Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this disallowance, proposed by the Australian Labor Party, on behalf of the Democrats and as their higher education spokesperson. We will be supporting the disallowance of the government’s declaration to increase the percentage of full fee paying medical places in each course. We have said previously and still believe that this is a short-sighted—so somewhat unsustainable and superficial—remedy to the medical workforce shortage, and we believe it will not do a lot to increase Australia’s access to general practitioners.

Following on from Senator Trood’s comments, he is right to suggest that there is a much broader problem here, and I would suggest that there is also an issue of chronic underfunding and under-resourcing in both the health and education sectors in this country—a consequence of successive governments and indeed currently as a consequence of cost shifting involving both state and federal governments. So there is no doubt that it is a broader problem, but this is not the solution that the government seems to think it is.

We believe this proposal, which aims to decrease the required percentage of Commonwealth supported places from 90 per cent to 75 per cent of places, which therefore allows more medical places for full fee paying students, is not a particularly equitable solution either. It is an inadequate approach to a chronic long-term problem that we have all been aware of for years. In fact, it is doubtful that it will make any difference to the shortage, particularly in the regional and rural areas that everyone keeps referring to. Medical students who pay up to, and possibly more than, $200,000 for a degree may not necessarily feel a public duty to serve their community as a GP. In fact, I would probably suggest that they would be focused on servicing their FEE-HELP loan rather than necessarily be performing GP tasks in regional and rural areas. Just as Senator Wong was saying, there is absolutely no way that you can ensure and insist that that will be the effect.

These students are likely to pursue more lucrative specialist careers in urban areas than offer their services as a GP in a country area. I do not wish to generalise, because I have no doubt that many of those students would simply want to do their best for their communities wherever they may be, but the harsh reality of their circumstances will be that they have an incredible debt as a consequence of this study. There is no impetus for full fee paying students to take jobs in rural areas. Increasing full-fee degrees, as opposed to HECS places, actually eliminates the opportunity to make medical degrees rural bonded, which would ensure that some students work in regional areas. Regardless of your view on the rural bonded places in medicine, obviously, once you take away that Commonwealth component, you lose any opportunity to ensure that that work is performed in regional and rural places, which therefore makes part of the argument by this government for this particular measure somewhat spurious.

Generally, full fee paying places do have a lower cut-off score than HECS places. Full-fee medical places are likely to have lower cut-off scores. I have no doubt about it. Shouldn’t we be increasing the opportunities through Commonwealth funded places for those clever doctors who achieve maximum scores as students to study and aspire to be health care professionals? It is simply another move by the government to further entrench a user pays system. Once again, it is another example of the government abrogating its responsibility to adequately fund Australia’s universities. If I sound ho-hum about this, it is not because I am not angry about the policy suggestion; I am just used to the policy. This is just another step by the government to entrench a system where it is about bank balances and not brains. I do not think anyone is particularly surprised by this move. The government’s logic is a bit twisted in some respects. You cannot argue that you are going to get the best health care professionals and doctors and then argue that you are not necessarily going to have lower cut-off scores when the evidence has been to the contrary. You cannot suggest that students are going to end up serving their time in regional, rural or remote areas when you know there are going to be financial and other imperatives that maybe steer those students or doctors to more lucrative practices in order to pay off their debt.

In the past 10 years, Commonwealth contributions to university running costs have decreased by 61 per cent to 41 per cent. It is a radical change in the funding arrangements when it comes to public funding in this country. That whole cost-shifting exercise was started by Labor but has been undertaken by this government in particular. We know that student contributions have increased from 14 per cent to a whopping 42 per cent. Students are paying a hefty whack of their degree. In order to do it, we are seeing massive changes in their lifestyle and their sacrifice. I believe it is also having an impact on the way universities operate. The government has been quite happy to offload a significant amount of its responsibility for funding to individual students, but it is not just full fee paying students bearing the brunt of the government’s miserliness. Those students who are paying their HECS fees have noticed a sharp hike in their contributions. In fact, at the start of this year, only three of the 37 institutions—that is, public universities in this country—had not raised student contribution levels. Everyone is doing it. As a result of the changes to the Higher Education Support Act, or the introduction of the HESA, a few years ago, everyone is hiking up their fees and charges. In fact, 29 of those universities had increased those HECS fees by the maximum 25 per cent. Combine these factors with the inadequate student income support and the loans scheme that encourage mortgage-size debts for students, and you have an education system that is pricing itself out of the range of most Australians, particularly those disadvantaged Australians.

I noticed that Senator Wong talked about the Americanisation of the system. It is interesting because, when you compare our fees with public institutions in the US, you see that we come off worse. I am not disputing the fact that there are private universities in the United States, but we are starting to leave the public institutions for dead. We have among the highest fees and charges in the industrialised world. It is an absolute shame. Instead of reinvesting or putting more money and resources into the sector, whatever that may be for—higher education or, more broadly, vocational education and training, lifelong learning, schools or anywhere—this government is ducking that responsibility. I find it extraordinary that it gets away with it.

