Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bill before the House, the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023, is a very exciting one. It will help unlock the potential of so many in our country to develop new ideas, to come up with inventions that will improve our world and to put Australia in a stronger position in terms of our reputation as a smart country with sovereign capability in ideas and innovation. Quite simply, this bill creates a new form of assistance under the Higher Education Loan Program to support participation in higher-education-based accelerator programs that will facilitate the development of the entrepreneurs and innovators of the future.

In my electorate of Chisholm we have a very strong foundation in ideas and innovation. We are home to the Burwood campus of Deakin University, which is, of course, the first international university to open a campus in India, an achievement of which we are all very proud, and to the expansive Clayton campus of Monash University. Monash is Australia's largest university. It is where I studied when I was an undergraduate and a place I visit often today. I am so fortunate to enjoy strong relationships with these institutions, and it is my great honour to advocate for excellence in higher education as the representative of the area these institutions are situated in. But they are not the only wonderful institutions in my electorate. We are also home to the Australian Synchrotron, to the CSIRO, to the Monash Technology Precinct and to so many other businesses and innovators working in the pharmaceutical sector, in medical technology, in defence technology, in advanced manufacturing and in medical research.

The ecosystem of talent we have in our electorate will only be enhanced by the Startup Year HELP initiative. This bill demonstrates our government's commitment to building a better future through supporting the higher education sector in a meaningful way, through championing ideas and Australian ingenuity and through having the patient to set up our communities and our country for the long term as a place of excellence for talent.

It is very clear that we need to diversify our economy. This has been the case for some time, but it was so starkly highlighted over the last few years as we experienced the shutdown of supply chains through the early era of the COVID crisis, and now we face continued disruptions as a result of the war in Ukraine. Like so many in our community, I was horrified to see the full extent of the failure during the previous, wasted, decade of government to ensure that our nation had the sovereign capability it needed to help our country, to help Australia get through a pandemic with local supplies. The pandemic laid bare the fact that our economy was not as strong as it could be, with missed opportunities for Australia to make things to export to the world, to diversify our economy and to grow our nation's wealth.

We know that in advanced manufacturing the multiplier effect across the economy is high, as high as 10 to one in certain sectors, and we know too that Australia is missing out because for far too long—shamefully too long—we have been governed by people who were short-sighted when it came to the potential of our nation. Previous governments were very short-sighted when it came to ideas, and higher education as a sector has been made poorer due to the wasted decade when those opposite were in government. We, on the other hand, are a forward-looking, optimistic government. This bill is about that. And other measures already initiated by our government, such as the National Reconstruction Fund, demonstrate our commitment to a prosperous, optimistic Australia.

We've done more to support manufacturing in our 10 months in government than those opposite managed to do in 10 years. Under their watch companies left Australia, causing devastation right across the supply chain and in our communities, as good, secure jobs were shed and the industries Australian governments should have supported, should have been proud of, were abandoned. And, of course, that includes the skills sector and higher education in all of that.

Let us too never forget the callous disregard those opposite had for international students during the early part of the pandemic, nor let us forget the exclusion, deliberately, of universities and academics from JobKeeper. That act damaged research in this country. It is an enormous shame that any government would be so deliberately destructive to our higher education sector, a sector of which we should be enormously proud and ensure we do everything we can to protect and support so that it has a strong future. A strong future for higher education is inherently good for society, for all of our communities and for the whole of Australia.

This bill helps us as a nation support our higher education sector through supporting institutions and students to make sure they have opportunities to pursue ideas, to reach their potential as leaders in business and innovation. This bill represents a truly bright moment for Australia. Investment in Australia's future entrepreneurs and business innovation leaders will help build a smarter, stronger and more innovative economy that attracts and retains talent. We want students to be equipped with the skills, experiences and capabilities to realise their own entrepreneurial endeavours and support our country in achieving our national priorities. Through this increased focus on university accelerators, higher education providers will be able to develop student skills and create a pipeline of aspiring entrepreneurs that will help shape a diverse and competitive economy. To do so, students need access to education that will advance their own careers and encourage an innovation driven Australia. These programs enable our future entrepreneurs to receive the support and the confidence they need to remain in Australia and found their startups. This culture begins with initiatives that signal government endorsement. Again, the contrast between the last 10 months and the last 10 years could not be clearer. We support higher education. We support a cultural change that values ideas.

Our government has engaged in an extensive stakeholder discussion process with universities, industry and students and what this has highlighted has been the appetite for expanded accelerator programs. Not only do these programs enable students to gain important skill sets that are really desirable to industry and future employers—and this is a topic that I speak with employers in my own electorate about very often—it also provides valuable communities, connections and networks for students. I reflect too on the technology precincts in my own electorate, again in terms of seeing how those communities, connections and networks are formed for students.

Startup Year will have a positive impact on the university sector, individuals and industry. This program will provide additional funding to participating universities to build and expand their existing accelerator program offerings. These loans will also encourage new entrepreneurs to build and innovate their ideas through financial support and access to world-class mentors and facilities. We need to remember too that we have some of the finest researchers in the world working in Australian universities. Again, that is something that we should be enormously proud of as a nation. Supporting startup creation and the skill set developed through accelerator programs will play a role in growing productivity and incomes and build a workforce with the skills and capabilities to adapt and thrive in the future labour market.

As noted before, this bill represents the work of a government that is committed to an optimistic future for Australia, with a diverse economy and a reputation as a smart nation. On average, across OECD countries, young firms account for approximately 20 per cent of employment and create almost half of all new jobs. In Australia, startups have a high impact on the creation of new jobs, and the Startup Year program will work to support this new growth. We've had really strong feedback and support from the sector during our consultations. A first-year pilot will be delivered to test aspects of program design, to engage student demand and to assess capacity to deliver the program. But this is a really exciting development, again demonstrating our commitment not just to higher education but to building an economy and communities that Australians really deserve, that value ideas and that respects the contribution that higher education makes to our communities. It will be something that delivers not just now but well into the future.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Growing our economy and encouraging the development of new business is at the heart of the coalition's vision for Australia. I was fortunate in my time prior to this role to spend over 15 years working in and with small business and seeing the innovation, the new products and the new markets that they develop and to spend the last three years working in the tech sector, which is very much at the heart of startups and entrepreneurial culture here in Australia. I had the fortune last Friday to attend a breakfast with the tech council and speak to many startup founders and to Ant from Bloc, now owned by Afterpay. He was there, and that's a great example of the startup culture that we have in Australia. It's very strong.

Education is important, absolutely, and I'll talk to that, but many startups know that the best experience is on the job, getting in there and learning, particularly during that early phase. It's so important that we have a strong economy that allows those startups to flourish, because startups and entrepreneurial culture are key to our future economic growth. That's why the coalition, when in government, delivered a number of major investments to support entrepreneurs and help universities to commercialise their research, which I'll get to.

This bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and is designed to assist students to enrol and participate in tertiary courses that develop and commercialise their entrepreneurial and startup ideas. The bill creates a new category of income-contingent loans, SY-HELP, under the Higher Education Loan Program. The bill includes amendments to various social security acts so that students who are participating in accelerator program courses who are entitled to SY-HELP assistance can potentially qualify for student social security payments. In addition to measures related to SY-HELP loans, other measures included in the bill are amendments to the Australian Research Council Act 2001 to update funding caps for approved research programs and amendments to HESA. SY-HELP funding up to the amount of $11,800 will be provided to students in relation to the course fee of a higher-education based accelerator program. Eligible students can receive a maximum of two separate loans over their lifetime to fully recover the costs of their participation in accelerator programs. The scheme is scheduled to commence on 1 July 2023 and is capped at 2,000 places. However, the government plans to commence with a pseudo pilot of 1,000 places, for which universities will effectively bid.

Universities have raised concerns that the funds available are unlikely to fund a full year's course, and the value proposition for higher-education institutions is also unclear. A wide range of issues have been raised by various key stakeholders. The bill does not provide certainty as to how the loan funds will flow, including whether students will be able to access any of the funding as startup capital. Only courses of a minimum of six months are funded, which may not be in the best interests of either the students or higher education institutions. And given the barriers to commencing a new accelerator or incubator program, students attending regional and smaller universities which do not have access to an existing accelerator or incubator program may be disadvantaged.

There is insufficient clarity as to whether students will be able to retain their intellectual property rights in relation to the work funded through SY-HELP. Between September and November 2022, the government conducted a consultation on the Startup Year program, releasing a consultation paper. Concerningly, the government has declined to make public both the submissions made to the Department of Education as part of the consultation and a survey of students and recent graduates conducted by the department. Surely the government has an obligation to be transparent on legislation it proposes to pass.

