Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I've spoken many times in this House about the importance of education to my late mother. While in refugee camps in Hong Kong, my mother chose to be resettled in Australia because she believed that Australia had the best education system in the world. It had. Ever since my election in 2022 I have spent the last few years engaging with youth and my community in Fowler through doorknocking, and I know that the increase in cost of living has impacted their everyday life profoundly. For the young people living in my area, travelling to and from university costs them time as our public transport system is not connected. It costs them money as they have to pay for the increased fares, tolls, petrol, food, costs and materials for their courses. That's not to mention the HECS debt, which I started to call for the reduction of when I first set foot in the House.

I know the challenges of growing up in a low-income household and having to balance work life with continuing tertiary education. I was working full time as a reporter while studying my Bachelor of Arts degree. I chose a simple arts degree, majoring in international relations and infused with philosophy and political science. I chose an arts degree because it allowed me to explore a broad range of subjects, and I wanted to increase my knowledge about what was happening in many parts of the world, while at the same time I wanted to understand the views and perspectives of the world of philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Adam Smith, Thomas Aquinas and Hannah Arendt during their existence. I believe the arts degree broadened my thinking and knowledge, contributing to my life's journey which led me to be elected as the first Independent member of my wonderful federal electorate in Fowler—a very multicultural and very diverse community. I can't emphasise enough how humbling the opportunity is, and will be, for me for a long time.

What I did not have to face during the time of studying my arts degree was the enormous spiralling debt that would confront me as soon as I entered the workforce. What the Higher Education Support Amendment (Fair Study and Opportunity) Bill 2024 does is begin to address the completely unfair and unreasonable course costs that have been imposed on arts students since the commencement of the Job-ready Graduates Scheme, or the JRG, which was introduced by the Morrison government. This policy, which the Albanese government seems to drag their feet on, has seen students charged over three times as much per unit for studying subjects related to history, archaeology, anthropology and political science, just to name a few, compared to maths, education and agriculture. Indeed, the subjects listed under the 'society and culture' cluster now attract the maximum fee chargeable to students, alongside law, banking, finance, business and management.

I know that many members on all sides of the House believe that this is wrong. I'm sure there would be many Young Labor and Young Liberal members who would very much appreciate their members supporting this bill. The JRG package was introduced, in theory, to incentivise students to choose STEM subjects at university, but the JRG package was premised on the incorrect assumption that students would respond to price signalling that disincentivised enrolling in arts courses. So unsuccessful has the JRG package been that students have continued to register in arts courses despite the enormous cost involved. All this has achieved is to unfairly burden arts students financially before they have had a chance to begin their careers. This has led to unintended consequences of systematic inequity within the education system simply because certain students chose their passions in arts and culture. How is this an equitable education system? Even, if JRG had been successful in pushing Australia's students into STEM fields, this would still be a flawed approach. Australia needs to have men and women educated in the fields of history, geography, politics and archaeology. While STEM is important in seeking solutions to questions as to what can be done with the earth's precious resources, arts degrees look at the deeper questions of how technology impacts us and assesses the moral questions raised by these advances.

Australia has a great concern for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and is seeking to understand the cultures that existed before colonisation and how they continue to share a common life. Anthropology has arguably never been as important to Australian life as it is today as we seek to find our identity as Australians in the 21st century.

Students from my electorate of Fowler are disproportionately affected by the JRG policy. Professor Michelle Arrow of Macquarie University, who is president of the Australian Historical Association, has told me that the JRG legislation has:

… brought inequity to so many students, especially poor, Indigenous, and women students seeking to make a better life for themselves.

Fowler is one of the poorest areas of our nation and has the largest community of non-English-speaking families. The fact that many of our young people get to enter university is testament to their hard work and the efforts of our wonderful schools and community groups. Punishing them with hiked up fees is a real kick in the teeth to their aspirations.

We as lawmakers in this House can do better than this. We entered this House to make a difference to our communities. Sometimes there are unfortunate results, despite our best intentions. This bill seeks to begin to put right a policy that was all downside. There was no benefit for the community. Many art students have been left worse off, especially those struggling in Western Sydney. Do not forget them.

I commend the bill to the House, and I cede the rest of my speaking time to the member for Calare.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I rise to support the Higher Education Support Amendment (Fair Study and Opportunity) Bill 2024, and I commend the member for Fowler for introducing it. She's a hardworking member of this parliament who always fights for her constituents including young Australians.

Society and culture subjects at our universities aren't just mere subjects to tack onto a degree; they're a critical source of learning which equips students to gain a greater depth of understanding about the communities and world in which we live. These subjects shape and develop students' understandings of a wide range of topics from history, philosophy, archaeology and sociology to Indigenous issues and the impacts of rapidly changing technologies.

When students undertake these courses of study, they're not just about theory. Students are engaging in meaningful and relevant courses of study which lay the foundation for careers in a wide variety of fields for the benefit of our country. These subjects develop skills in critical thinking, analytics, problem-solving and an understanding of how our societies work—skills that are essential to building stronger communities, including country communities. In May this year, the Financial Review published an article on its analysis of the educational background of the 226 federal politicians in Australia. Out of the 151 members of parliament and 75 senators currently in office, 77 per cent have a bachelor's degree or higher, and, when it came to the type of degree, the Financial Review found about 40 per cent of federal politicians studied arts at university, which was, by a long shot, the most popular degree.

The unkind may well say, 'If politicians are studying it, maybe we shouldn't support it.' While I myself don't have an arts degree, my point is that politics is just one of a wide array of pathways opened up by an arts and humanities education. There are many others. Look at our historians. How can we as a nation chart a course for the future if we don't have an understanding of where we've been? The list goes on and on. Many of our distinguished educators, jurists and businesspeople have studied arts and humanities. While I certainly don't begrudge students studying STEM with lower course fees, we really do need to question whether the Jobs-ready Graduates Package has been effective or successful. The Australian Universities Accord report certainly doesn't think so. The accord found that only 1.5 per cent of students changed their courses as a result of the scheme. It's also resulted in an inequitable and unfair student loans scheme, where students in the humanities, arts and communications get slugged more. It is fundamentally unjust and unfair.

I'm with the accord on this. We need to overhaul the whole ineffective Jobs-ready Graduates Package, which has turned out to be a fail. This bill is a positive step in that direction. I commend it to the House, and I commend the hard-working member for Fowler for bringing this important legislation before us today.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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