers that the National Tertiary Education Union can pull out. ABS data shows 30,000 fewer Australians working in higher education than at the start of the year. Even the philistines believed in the humanities—in arts, culture, trade and languages—but not this government, the most anti-university government in Australia's history.

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to outline to all Australians that the fact is that one of the biggest threats facing our nation's economic recovery is a shortage of skills—a shortage of skills in the right places. During this global pandemic, businesses cannot rely on building a bigger workforce from overseas or from immigration. These levers can no longer be pulled by government at this time to supply workforces that Australian businesses have historically relied upon.

The Morrison government's economic plan is delivering jobs for Australians and is skilling the next generation of workers. The Job-ready Graduates Package is part of that plan. Australia will bounce back from COVID-19 through developing our country's greatest asset and our greatest resource: our own people. That's why we have seen the development of this government's Job-ready Graduates Package, to ensure more Australians study in the areas that will get them the skills and qualifications to get a job and to have a career and a future in Australia's jobs market.

We recently released the national skills priority list through the National Skills Commission. This is the national picture of jobs in demand today and into the future. Today, over 150 occupations face skill shortages nationally. These are most commonly technicians and trades, followed by professionals; machinery operators and drivers; and managers, as well as community and personal service workers. But we're also seeing huge demand for accountants, auditors and engineers—all areas that our Job-ready Graduates Package is designed to address.

The latest data shows there are more Australians studying at university than ever before. Importantly, more Australians are studying the courses that are likely to get them jobs. Commencements are up. I thank the member for Longman for putting forward this motion and I reiterate the numbers that he outlined: science is up 14 per cent; agriculture is up 14 per cent; IT is up 13 per cent; engineering is up 10 per cent; education is up 11 per cent; and health is up eight per cent. These are all areas of demand in jobs. The Job-ready Graduates Package is creating up to 30,000 additional university places in 2021, up to 100,000 places by 2030, and bringing down the cost of degrees in these key future jobs areas.

Let me outline a few of the areas where degrees have actually come down in cost under this Job-ready Graduates Package: agriculture is down 59 per cent; maths is down 59 per cent; nursing and teaching has gone down 42 per cent; and the cost of a science, engineering or IT degree has gone down 18 per cent. According to universities and tertiary access centres, new commencements are actually up 7.3 per cent. The University of Queensland has offered double the number of places in agriculture. That doesn't agree with what the member for Fenner just outlined in this chamber. Nationally, in 2021, enrolments in science are up 6,200 and enrolments in engineering are up 2,200. The Job-ready Graduates Package is working. For example, ANU has increased enrolments in both science and engineering degrees in 2021. The number of commencing science students increased by 32 per cent, and the number of commencing engineering students increased by 66 per cent, compared to 2020. Nobody can argue that these areas are not areas of demand now and into the decades ahead of us.

This government is investing $903.5 million over four years for more places and more support for more students. In the 2020 budget there was $298.5 million in additional funding for undergraduate places this year. There was $252 million for up to 50,000 additional short-course places and $1 billion to back university research during the pandemic. This government's policies have already seen the youth unemployment rate at the lowest level in 12 years, according to the April 2021 figures. We'll continue to back young Australians to get them into work.

While right now on the Gold Coast we're hurting in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, our best days lie ahead of us. In my electorate of Moncrieff, in the middle of the nation's playground on the Gold Coast, we're seeing a boom in opportunities that will deliver jobs to support our growth and development, as well as our vibrant local economy. But we're also seeing the sorts of shortages the nationals skills priority list has identified. If we're going to realise that future, we're going to need more workers with the right skills and the right education. On the Gold Coast, we need more skilled and trained people to help build the Gold Coast and grow our local economy. That's what this package does.

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

I'm pleased to speak on the motion moved by the Member for Longman—a motion erroneously claiming that the Morrison government's Job-ready Graduates Package is getting more Australians into degrees, providing skills and qualifications to obtain employment, and that there are more Australians studying at university than ever before. Let's pick the coalition claims apart one at a time. You might remember that the job-ready graduates legislation was touted by the Morrison government as a measure to redirect university enrolments to areas of study linked to jobs that are in demand in the labour market. It is a fine concept, but the actual effect of the legislation was quite different. The coalition have actually increased the student fee load and cut funding from the Commonwealth to universities. Treasurer Frydenberg gets the savings, and students get a pile of debt. Many students are paying more for their degrees; on average, Australian students are paying seven per cent more, and 40 per cent of students have seen fees for their degree double. Students in humanities, commerce and communication degrees have all been forced to pay more and rack up more debt to obtain their degree.

The Morrison government doesn't believe graduates of those degrees are employable, but I would argue there are valuable skillsets among those graduates—in fact, the data doesn't back up the government's basis for the legislation. The Universities Australia Chief Executive Catriona Jackson was quoted saying in August last year that, in 2020, the overall employment rate for humanities, culture and social sciences was 87 per cent. That was three years after completing their degree and was the same rate for science and mathematics degrees. We know from the Morrison government's own budget papers that funding for Australian universities will fall by 10 per cent over the next three years—nothing to celebrate. If that weren't bad enough on its own, it comes at a time when $1 billion in emergency funding to support research jobs has been cut off and universities are facing a projected revenue loss of $16 billion from international students being locked out. Because of the job-ready graduates legislation, some universities have been forced to abolish courses such as neuroscience, arts, education, maths and Asian languages—courses which would create skills crucial to Australia's recovery from the pandemic recession.

Let's look at the claims made in the motion by the member for Longman, that 'there are more Australians studying at university than ever before' and that 'the largest increases in new enrolments are for courses made cheaper by the Job-ready Graduates Package'. Data in March this year did show an increase in enrolments in 2021 compared to 2020, but the linking of that increase in enrolments to the Job-ready Graduates Package has been debunked by education experts. Professor Andrew Norton is a higher education policy expert from the ANU. He was quoted in March as saying 'the increase was more likely to result from the announcement last November of 12,000 priority places', which allowed universities to go over their caps, 'and the 50,000 government subsidised short courses.' He said, 'The cause is not the job ready graduates program, and the increase will not be sustained beyond 2021.' Professor Norton is not the only expert to disagree with the idea that the increased enrolments come from the job-ready graduates legislation. Professor Paddy Nixon, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Canberra, also was quoted earlier this year as saying that a surge in enrolments at his university in the bachelors of nursing and medical imaging programs was unlikely to be a result of the legislation. Professor Nixon said, 'The surge in these enrolments was unsurprising, given the pandemic.' He said, 'My theory would be that the salience of nursing and health generally is that these areas are in the minds of many people, and so would attract more applicants than previously.' Professor Norton pointed out also that 'the effect of the job ready graduates legislation is that universities don't generate more money by taking on more students'.

The Morrison government has cut real funding for universities during a pandemic. On top of that, it deliberately and methodically changed the rules three times so universities could not get JobKeeper to keep their staff employed. At least 17,300 university jobs were lost in 2020, and university revenue fell by $1.8 billion compared to 2019. International education was worth more than $17 billion to Australia's economy. Immediately before the pandemic it was our fourth-largest export after iron ore, coal and gas—all products that are not value added, I'd point out. If the Prime Minister had done his job—if the Prime Minister had provided quarantine facilities and had bothered to order enough vaccination for all Australians—we would not still have more than 35,000 Australian stuck overseas, and international students could return. He might then might deserve a pat on the back. Legislation that makes it harder and more expensive for students to go to university does not require a pat on the back. I point that out to the member for Longman. (Time expired)

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

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.