The coalition has received some submissions independently, and some of the feedback was concerning. Universities Australia recommended that an expert working group be established to provide advice to government about the purpose, value proposition and funding arrangements, including the flow of funds and implementation issues such as accreditation and legislative requirements, but this was disregarded. The Australian Technology Network of Universities suggested, among other things, that funding be given directly to students and not to universities. It also raised concerns that student costs may be a barrier to participation. And the Regional Universities Network expressed concern about the value proposition for both students and regional institutions. It supported the option to commence with a pilot but asked that more than one regionally based accelerator be included.

As a number of university peak bodies have submitted, the Startup Year demands an evidence based pilot program to test the best to design and deliver the SY-HELP loan scheme. Rather than conduct a proper pilot, the government is planning a type of auction where universities are encouraged to bid for an initial thousand places, which will be made available from 1 July 2023. The government needs to explain how it will test the efficacy and effectiveness of the Startup program, how the government will ensure value for money and that the scheme delivers for young entrepreneurs. This is a really important question, because, as I said at the start, I've spent time in the tech sector and the startup world and it's fair to say that, while there are a lot of people that are highly educated and they do value higher education, they also value practical experience. What we don't want to create are debt traps for young Australians who do an accelerator program that isn't fit for purpose, isn't respected by the industry or doesn't help them get into a job, because all we're doing then is making the future economic prospects of these young Australians even harder. It's so important that this program is respected by the industry, by entrepreneurs and by tech startups and it delivers value for money for the Australian taxpayer but importantly delivers value for money for those young Australians who take the opportunity to participate in this program, because tech startups don't need a piece of paper to give you an opportunity.

Although, as I've said, encouraging the development of new business is at the heart of the coalition vision, it is also prudent to consider that 97 per cent of startups exit or fail to grow and that the stakes are high. So where are the incentives for higher education institutions to partner with industry or angel investors and to develop pathways to employment? While it is expected that universities will continue to deliver innovative accelerator and incubator courses, the Startup Year program is a missed opportunity to provide greater incentives for partnerships between higher education institutions and industries that will deliver real outcomes for students.

The coalition has a strong track record of backing our young entrepreneurs and innovators. In 2014, the coalition government introduced the $400 million Entrepreneurs Program which funded the commercialisation of good ideas, boosting jobs, lifting the capacity of small business and providing access to experienced private-sector providers and researchers. This program was comprised of many elements, including accelerating commercialisation, which helps small and medium businesses, entrepreneurs and researchers to commercialise novel products, services and processes. It also includes the business growth grants to provide access to a national network of experienced business advisers and facilitators to assist businesses to improve business practices, become more competitive, and take advantage of growth and collaboration opportunities in order to increase access to domestic and international markets. It also has the Incubator Support program to assist new and existing incubators to improve the prospects of Australian startups achieving commercial success in international markets through helping them to develop their business capabilities.

Innovation connections was also part of this program. Experienced innovation facilitators would work with business to identify knowledge gaps that are preventing business growth. The outcome is an innovation facilitation report. There is also the Strengthening Business program to connect businesses with specialists to help strengthen resiliency and to help future proof the business. But guess what? They don't like to talk about this on the other side, but the Albanese Labor government cut $197 million from this program over four years in the October 2022 budget. According to Parliamentary Library research, this represents about 75 per cent of the EIP's funding.

When in government, the coalition also proposed a $2.2 billion university research commercialisation package, which we are pleased to report has been adopted by the government. Our commitments included $243 million for the Trailblazer Universities Program to boost research and development, and to drive commercialisation outcomes with industry partners. There is also $150 million capital injection to expand the CSIRO Main Sequence ventures program, which backs startup companies. There is $296 million for 1,800 industry PhDs and over 800 new fellowships, the creation of a new IP framework for universities to support greater university-industry collaboration and the uptake of research outputs. And, of course, there is $1.6 billion over 10 years for Australia's Economic Accelerator, a new staged gate competitive funding program to help university projects bridge the so-called valley of death on the road to commercialisation.

We hear often from those opposite that supposedly nothing happened for 10 years. While words are cheap, the facts matter, and these are the facts about what the former coalition government delivered in this space. Regrettably, while perhaps well-intentioned, there is much wrong with this bill, reflecting the government's failure to again get the detail right and made worse because the government is now trying to keep secret its consultation and the wide ranging concerns raised by key stakeholders. There is no guarantee of success with a startup or, importantly, a startup loan. Unlike angel investors or large companies, students don't have deep pockets, and we need to make sure that we are avoiding a situation where we are setting young people up for failure and for debt traps. I fear that the failure of this bill, or the issues with this bill, could set young people up for those debt traps.

While we on this side won't stand in the way of giving the bill a second reading, our second reading amendment makes it clear to all Australians our concerns about the purpose, design, value and risk to students posed by this bill. We hope and trust that a Senate inquiry will give key stakeholders a proper opportunity to be heard and the Senate an important opportunity to scrutinise this bill to ascertain whether the Startup Year program is in the best interests of students, the higher education sector and industry. The cost to individuals is too high to allow the government to get a headline and play politics and spin that they are investing in startups. The cost to individuals is high, so we need to make sure this legislation is effective and will work because there are young Australians who will get caught in a debt trap if we get this legislation wrong, so I urge that it moves to Senate inquiry to understand these issues in more detail.

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023, and I am excited, because this bill delivers on yet another vital election commitment. This bill proposes important changes to the Higher Education Support Act that will create a new form of assistance under the Higher Education Loan Program, HELP. This new form of assistance will be called SY-HELP. This bill will provide support to final year undergraduate students, current postgraduate students and recent graduates. Importantly, it will support them to participate in higher education based accelerator programs. SY-HELP loans will help create a pipeline of inspiring entrepreneurs who will shape a diverse and competitive economy.

Investment in Australia's future entrepreneurs and business innovation leaders will help build a smarter, stronger and more innovative economy that attracts and retains talent. This will help keep our economy innovative and competitive on the local, regional and global scale. It is essential that we equip our students with the skills, experiences and capabilities to realise their own entrepreneurial endeavours. This in turn will support our country in achieving our national priorities.

This bill will allow higher education providers such as the University of Wollongong in my electorate to develop student skills and create a pipeline of aspiring talent that will shape a diverse, competitive economy across the whole country. Through this increased focus on university accelerators, students will have access to education that will advance their own careers and encourage an innovation driven Australia. These programs will enable our future entrepreneurs to receive the support and confidence they need to remain in Australia and found their startups.

We have smart and innovative people in Gilmore and across Australia, and this bill will support them. With initiatives such as this bill, which clearly signal this government's endorsement of innovation, I'm proud to support an innovative culture change. I'm also pleased to say that this bill has been carefully developed. An extensive stakeholder engagement process with universities, industry and students has highlighted the appetite for expanded accelerator programs. Programs such as the one this bill will support not only enable students to gain important skill sets desirable to industry and future employers but also provide valuable community connections and networks for students.

On average, across OECD countries, young firms account for approximately 20 per cent of employment and create almost half of all new jobs. That's massive, and that is something the Albanese Labor government wants to continue to support. The bill proposes the establishment of the Startup Year program, which will expand the use of the HELP system to include higher education based incubator and accelerator programs. In Australia, startups have a high impact on the creation of new jobs, and the Startup Year program will work to support this new growth. Supporting startup creation and the entrepreneurial skill set will play a role in growing productivity and incomes, and will build a workforce with the skills and capabilities to adapt and thrive in the future labour market. From mid-2023, Startup Year will provide up to 2,000 income-contingent loans each year for final year undergraduate students, current postgraduate students and recent graduates to undertake a business-focused accelerator program based at an Australian higher education provider.

I've seen innovation like this in action in my electorate of Gilmore on the New South Wales South Coast at the Shoalhaven Industry 4.0 Hub. In 2021 I and the honourable member for Chifley, Ed Husic, the then shadow minister for industry, toured the Industry 4.0 Hub together. We were in opposition then, but we went to the Industry 4.0 Hub to see and learn firsthand the many benefits of 4.0 and to gain initial feedback on a potential startup year. I don't think Ed will mind me saying that he was quite impressed with the Industry 4.0 Hub, and rightly so; it is an impressive place.

The Industry 4.0 Hub is located at the University of Wollongong's Shoalhaven campus, not too far away from my office in Nowra. The hub is a collaborative environment open to students, industry and entrepreneurs. This cutting-edge facility enables industry to access innovative technologies, equipment and technical expertise through partnerships and collaborations, delivering real-world impacts. The hub is a public space open to the community, and it helps both new and experienced innovators create and meet like-minded people.

The Industry 4.0 Hub serves as a key enabler to translate research and development into commercial outcomes that are driven by innovation and excellence. A great example of this innovation from last year is the hub's collaboration with Verbotics. The Industry 4.0 Hub provided a space for Verbotics, a startup based in Wollongong, to collaborate with Universal Robots. The collaboration worked on a project to automatically program robots for welding applications and has the potential to streamline many manufacturing processes. If you'd like to see an example of this automated welding in action, you can visit the Verbotics website—how fantastic is that! The Industry 4.0 Hub gave an ambitious group of people the space to integrate improved software into an automated welding process.

I'd invite any business owner in Australia to get in touch with the Industry 4.0 Hub team to see some brilliant innovations from the New South Wales South Coast—who knows, they might be developing something perfect for you right now. And it happens. John, who owns the small business Smith's BBQs in the town of Temora in the New South Wales Riverina, engaged the hub to see if it could help his business. He attended a workshop, and as a result of the workshop John purchased and integrated a robot arm into his workflow. John said:

UOW's Industry 4.0 Hub in Nowra has been a vital source of information, training and help with the introduction of robotics into my business. We at Smith's BBQs will be using Collaborative Robots to help fold the metal BBQ parts and to weld.

How good is that? Like I said, this happened right down the road from my office in Nowra. That's just one example of what initiatives like the Industry 4.0 Hub can develop.

I wholeheartedly support initiatives that inspire and enable innovation, which is why I'm so supportive of this bill. It's a great idea and it will be a well administered program. Student and provider eligibility for SY-HELP assistance is defined in line with existing types of help assistance. SY-HELP will operate in a similar manner to existing assistance, with a student incurring a HELP debt on a predetermined census date. Those are just a few details about the program.

The details are important, but programs like this are, at their core, about the bigger picture. As we embrace this new era, we must also recognise the challenges that come with it. The rapid pace of technological advancement means that we need to constantly adapt and stay up to date with the latest developments in our respective fields. We must remain open-minded and willing to learn, not just from our own experiences but also from the experiences of others. One way to stay ahead of the curve is to collaborate with others. Whether it's partnering with other organisations, joining a professional network or simply exchanging ideas with colleagues, collaboration allows us to tap into a wider pool of knowledge and resources. By working together we can achieve more than we ever could alone. Collaborative processes have the potential to create initiatives and outcomes that are far greater than the sum of their parts. We need to be constantly looking for ways to improve our products and services and to create new ones that better meet the needs of consumers and businesses. This requires a willingness to take risks, to experiment and to embrace failure as a necessary step in the process of discovery.

Of course, innovation is not just about creating new products and services; it's also about finding new and better ways of doing things. There are plenty of great examples of this on the New South Wales South Coast. For example, just last month I went on a tour of the Alkath factory at South Nowra. Alkath comprises Global Defence Solutions, Mellori and Resilience Logistic Solutions. Alkath is a company in my electorate that produces innovative solutions which help Australia's military and emergency services personnel achieve their goals. It's quite a remarkable business, and it is most certainly innovating to create meaningful solutions. They provide mobile catering solutions, mobile hygiene systems, lighting and power distribution systems and air-conditioning, delivering core capability across the intelligence community and more.

Among the many things they create that are particularly impressive are deployable infrastructure modules. I was taken through the factory at Nowra and saw firsthand modules that could be built into many things, one of which is a fully functional mobile hospital. There was even a container that could house a fully functional mobile MRI machine. These infrastructure solutions are used by defence in strategic deployments, but it's not only defence that can utilise them; they can also be used by emergency service workers. These resources can help our emergency service workers and volunteers to more effectively respond to crisis situations such as natural disasters. I don't have to remind anyone of the devastation of natural disasters on the New South Wales South Coast and in Australia as a whole. That's another example of innovation in my electorate of Gilmore: a 100 per cent Australian owned company providing innovative solutions to help keep Australia moving forward.

There are many more ways people will be able to innovate in the future, and the Albanese Labor government want to support that. This bill will give many Australians the opportunity to innovate and create. This might mean streamlining operations, adopting new technologies or rethinking our business models. Whatever form it takes, innovation is essential if we want to stay competitive in today's fast-paced world. Perhaps the most important thing we can do to succeed in this new era is to stay focused on our values. Technology may change, but our core principles should remain the same. We need to continue to prioritise things like honesty, integrity and respect, and to use these values as our guide posts as we navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead. We are living in a time of incredible change and innovation. The choices we make today will shape the world we live in tomorrow. If we stay open-minded, collaborate with others, innovate and stay true to our values, we can make the most of this new era and create a brighter future for ourselves and for generations to come. Startup Year will assist educating our future innovators and business leaders. I commend this bill to the House.

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

I rise to speak in favour of the amendment from the member for Bradfield, the Manager of Opposition Business, to the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023. I commend the terms of that amendment, which I think very adequately encapsulate concerns we have for this bill that is currently being debated. Particularly, I think, the amendment underlines that this is the government implementing a press release from a campaign. It was about getting some media attention and looking like they were interested in entrepreneurship and facilitating startup culture and all those great buzzwords that are helpful content for journalists, probably as part of the Labor Party realising they had to have something to say on that topic during the campaign. So this was concocted and, regrettably, like so many other things from that campaign, we have now seen the gory detail of implementation. I think the feedback from stakeholders says it all. If I can simplify the complexity of that, it is that this is an extremely confusing, hard to understand, very opaque policy measure that could have all sorts of unintended consequences. The government are dutifully not listening to any of that feedback from very relevant stakeholders and are just preceding to implement this.

I'm a very passionate supporter of the startup culture we have in my home state and in my electorate of Sturt. I've been a very longstanding associate, in both my current role and previous roles, with the startup precinct at Lot Fourteen, which is the old Royal Adelaide Hospital. That was the subject of a City Deal between the Turnbull and Morrison governments, the Marshall government and the City of Adelaide—the three levels of government being the City Deal model. That was an opportunity to transform that precinct, the former Royal Adelaide Hospital on North Terrace in the Adelaide CBD into a real startup hub and incubator site, underpinned by the decision to headquarter the newly committed to Australian Space Agency there. I was there just last week, actually, at another milestone event, the launch of an industry road map for the space industry at the mission control centre in the building of the Space Agency headquarters. It is also a real hub for the defence sector and defence industries. That, of course, is creating an unbelievable culture there of startup.

We have a track record that we are very proud of, in the coalition, of tangible examples we can point to of policy decisions and policy investments that are leading to a great outcome, which is what the government purports that this policy measure is about. It's to foster job creation. As much as it's good to have a job, we particularly like people that create jobs—who start a business for themselves, grow a business and employ more people than they did in the previous year. That's how we grow our economy. In the coalition we are very proud, consistent supporters of small businesses, startup businesses and businesses that want a policy framework and policy settings in place that help them grow. They are the heroes of our economy. They are the ones that get us to the situation we're in right now, where we're effectively at completely full employment at 3½ per cent nationally. That is not because of government doing the hard work. Government needs to have policy settings in place that help the private sector do that work, and we are still seeing the legacy of the previous coalition government play out in the circumstances of employment in this nation. We'll see where that goes in the years ahead as policies like the one that we are now debating are rolled out by the new government.

There is some confusion around what this is going to do to existing programs and incubator models. The universities in South Australia have programs that facilitate graduates being supported by that institution to perhaps commercialise an idea that they've developed through their course of study with the university. We encourage universities to be more involved in commercialisation, frankly. That's one of the missing opportunities. An opportunity that has been lost in Australia for far too long is not having a good-quality structure for commercialising good ideas. Regrettably, there is a litany of excellent ideas that are developed through research and development institutions in this country and then commercialised somewhere else in the world because we haven't had the best framework for commercialisation. We would certainly like to see enhanced support and a change of culture, particularly from the financial institutions around how they provide support and engagement to commercialisation of great ideas that will start businesses, grow businesses and grow our economy.

We certainly have concerns, outlined in the amendment to the second reading question that I'm speaking to now, around the feedback that's come from Universities Australia and the Group of Eight and others about whether or not this is potentially going to have a lot of unforeseen consequences to some of the programs that already exist. Instead of achieving the 2,000-place outcome of new entrants, maybe a lot of existing programs could be adjusted to give an opportunity to access this funding. So something that was already happening, perhaps at the expense of the institutions, could in fact be now an opportunity for them to say, 'Because you can access this loan facility, we're going to start charging for things that we haven't in the past because you can just borrow that money and load it up onto your HECS-HELP debt and pay it off on top of the costs you've already incurred in your study.' So we hold those concerns. Also, there's a lot of ambiguity around how the program is going to operate because, as I've mentioned, the consultation seems to have just been the process of ticking a box. It feels like the response to that consultation has not been listened to and the concerns raised in that consultation process have not been addressed.

We can see that issues raised in the consultation process are simply not addressed in the legislation, and that is my interpretation of the feedback from the stakeholders that participated in that consultation as well. The government is certainly not saying, 'We really appreciated that consultation process and the sensible issues that were raised and this is how we've subsequently changed things, to make sure that those issues that have been raised have been addressed.' We've not got that situation, which is why we in the coalition are calling for this to be referred to a Senate inquiry, because whatever consultation occurred wasn't good enough for the government to listen to. We would like a committee in the Senate to look closely at this bill, to offer those who have been participating, and anyone who wants to participate, in the inquiry—particularly those who have already made submissions—the opportunity to raise these issues through that Senate process. In the Senate, senators can look at this bill in light of that feedback and perhaps look for some sensible opportunities to address some of those issues. We are very concerned about this.

In the coalition, we strongly support the principle of HECS. I'll do something that government members won't be doing in this place and commend Paul Keating for the approach he always took to HECS. It's important that people who are going to have a high future income-earning capacity from their education pay for it. I won't say I'm shocked—it's not a surprise—but I note the position of the Greens party in this parliament around the forgiveness of student debt.

The Greens are suggesting that hardworking taxpayers who haven't gone to university, who haven't therefore had the benefit of that education that pays future dividends to their income-earning capacity, should bear the cost of removing the student debt that lawyers, accountants and whoever else have accumulated. They're going to go on to earn quite a lot of money, and good luck to them, but they should pay for the education that unlocked their ability to earn that future income. We have the Greens saying the taxpayer—the plumbers, electricians and other hard workers who chose a different vocational path that didn't involve going to university and incurring a significant debt through HECS—should pay more tax to remove the debt of high-earning lawyers and accountants.

Let's be honest and blunt here: the Greens are a socialist party. You would think they could understand their own ideology, but they don't even understand what they say they stand for. They're saying workers should pay a higher amount of tax to subsidise wealthier income earners in our society. That's what they're about. That's what the Greens are about. I make these points because they are relevant to the bill, because we are talking about the higher education loan schemes that we have.

I commend the era in the Labor Party when Keating and others said that free higher education is not appropriate. It is appropriate to have a structure that involves debt financing of a proportion of that education, and when people can afford to repay the government for it—which is exactly how the HECS system works—they should do that, because that education is empowering them to earn a higher income. Now we have the Greens party saying they're not about that. They think the really high income earning people in our economy who incurred a large debt on their education to earn that high income shouldn't have to repay it. They'd like all the workers to pay more tax instead so that those high-income earners can have that education for free and then go and make more money from it. I really condemn that approach that some take when it comes to the appropriate financing of people's higher education.

We hope this amendment to this bill is agreed to, for the reasons that I've outlined. We really do want to look at a lot of these concerning unintended consequences that are simply not being addressed by the government. We want to back entrepreneurship and innovation in our economy. In principle, I like the concept of all forms of facilitating people at the start of their careers to start a business, make a living for themselves and even grow that business and employ people in our economy. That's what the Liberal Party and the coalition are about: free enterprise and backing people to take their ideas and commercialise them, create a business, make money for themselves, make money for our economy and increase the wealth of our nation. That's absolutely what we're about, and that's why the issues that we raise in this debate need to be addressed.

This bill purports to be in that policy space, and yet the feedback from the consultation raises a lot of concerns about a variety of elements. We don't know whether what it is claimed will be achieved through this is going to be achieved. So I urge the government to consider that strongly. I urge the Senate, were this bill to pass through our chamber, as I expect it will, to avail themselves of the opportunity to undertake that inquiry process, get to the bottom of some of these concerns and potentially amend this bill to adequately address them. On the basis of that, I commend the amendment to the House.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Standing on this side of the House, I do feel surprised hearing all the negative stuff coming from those opposite who had 10 years to do something to really support startups and young entrepreneurs. They had 10 years to bring something together. They could have had all the inquiries they wanted. They could have pulled it together. And what did we get from them? Absolutely nothing. In 10 months we have done more than those opposite did in 10 years, yet all they can do is say: 'Oh, it's too soon. We need an inquiry.'

What is really terrific about this legislation is it brings to fruition an election commitment we made, an election commitment that was borne of many conversations over many years with people around the country about it. In particular, there were conversations in Western Sydney about the need for support for startups and entrepreneurs in the western part of Sydney. I note the member for Lindsay is here, and I'm looking forward to her supporting this, because she knows as well as I do the great work that the Western Sydney University Launch Pad does at its Kingswood campus. I remember when it first started—I think it was around 2015. It has been a really great stepping stone for young people of all backgrounds across Western Sydney, to be part of an accelerator and get support. That's what this legislation is about—making that even more available to people.

I note that some of the objections that I've just heard from the previous speaker relate to them still having questions. Well, that's why you do a pilot. We are not the sort of government that's just going to sit and wait and twiddle our thumbs; we are going to do stuff. The intention is that the pilot will commence from the middle of this year, so let's put it in action. And, unlike those opposite, we are also not a set-and-forget government; we will keep monitoring the progress of things and not be afraid to make adjustments as they go on.

For me, this is a crucial piece of legislation. We know that startups have a really important role in job creation. It's all about helping commercialise ideas. It's solving community and socially based problems, and often those solutions come from the communities themselves. It also helps to really strengthen the links between universities and the broader community, including business.

What we know about young firms is that across the OECD they account for around 20 per cent of employment and they create almost half of all new jobs, so they are a real engine room for creativity and job creation. In Australia, startups have a high impact on the creation of new jobs. The research is telling us that that job creation is highly concentrated, and here's just one example from a couple of years ago. In 2020 there was an increase of over 3,000 employees that could be attributed to Australia's eight most successful startups. That's a lot of jobs coming from a small number of businesses.

A few years ago I had the privilege of travelling overseas, with the now Minister for Industry and Science and the former member for North Sydney, as part of the trip with the Australian Computer Society. They wanted us to see in Scandinavia what that startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem is when it has a strong basis in technology and the digital world. We went to Estonia and Finland. What we saw were nations that were a long way ahead of us in thinking about how you create a really supportive ecosystem. I know the now minister had already been thinking about this for a long time, but what struck me, as someone who was fairly new to that environment, was the whole culture of creating space for these really clever, young people to try stuff. But what struck me, as someone who was fairly new to that environment, was the whole culture of creating space for these really clever young people to try stuff. What particularly struck me was that the first attempt is not always successful. There might be investment that they've got. They're giving it a first go. But they don't always get the result they want. What I noticed in Estonia and Finland is that that's not a bad thing. Here we seem to think, 'Oh well, that's a failure. You have had your dash. There's your turn.' What I saw there was, 'Great. That didn't work, but what do we learn from it? How do we move forward?' It's a totally different way of thinking about failure and success. As somebody who's been in business for 25 years you know your greatest learnings come from the stuff that went wrong, not the stuff that went well. So I see this as enabling a whole generation of entrepreneurs, allowing them access to a university-style FEE-HELP system to be able to keep giving it a go.

We know the benefits that there are going to be. Beyond job creation, startups have a key role in driving that research translation and commercialisation, and that's something that Australia hasn't always been a great at. We see that there's a lot of opportunity to do that a whole lot better. While this sort of program might just come across as, 'Well, here is another not that exciting way to fund you tertiary education,' it actually has some really profound possibilities that come out of it. So I commend the ministers involved in getting this done fast, and not hanging around waiting for all the little things that those opposite want to go on about—dot the i's and cross the t's. We want to get in there, do the pilot and learn from that experience so that we can make this the best possible scheme.

We've already seen universities get into this space, this university based accelerator space, with their programs which bring together industry, academic expertise and resources so that they can build and accelerate startup ideas. According to Universities Australia there are more than 100 hubs in Australian universities. The university sector weren't waiting for the previous government to get on with this. They knew what needed to be done and they got on with it. We are very proud to be able to support them and help that thrive.

The accelerator programs typically offer immersive, wraparound services to support students and first-time entrepreneurs. It might be everything from mentoring and networks, access to facilities and equipment that they need—those co-working spaces where ideas can be bounced off each other. I want to celebrate the work that universities have done on this. As I've said, in 2015 Western Sydney University knew this was a path it wanted to go down.

You can sense my enthusiasm for this, but let me turn to some of the detail of the bill. These are loans that will create a new form of assistance under the Higher Education Loan Program, the HELP scheme. These startup HELP loans will support final year undergraduate students, current postgraduate students and recent graduates participate in the higher education based accelerator programs. The assistance is capped at the maximum student contribution amount for medicine, dentistry and veterinary science, so we were very specific about where it fits and what students can access. Eligible students can receive not just one but two discrete startup HELP loans over their lifetime to fully cover the cost of their participation in accelerator programs, and, as I've said, I think that is crucial because the first won't necessarily go to plan. This system provides for there to be the learnings and then the evolution to whatever the next event is. It is just terrific to think that students aren't going to have to put all of their eggs in one basket for it. There's nothing worse for creativity than encouraging people to not take a risk. We actually want students to be creative, to push the boundaries and to take a risk on something that might work. This bill also creates legislative authority so there can be guidelines. I have heard the criticism of those opposite. In my reading of the legislation, there has been a heap of work done. The consultation that we do is genuine consultation. It is not tick-a-box consultation; it is genuinely listening to the submissions that were received.

It is worth recognising how hard it has been for the university sector, particularly in the past few years. In spite of that, they have still evolved programs. I read the submission from the G8 universities about the things they would like to see and I can see many of their ideas are in here. We look forward to working with them as we go through the pilot to understand how the programs can be made even more effective for them and for students to be able to access the support that they need. If you think about where the program sits, it is essentially boosting those connections across the university and broader community.

I want to talk for a moment about the interaction with businesses. As someone who was in business for 25 years and who worked with businesses, small, medium and large—Australian and multinational—the more we create an environment where there is support for innovation and the faster we get the translating and flowing through to the private sector, the better. I am really hoping that there will be people working in small businesses in Western Sydney, who have seen the potential for something innovative from a technology perspective, who will now have the capacity, because they can access funds to help cover the fees, to be able to get involved, and that is the thing that has been missing. You might have a great idea but finding the funding was a job in itself. In that way, many people have gone, 'I have a great idea but I'm running a business—or I am a key person in a business—and I don't have capacity to do both.' I really hope this opens up the opportunities for people who might otherwise not look at it as a possibility.

I am conscious I only have a couple of minutes left, so I just want to spend a few minutes talking about not only Western Sydney University, this program and the difference I know it will make for Western Sydney but also the whole range of innovation we are seeing there. One thing we committed to at the Hawkesbury campus of Western Sydney University was to encourage innovation in agriculture by constructing greenhouses, glasshouses, that will really focus on one of the advantages we have, which is being close to a new Western Sydney airport that may allow for niche exporting to Asia. But we need to look at how we grow the stuff that we send there. The Western Sydney University campus at Richmond is going to have around $16 million in federal funding to help construct these new greenhouses. It is not just to build some greenhouses; it is to support the programs there. They have things like mini drones that fly through the greenhouses and check whether there is insect damage, whether there are spots on the leaves. They are already doing incredible things, and we want to help them do it on a bigger scale because that kind of innovation is where peri urban societies like mine, where there is a strong agricultural base, can really look at moving that into the 21st century, maximising the opportunities that we have.

What this government is saying to universities is we believe in the innovation that you can help create and we certainly want to be part of that. I am looking forward to being able to see the progress of this project at Western Sydney University. It will create jobs. It will create construction jobs. It will create ongoing, good quality teaching and mentoring jobs. It will also build the link between the private sector and all the research. So much of what is happening there already is done in partnership, some of it with the big organisations—Coles and Woolies—some with people who have a particular expertise in one agricultural area. We're very proud of the Richmond campus of Western Sydney University and the innovation that it achieves.

I think this legislation demonstrates very clearly that this is a government that wants to encourage and grow that innovation, because we know that Australians can do the very best and cleverest stuff in the world, and we want to support them to do that. We're the ones who have faith in Australians to really get out there on the world stage and show people what we can do.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Growing our economy and encouraging the development of new businesses—the small businesses, the microbusinesses—has always been core business for the coalition. Startups and other entrepreneurial activity are a key part of this, especially around the small business space—the courageous, creative people who have ideas, passion and a willingness to invest their own money in small business or microbusiness, often having to mortgage their homes just to have a go. They don't always succeed immediately or the first time. The coalition, in government, delivered a number of major investments to support entrepreneurs and universities to commercialise their research—the entrepreneurs program that was cut by the Albanese government in the last budget and the coalition's $2.2 billion university commercialisation package, which I'm really pleased that the government has adopted and will deliver.

But as an opposition it is our job to hold the government to account and ask questions, which is what I will do as I move through my contribution on this bill, the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023. This is the government's Startup Year program for students through an education or education accelerator program at the higher-education level. It creates a new category of student loan, the SY-HELP loan. Students who are participating in the accelerator program courses who are entitled to SY-HELP assistance can also potentially qualify for social security payments, such as youth allowance.

As a long-term advocate for regional, rural and remote students to have access to higher education and access to youth allowance, I note that what I've seen in this bill doesn't actually clarify whether all students, irrespective of where they live, will have SY-HELP available, or whether students from inner, outer and remote areas will also qualify for SY-HELP. I am very concerned. The last time Labor was in government they denied students from inner-regional areas access to youth allowance. It took my private member's motion, which passed in the House of Representatives, to get the government to acknowledge the fact that students in inner-regional areas, like those who live in my electorate of Forrest, cannot just drive an hour and a half or more every day to a university in the city—students from Harvey, Australind, Bunbury and beyond, who were deemed by Labor to not be eligible for youth allowance.

So, students living in these areas actually have no choice but to move to Perth to pursue their studies for many educational courses, like law, medicine and engineering. Last week a principal in my electorate said that kids are already self-selecting—those who cannot get access to youth allowance or whose family literally cannot afford to send them. So, they're self-selecting in regional areas. We already know about the underparticipation in higher education among people in regional communities. This is an important point that is not always understood on the other side.

In government we made significant changes to youth allowance which enabled many more young regional people to follow their education dreams. Interestingly, I was talking to a parent in Margaret River just last week. He has two children, who will both need to go to university in Perth. The family has calculated, under the current cost of relocation and cost of living, that it will cost their family $30,000 a year per child. So the family is now considering that they may have no choice but to move, and we will potentially lose those good people and their kids from the region. Unfortunately, this happens too often.

It also begs the question as to whether and how many regional universities and university hubs will be eligible or considered with this option to become new accelerators and, if so, how many and which universities will actually be eligible. For instance, will Edith Cowan University in Bunbury be selected or eligible? It has a very progressive, innovative deputy vice-chancellor who is strongly supporting their new university department of rural health, which I worked to secure while in government. The UDRH will provide research and training for nurses and other allied health workers in emergency medicine, aged care, mental health, disability, child and family health, and other community settings, including primary and secondary schools. ECU Bunbury is also hosting the first WA Creative Tech Innovation Hub.

If regional universities are not eligible or included, where does this leave our regional universities sector? It's a valid question to ask around this legislation. Regional universities around Australia will be asking not only me but the Labor government: 'Why not us?' For this Startup Year program, they will rightly be asking whether their regional universities will be eligible. Will our regional university centres—and we've got a few of those—be eligible to become incubators? Or will these students who go to these RUCs and communities miss out on an opportunity?

The bill certainly raises more questions than it answers, and we are right to ask those questions. In looking at the bill, it appears to me that the government has yet to do enough work and enough homework. It appears to be rushed, without the detail needed to back it up. The bill as it stands raises more questions than it answers. What is its actual purpose? Is it intended to build a pool of skilled entrepreneurs to create more microbusinesses and small businesses ahead? And if the entrepreneurs are innovators or inventors, they will certainly be facing the additional challenges of financing their ventures. We saw the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, and we've seen the amount of pressure there is to finance startups, whether it's through business loans, venture capital or even crowdfunding. These are very real issues, especially for these young entrepreneurs. Added to this, however, I understand that the government is considering axing the patent box tax break used by startups. I'll be watching that very closely in the upcoming budget.

Put yourself into the shoes of the students and those who are going to put their hands up for this program. This will be a loan, and they certainly need to be under no illusion that it is a loan that they will have to repay. A loan of up to $23,600 may result in a student incurring a substantial additional debt. The question I have is: what sort of actual academic credential goes with that $23,600? It is a significant amount of additional debt for each student to incur, particularly when we're in a situation of high inflation, and the SY-HELP loans are actually indexed to inflation. If you're the student, that's something you need to be aware of before you put your hand up. So it's a really serious decision for the student to make.

I noticed that on 17 March the Australian reported, in an article entitled 'Debt bomb for uni students', that three million graduates will face a $4.5 billion increase to student debt due to the high rate of indexation linked to high inflation. It is a serious decision for each individual to make, coming on top of high rent, increasing food prices and the general cost-of-living issues they face. So if you're a regional and rural student who has to go to a city to continue your higher education, as well as what you're already facing you have to work simply to be able to stay in university and study what you want to do to attend a metro university. It all adds up to a significant cost, and that's without the cost of going backwards and forwards to home, however far away that is.

Added to this, the Albanese government abolished the 10 per cent HECS discount. Students only needed to pay a minimum of $500 towards their course fee to actually receive a discount—a real benefit for a student. Labor's approach actually drives up student debt, given the combination of indexation and inflation. If you're a rural and regional student already facing significant costs, this just adds further and further. In government the coalition focused on helping students to pay down their debts as fast as possible.

As you would expect in this, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Young, universities have rightly raised concerns that the SY-HELP funds are unlikely to fund a whole year's course. They will be assessing what value this is to their institutions in practical terms and in how they actually manage their course time frames and offerings. So how will SY-HELP loan funds flow, and when? Will they go to universities, or to students directly, and when? Will students be able to access any of the funding as startup capital, given that only courses of around six months are actually funded? So it may not be in the best interests of either students or higher education institutions. That's something that will have to be worked through by both the students and the institutions themselves.

Those students who are attending regional or smaller universities that don't have access to an existing accelerator or incubator program will be at a disadvantage. As someone who's a very passionate advocate for rural and regional education, students and families, that's something that I'll be really focused on in this offering. I think one question that the entrepreneurial students will need to know the answer to is whether they'll actually be able to retain their intellectual property rights in relation to the work funded through SY-HELP. Is it theirs? They will need to know this. Who will the IP actually belong to?

I also note that recommendations were made around an expert working group needing to be able to provide advice back to government around the purpose, the value proposition itself, the funding arrangements, including the flow of funds, and the implementation, such as accreditation and legislative requirements. These are very reasonable expectations. I know that the Group of Eight recommended that the Startup Year design be clear in its objectives—clarity upfront—about an accredited course model, given the complexity and lack of clarity.

There are some amazing young people out there. I know the Regional Universities Network also expressed serious concerns. There will need to be incentives for higher education institutions to form really solid and creative partnerships with local and broader industry. That link will be critical to fostering practical pathways to employment. These great young minds, these creative students, will help solve the problems and issues that businesses and the broader economy are facing and the challenges that the nation also faces.

A great question that I often ask young people is: what problem do you want to solve? I ask it because, let me tell you, they can and they will; they just need the right environment to be able to do so. This is probably why a number of university peak bodies have said that the Startup Year demands an evidence-based pilot program. It needs to be evidence based, but I hope—I really hope—that this includes regional universities. They are frequently the only option for those young people—and their families—who will never be able to afford other options. Those young people are currently self-selecting out of doing an ATAR because they know their families cannot afford to send them to university. What a tragedy. In this particular pilot, I'm expecting to see more than one regional university—different sizes, different locations, different types. This needs to be tested in those locations so that those universities themselves are actually able to offer the young people in their region the same sort of opportunity as is being offered in a metropolitan area.

We keep fighting in this space all of the time simply to get equal access and to give opportunity not just to the universities but to the fabulous young people who live and work in our communities. We do not want to see a constant brain drain from the regions, especially with what's ahead, and we've seen so much of the challenges that exist, whether it be about emissions or health challenges. We need those great young minds to stay in our regions. Even if they go away for higher education, we need them to come back. That's also why the young people who have no choice must get an opportunity to take advantage of these types of opportunities in situ, at our regional universities.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 16:00

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia has a strong background of innovation. This is something that I have particularly witnessed from the state of WA. Operating precision equipment in the harshest outback conditions is something that the mining industry has done but is this something that we can do better? Absolutely. That's why I rise today to speak to the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023. The Albanese Labor government is investing in the entrepreneurial innovation potential of our community. After a decade of delay and waste under the coalition, it's more important than ever to modernise and diversify our economy through innovation and entrepreneurship. When I spoke on the National Reconstruction Fund bill last week I drew attention to the damning ranking of Australia. The Harvard University Center for International Development, which ranks economies according to their diversity and complexity to assess their potential for growth, placed Australia at 91 out of 133 countries in 2020. Our neighbours on that scale were Kenya and Namibia and, in the last decade, we have slipped 21 places. I wonder who was driving the federal government wheel? This is incredibly disappointing.

Australia has a proud history of innovation. Australians invented Gardasil vaccine in the early 2000s, dramatically reducing the risk of cervical cancer worldwide. We invented technology behind wi-fi. We invented the cochlear implant enabling those with severe hearing loss a sense of sound, and, for those wine lovers on a budget, we invented cask wine. Our innovation nature is not sticking as readily as we would like it to. Our economy lacks diversity, and many of our great thinkers are going offshore or having their products produced offshore. Imagine what our country and economy would look like if what was invented here was actually made here.

Australia played a leading role in the creation of photovoltaic solar panels but today over 90 per cent of these are manufactured in one country. Our innovative streak will help pave the path towards a diversified the economy which will underpin our economic security and our future. Having all our eggs in one basket exposes us to greater shocks when economic conditions change. I think of our resource sector and how many in my home state of WA swing between the boom and bust cycles. I had a good run of working in the resource sector. Like many West Australians, I have worked on mine sites in country WA and country Victoria, and have spent my fair share amount of time wearing high-viz and getting covered in red dust. But to grow our economy in the long-term we need to avoid these boom-bust cycles associated with commodities and we must invest in our brains—our knowledge economy—and adding value upstream. We can't rely on just one sector for Australian jobs and to grow our economy.

On average, across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, young firms account for approximately 20 per cent of employment and create almost half of all new jobs. In Australia, startups have a high impact on the creation of new jobs and the Startup Year program will work to support this new growth. This bill is a pillar in the Albanese Labor government's plan for growing our economy, creating jobs for the future and investing in the potential of our nation's innovators.

The National Reconstruction Fund and the higher education amendment bill will create greater research commercialisation opportunities, and the Rewiring the Nation policy will fast track clean energy jobs. These are all matters that have been brought before this parliament by the Albanese Labor government to position our economy for success in the long term, just like the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023.

This bill is about unlocking the potential of our nation's innovators. It gives our students the skills, experience and capabilities to realise their entrepreneurial potential and support our country in achieving our national priorities. Because when innovators succeed in this country, there are huge benefit for our community. I would like to discuss a couple of great innovators who, through their startups, have made huge impacts on the global stage.

Ajay Prakash had the vision to empower a billion people to discover, reskill and nurture meaningful careers through his education tech start-up called EntryLevel. He is one of Australia's top 100 innovators for 2022 and is a Forbes under 30 entrepreneur. Ajay's platform delivers short, intensive, affordable programs with professional mentors from companies including Atlassian, Wise and Startmate. Recognising that almost 200 million jobs were lost during 2020, largely due to COVID, Ajay wanted to think about quick ways to re-skill people to stay relevant in the job market. Ajay's ambitious goal is to prevent mass unemployment by 2030.

The thing I find particularly refreshing about Ajay is that he openly talks about failing. At the University of New South Wales, where he studied, he was part of a program that supported entrepreneurs in a serious way. He explained that he was only able to launch EntryLevel because he had spent 80 per cent of his university years launching and constantly failing at various endeavours. Smart entrepreneurial culture has taught me that it's important to fail fast and fail small to crack open the next innovation. Remember, the alternative is worse, which is failing slowly in a big, spectacular way and that is something that we all want to avoid. From his website, Ajay describes himself as 'a serial stuff up who is failing forward one step at a time'.

Through this bill I think that there are a number of Ajay's who may come, thanks to the Albanese Labor government, and be supported through additional funding to participating universities to expand their existing accelerator program offerings and give students that space to fail, learn and try again. Failure is an essential step on any journey to success. It was bizarre to hear the member for Bradfield talk yesterday about how prospective students should be mindful that 90 per cent of startups fail, in an attempt to pour cold water on the aspirations of this bill. You think that the so-called party of business would understand the fundamentals of entrepreneurialism. Taking risks is a part of this journey. When I stand up and speak in this place, I wont douse down the aspirations of our nation's best and brightest, because I know that the Labor Party is the true party of aspirational Australians, including those in business. I will stand up and encourage them to succeed, and, if they fail, try again. This bill will create a mechanism to ensure that more innovators and entrepreneurs are fine-tuning their skills in our nation's great universities.

I also think of students who leave their studies to pursue a startup who may stay on with their studies and broaden their entrepreneurial skills by taking a higher education based accelerator program. Perth born and raised CEO of Canva, Melanie Perkins, dropped out of the University Western Australia to pursue her first startup. On reflection upon her journey, from creating a year book startup to becoming one of Australia's youngest billionaires, she mentioned how daunting it was to step into the entrepreneurial space with little experience. She's very impressive, and I have no doubt that many people in this place use Canva to create materials. The thing that I would say is that while her story is inspiring, for every success story there are countless stories of people that have left university without qualifications and have not had support to actually try those innovative startups. Australia can and should be a land of innovators.

In my electorate of Swan, Curtin University runs its own highly successful accelerator program. More than 60 businesses have participated in that program, moving on to launch highly innovative products. They've won awards and investment funding. They've also been tackling wicked problems. For example, just last week we heard about the cybersecurity threats Latitude Financial is facing. The truth is these entrepreneurs are looking at dealing with these wicked problems. Hyprfire is a Western Australian startup which was hatched at Curtin University by PhD candidate Stefan Prandl. It's a cybersecurity company developing software solutions to detect and mitigate malware transfers and denial-of-service attacks. Stefan participated in the Curtin Accelerate program to build the business model and his go-to-market strategy. The company has now raised $2.2 million and is actively selling its software solutions. I am so excited about the structural support that the Albanese Labor government will be able to provide to the next generation of entrepreneurs and the new generation of new successful businesses.

In addition, I would like to acknowledge that the bill before us does more than just create jobs and foster innovation. This bill also creates the legislative authority for guidelines on how the Startup Year HELP assistance is allocated, including considerations for equitable access for disadvantaged and under-represented groups. I think that mentioning this is important, especially since yesterday was the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The historic injustices of racism and discrimination in Australia linger today. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders hold just 0.7 per cent of senior management positions nationally, despite making up three per cent of the population. To take the words of Yawuru-Bunuba lawyer and entrepreneur Cara Peek, who founded the Broome based innovation hub called Make it Happen:

If you don't have people running businesses, from a diverse cultural base, they're not out there understanding, looking for and hiring, the skill sets and the cultural diversity that needs to be there.

By providing places for disadvantaged and underrepresented groups, this legislation creates a pipeline for historically marginalised groups to become innovators and entrepreneurs. The truth is that our first innovators in Australia were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and they will continue to be. As more students from these backgrounds go through this program I hope that disparities are bridged, particularly the employment and the income gap that shamefully exists between First Nations people and the rest of Australia.

I want to conclude by saying that these students need access to education that will advance their careers and encourage an innovation-driven Australia. I can't wait to see the new generation of Albanese innovators and the new people who participate in this program.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great pleasure to follow the member for Swan, who I would like to just emphasise—having worked with her prior to her election and now, obviously, as the member for Swan—has a deep interest in terms of turning ideas into reality and being able to see firms grow in her electorate. They are leading-edge firms in her area and also some of the young talent in the university sector that we've had the opportunity to meet. We visited Murdoch University recently, where there was a great robotics group. It's the energy and the ideas of the next generation that we really want to be able to tap into. Specifically, what we are proposing in the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill will enable that to occur, but at scale.

We experienced, obviously, through the course of the pandemic, enormous pressure being placed on businesses, forcing them to see if they could adapt. In some cases, unfortunately we lost businesses. We need to regenerate and to build businesses back. We need to see them on a sustainable footing, using new ideas and commercialising concepts that young people may have developed in university, seeing those early-stage innovators that have a reputation for being great job creators. A lot of early-stage firms create, within the space of 12 months, a phenomenal number of jobs for their size. We need to have this kind of business-building program, and that's exactly what we are trying to do through this bill, the Startup Year bill. We want to ensure that we provide a platform where students who want to extend their time at university get the guidance of an accelerator or an incubator to develop an idea, and get guidance from people and from mentors—be they from within the accelerator or incubator or from industry—to be able to determine how to seek out future capital to help them grow. Importantly—and this is the big thing about this bill—this bill is sending an important signal. It's telling young Australians that we need their effort, we need their energy, and the Australian government values their building a business. That's the big signal that this bill sends. We want to build new businesses that can grow, scale up and contribute to the Australian economy.

We know from previous Treasury reporting that we could definitely do a lot better on business dynamism. We had pressures through the pandemic, as I referenced earlier. We do need to address that. We need young people, and it may also be mature-age students who have gone through university and who also seek to grow their businesses. That's exactly what this bill will help enable. I champion—and I was certainly a very big supporter of this concept when in opposition, and we were keen to see this brought to life here—a pilot program, which this bill will provide for, for the first year, to enable up to potentially 2,000 final-year undergraduate, postgraduate and recent graduate students to go on and create their own firms, if we get this up and running. Again, it's 2,000 HELP-style loans created for students that could potentially create 2,000 new firms. And if they themselves put people on, you can see the multiplier effect starting to be brought to life right there in our economy, enabling those students to participate in those programs.

Supporting startup creation and entrepreneurial skill sets obviously has a part to play in growing productivity and incomes and building a workforce with the skills and capabilities to adapt as the economy evolves into the future. Following the feedback we got through the consultations, the first-year pilot that I referenced earlier will be delivered to test aspects of program design, engage student demand, assess providers' capacity to deliver the program and enable unis, especially those in regional Australia and those with newer innovation and accelerator ecosystems, extra time to develop and accredit Startup Year programs.

Again, I come back to this point about young firms and jobs growth. This stat is very important: on average, across OECD countries, young firms account for approximately 20 per cent of employment and create almost half of all new jobs. In Australia, startups have had a high impact on the creation of new jobs, and we want to support that growth. The Tech Council of Australia estimates that new tech startups can contribute 30,000 new jobs and $7 billion in value by 2030. So, we want to back Australian know-how. We want to foster an environment where ideas can be supported and commercialised. We want to stimulate entrepreneurship, innovation and technology to help Australians to develop startup ideas. We want to accelerate jobs growth and economic productivity through the creation of these new firms, particularly through universities.

My friend the Minister for Education has detailed some of the changes in terms of the bill itself—the more mechanical or detailed elements of the legislative changes that will be made. But I do want to emphasise, as the Minister for Industry and Science, that where I've had an opportunity to visit our unis, particularly—and I'm conscious of this, given your background, Madam Deputy Speaker Chesters, in regional Australia—outside the major capital cities, we do have a bigger role to play and a lot of work to do in supporting the ambition that exists in those areas to grow and diversify those economies, to build manufacturing capabilities, such as the types of things we're doing with the NRF, to be able to provide that growth capital. We're doing the same in many respects here to provide a form of capital to help new firms evolve. And as a government we're looking at everything, from the growth of new early-stage innovators—seeing them along the technology readiness; they will start to grow—trying to provide the support when they hit what is described as the valley of death in those TRLs, with the NRF at the other end of this to be able to, again, provide that growth capital and, importantly, all along the way sending signals that this is going to be important long term for the good of the country.

As I often say, innovation is not just about making a buck; it's about making a difference. By that, I mean some of the things that great Australians have done, the ideas that they've had, that have improved quality of life, helped neighbourhoods and communities in terms of the way that they live and exist, create jobs and provide people an opportunity to make a contribution and grow the community and economy, are really important.

We've seen that in some of the great things that have been done, from the invention of ultrasound, which came out of the CSIRO, through to the invention of the HPV vaccine. The HPV vaccine, developed here in this country, has helped see a huge drop of 63 per cent in the rate of cervical cancer for women. If women have been vaccinated in their teenage years, there is a 90 per cent chance to avoid HPV related cancers that has seen women say early goodbyes to their families, their children and their loved ones. We have prevented that. We have improved their quality of life through an Australian idea that led to that vaccine. We need to see more of that applied at scale, which is what we want to do. This bill, if I may commend it to the House, is about sending the signal that we value the ideas particularly of our young Australians, putting those ideas to work to create new firms and to improve the economy and national wellbeing. If we can see that start from this it will be a great thing for the nation. I'm very, very supportive of that.

If I may end on this point: I note the presence of the member for Reid. Again, when we're talking about the value of ideas, it was terrific to go to her electorate to launch the consultations around the revitalisation of the national science priorities. We did that at Burwood Girls High School. It was terrific. We went around and saw young science students engaged in a range of activities where, in particular, there is massive under-representation from women and other under-represented groups in our STEM community. It was incredibly inspiring to see the care and commitment shown at Burwood Girls High School. I fully understand why the member for Reid was so keen for us to launch the consultations there. Again, if we can see those students progress to university, be able to go on and build their own firm—these are the types of things. Government investment, in particular working with the private sector and our universities, can help transform lives for the better not just for the people involved but for the people whose lives are touched by great Australian ideas and know-how.

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the Minister for Industry and Science for his visit to the electorate of Reid, where he did meet with some amazing students at Burwood Girls High School. When we spoke to those students, so many of them were thinking about the big challenges that we all face: sustainability and climate change. They were ready for the challenge. In fact, they were embracing that and wanting to make sure that they have a good career in science and technology so that they could be part of the solution. It was great to have you in the electorate. I can't wait to show off the amazing work that Burwood Girls High School does.

Now onto the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator (Data Streamlining) Amendment Bill 2023. There is a company with a share market value of more than US$100 billion. When it was initially listed on the NASDAQ in the US in 2015 it was trading at just US$21 a share, with a value of US$4.4 billion. In just eight years that company went from that valuation of US$4.4 billion to more than US$100 billion. It's a meteoric rise by any measure. The other numbers associated with this company are equally extraordinary. One of its products, Trello, has 50 million registered users. Another product, Confluence, has more than 60,000 corporate customers. That company is, of course, Atlassian, Australia's greatest tech success story. If Atlassian were listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, it would be among the top-20 most valuable companies on that exchange, up there with the likes of Transurban, Woodside and ResMed.

The New York Times has described it as a very boring software company because it, essentially, provides software that IT professionals use, but I think its origin story is anything but boring. Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, the two founders of Atlassian, met at the University of New South Wales as undergraduates. Neither of them wanted a graduate job, nor did they want to wear a suit and work in a nine-to-five job. Using $10,000 on a credit card, they started Atlassian in 2002. Scott and Mike are Australia's first startup to IPO tech billionaires and are a perfect example of the potential of this bill. This bill is about investing in the entrepreneurs of the future, people like Scott and Mike.

Innovation is key to growing our economy and driving up productivity. We have to create a stronger, smarter and more innovative economy. The best way to do that is to invest in our people. Through this bill, we will support students to participate in accelerator programs at universities, because we know when it comes to innovation, when it comes to new ideas and when it comes to research, Australian universities are world-class. We know that nurturing the talent of every single Australian provides a dividend for the whole country. This bill seeks to create a new type of support for young entrepreneurs who will be the business leaders of the future.

This bill will add to the list of election commitments the Albanese Labor government is delivering in the higher education space, including delivering a university accord by the biggest and broadest review in the higher education space since the Bradley review 15 years ago. This review is being led by eminent Australian Mary O'Kane. Twenty-thousand new university places for students from typically under-represented backgrounds are targeted at areas of skill shortages, and, recently, a new agreement was struck between India and Australia to provide certainty of qualifications and provide greater opportunities for students. This bill is important for resetting relations with the sector that was neglected by the former government.

What does the bill do? It amends the Higher Education Loan Program, HELP, to create a Startup Year loan. These Startup Year loans will support final-year undergraduate students', current postgraduate students' and recent graduates' participation in higher-education based accelerator programs. They will be capped at $11,800 in 2023 but can be received twice by students to fully cover the cost of participating in accelerator programs. Like other FEE-HELP and HECS-HELP programs, Startup Year will be made directly to higher education providers who run eligible accelerator programs.

Accelerator programs have sprung up across universities in Australia—some by deliberate design by the institution, whereas others have been more organic and led by students. Regardless of how they have arisen, there are now more than 100 accelerator programs spread throughout all 39 Australian universities to help grow Australian ideas into Australian businesses.

According to Universities Australia, the peak body representing the university sector, more then four in five Australian startup founders are university graduates. So, when it comes to startups and entrepreneurs, our universities are natural breeding grounds. You are in a space where you have access to great researchers and you are in a space where you have mentors and the equipment and infrastructure to help grow those ideas. They're like mini Silicon Valleys.

These university startup programs also help to set up graduates for the jobs of the future. The nature of work is changing. Gone are the days where you entered a job straight from high school and then stayed there until you retired. School leavers are expected to have on average 17 different jobs and up to five career changes over their lifetime. That means we need to fundamentally rethink the types of skills and training we provide to young people to ensure they are not only job ready for the career that they will step into upon graduation but for the career after that and the career after that.

University based startup accelerator programs provide dual benefits. They provide students with a broad range of skills they need for a changing economy. It also creates businesses and jobs. Startups are now the largest contributor of job creation in Australia. What does this look like? I'm really proud that I can draw on some examples from my old employer the University of Sydney, whose Incubate program has been allowing young student-entrepreneurs to develop their startup ideas into fully fledged businesses.

One example is Bioscout, a company that uses air-sampling, mapping and data analytics to track agricultural disease spread. The company is currently focused on wheat stripe rust, a disease that causes an estimated $80 billion worth of damage to the agricultural sector annually. Farmers spend $24 million a year on chemicals to control the disease. These treatments are chemically intensive and must be sprayed on a crop before the disease is able to infect it. This leads to wastage, chemical run-off and environmental degradation. Bioscout has come up with a novel way of using patented sensors to monitor the amount of disease present in the air across individual fields. Coupled with data from weather stations, it provides farmers with insights into treating this disease. It has shown evidence of being able to increase wheat yields by up to 18 per cent and reduce chemical costs by 15 per cent.

Great innovation by student-entrepreneurs at a university, Bioscout is a great example of how innovation cultivated by higher education institutions can create a new class of entrepreneurs whose benefits can be shared by the whole community, in this case the agricultural community. Their innovations are applicable to the world of agriculture, food waste and sustainability, but one can only imagine how many more of the world's greatest problems might be assisted by a broader rollout of this support for early innovation.

By encouraging more student-entrepreneurs to develop their ideas, we will help to encourage an innovation-driven Australia. We know that there is an appetite out there for these types of accelerator programs. They not only provide skills and opportunities to aspiring entrepreneurs but also generate valuable connections with communities and businesses, and these Startup Year loans will help to meet that demand. They will make sure that, regardless of your background, you can access the support you need to grow an idea into a startup and then into a business. And as we know from the story of Atlassian, once you start up, who knows how far you might be able to go?

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all members for their contributions to this debate on the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023. As I said in introducing this bill, it will support the development of skills needed to drive the businesses and technologies of the future. It will extend up to 2,000 income-contingent loans each year to eligible students participating in higher education based accelerator programs when it is fully implemented after a pilot program that would start on 1 July this year.

Accelerator programs are where our universities are nurturing startup ideas from concept to commercial application. The programs under this new loan type will build skills in entrepreneurship and connect students with the support, mentorship and facilities that they need to develop their startup ideas. Universities are ideas factories, and these measures will help support our bright young innovators to generate the game-changing ideas and jobs of the future. Places will be prioritised for courses which help under-represented groups to be part of our startup community, among them female entrepreneurs, Indigenous Australians, people with a disability and community-based startups that are working on regional and rural issues.

The bill also amends the Higher Education Support Act to list Avondale University as a table B provider, following its recent registration as an Australian university by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, or TEQSA. It also amends the Australian Research Council Act 2001 to apply current indexation rates to funding for the 2022-23, the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 financial years and inserts a new funding cap for the 2025-26 financial year, resulting in an additional appropriation to the ARC of just over $1 billion.

The member for Bradfield raised a few issues in his contribution to this debate on behalf of the opposition. Let me use this opportunity to respond to those. The member for Bradfield said that the underlying purpose of the Startup Year program was very vague. The bill and its explanatory memorandum make clear what the purpose of the Startup Year program is. Section 128B-25 sets out clearly that the Startup Year loans will be available for courses developed by higher education providers which develop a student's skills, capabilities and connections so that they can build and participate in startup businesses. The member for Bradfield said that it was unclear whether a student who participates in an accelerator course would receive any academic credentials. The bill also makes clear that a key requirement for a course to be eligible is that it must result in the award of a qualification. The member for Bradfield said that it was unclear who would receive the funding from a Startup Year loan. Section 128D-1 makes clear that payments are to higher education providers for providing these courses, as is the case for other HELP loans. It does not, of course, mean that students cannot accept capital investment from a university or another source alongside their accelerator course.

The bill provides for guidelines which will further detail course requirements and the application process for higher education providers. I referred to these during my second reading speech following the bill's introduction. In particular, as I have mentioned, the guidelines will prioritise course applications which support underrepresented groups. The guidelines will also include requirements for guidance around the management of intellectual property rights for students in eligible courses. As the explanatory memorandum states, the guidelines will be legislative instruments and, as such, will be subject to the usual scrutiny of parliament.

The member for Bradfield also said that it was important that this program be piloted first and that this was a recommendation of the consultation process which we had ignored. It was indeed a recommendation from the consultation process, but not one that we have ignored. As I said in my second reading speech, this will start as a pilot program in July of this year. This is an innovative policy, and it only makes sense if it commences with a pilot program. This will allow us to test aspects of the program design, monitor the success of the program and give universities time to develop their accelerator courses prior to a full rollout in July of 2024.

On the topic of consultation more broadly, this bill was introduced following a broad industry consultation process. An open submission process resulted in 38 submissions. Of those, 24 submitters have agreed for their submissions to be published on the Department of Education's website, and I directed the Department of Education today to publish those submissions on its website. This is something that the shadow minister for education has raised with me, and I think she is right that we need to make sure that all of this information is available to the Chamber and to the parliament to help us in our deliberations both in this Chamber but also in the Senate as it considers this bill over the course of the next few weeks. There are another 14 submissions where we don't have in-principle approval for publishing from the people we have consulted with, but I have asked my department to consult with them and seek their permission to publish their submissions as part of this process. All of that feedback informed the content and the development of this bill.

On the day this bill was introduced to the House, Universities Australia issued a media release welcoming it. This is what they said:

Universities welcome the introduction of legislation to establish the government's Startup Year program, bringing much-needed financial support for university entrepreneurs a step closer.

…   …   …

"Unfortunately, financial barriers sometimes hinder the progress of these innovations and their transformative flow-on effects, including the creation of new jobs and economic opportunities.

"Universities support the Albanese Government's commitment to breaking down these barriers and supporting the commercialisation of new ideas and solutions to the challenges and opportunities facing our nation."

I have also had a discussion with the shadow minister for education about the opposition's proposal that this bill be referred to a Senate committee for review, and I support that. I think that that would be a wise and prudent thing for us to do. It will give a further opportunity for us to pressure test this bill and see what further amendments might be recommended or suggested to the parliament that could improve this bill. I would hope that that process might occur in April while the parliament is not sitting so that, when we return for the budget sitting, we can consider the bill in the Senate and any amendments in the House, and that the legislation would be ready to commence in July of this year. The measures in this bill deliver on our election commitment and further the government's dedication to supporting our higher education sector. I commend the bill to the House.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, 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 Bradfield has moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the amendment be disagreed to.

Question unresolved.

As it is necessary to resolve this question to enable further questions to be considered in relation to this bill, in accordance with standing order 195 the bill will be returned to the House for further consideration.