Following the 25 per cent increase in HECS, demand for university places fell by 16,000. Increasing the number of full fee paying places may not have the intended effect of increasing doctor numbers. In fact, it may work the opposite way. There is more evidence of the emergence of a user pays system in the higher education sector. I am not sure if this has been discussed in any detail in this place yet but, recently, the education minister revealed that lawyers had reinterpreted a section of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, concluding that universities were not compelled to fill all Commonwealth subsidised places in a course before enrolling full fee paying students in popular courses such as medicine and law. They do not have to stick by that so-called proviso in the Higher Education Support Act anymore. The rules for enrolment of domestic fee-paying undergraduates were a critical safeguard in the act that prevented the higher education sector from charging full fees for more than 35 per cent of places for domestic undergraduates in each undergraduate course of study.

Let us all remember that wonderful debate back in December of that year when the four Independents gave the government the numbers to pass one of the most shameful and regressive pieces of education legislation in this country’s history. Well done, you four Independents. What did you get for it? Not much. You got the review of indexation requirements for universities, but no guarantee that indexation would actually be implemented.

I hope those four Independents are very proud of those efforts to put debt on the kids of Australia. This is what they got. There was a critical safeguard in there in terms of guaranteeing the number of places that had to be filled before you could enrol those upfront, full fee paying places. And what have they got? A reinterpretation of the law. So that critical safeguard has gone too. The one rule that ensured some more equitable access to university study for domestic undergraduates—and that has gone too. For such an important change in the rules, the manner in which it was done seemed to involve absolutely no consultation with other groups. It was presented as a fait accompli, not to be challenged.

We have seen the situation where universities have been forced to pay back funding for Commonwealth supported places, having been unable to fill them. Why not allow universities to inject this funding into creating sufficient Commonwealth supported places to meet demand for all disciplines instead of creating more full fee paying places? This is where governments make a very clear and conscious decision. Do you want more places for people who can pay or do you want to expand the sector in the way that recognises the merit and the opportunity for all and ensures that publicly funded and accessible education is available? That is the fork in the road. The government has made a very clear decision: ‘Elite education for the rich is okay. It is okay under coalition country policies. We do not want to be a clever country. We want to ensure that there are distinctions—and if you’ve got money and you can pay you are okay.’ We have been heading in this direction for at least a decade, and the government now makes no bones about it. So if you are short on medical places, short on doctors, the answer is: let’s put in full fee paying places. That is not a solution.

The relaxing of the HESA 2003 regulations apparently should have a positive impact on regional universities: they should be able to attract full fee paying students in high demand courses when places run out quickly. But this fails to recognise that those rural and regional students with money may prefer to head to some of the city universities. Those without money will not necessarily enrol in full fee paying courses—they will not be able to do it. But you might suggest, and I am sure the government would, that there is FEE-HELP to fund the increasing number of Australian students who will be paying for full fee paying courses at public universities and, of course, at a number of private institutions.

That is an aspect of current higher education policy in this country that we should not forget. It is a new definition of cost shifting, where we take money from the public sector, from taxpayers, and we give it to private institutions. We have seen it happen in schools. The Democrats fought those proposals the first time around. They had support the second time around—not so good; lost that debate. One debate where we have had minimal support has been on that cost shifting of public university dollars, taxpayers’ dollars to universities, into the private institutions. They have been going into the private institutions at the behest of the Prime Minister and, indeed, with strong support from the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley. So private institutions are now accessing those funding dollars, and of course FEE-HELP now applies to a number of private institutions. So it is not enough that the government is luring students into paying for the full cost of their degrees. Under FEE-HELP, let us not forget that undergraduate students must pay a 20 per cent loan fee on their FEE-HELP debts. With more than 23,000 students already paying the full cost of their courses under the FEE-HELP scheme, students are obviously being saddled with more and more debt. It has already blown out, but it is going to blow out even more if this loan cap is raised.

I want to address the issue that Senator Trood has brought up about the loan cap, and that is increasing the cap on the FEE-HELP loans from $50,000 to $80,000. That is one of the Prime Minister’s pledges following the last COAG meeting. It is an increase in the amount that students will incur in debt and have to pay back—and don’t forget that 20 per cent loan fee. Reports suggest that this increase has already taken place. However, from my understanding of the law and from studying this policy for goodness knows how long, it appears that this change, unlike the increases in full-fee places, must be legislated for. So I ask the government today, and hopefully they will come clean on this: when on earth do you plan to introduce the legislation to increase the loan cap? I know we have dealt with a lot of delegated legislation and we have even dealt with issues that have required legislation, things like the ARC board, or NBET, back in 1996-97, but we have done that through administrative means and not bothered with legislation. In fact, I seem to recall the Notice Paper showing that we were supposed to deal with the student assistance amendment bill on the closing down of that student loan, which of course was closed administratively more than a year ago anyway. So I know we do not always do things through legislation under this government. But when will the legislation be introduced to deal with the increase of the cap on the FEE-HELP loans?

What is the Labor Party position on this? I noticed Senator Wong interjected when Senator Trood was talking about this as a great solution. That interjection was spot-on: more debt for students. But I do not know what the official position of the Labor Party is. Are you opposing the increase in the cap? That is going to be the next line in the sand in this debate: are we going to see an increase in that cap from $50,000 to $80,000? The decision on this is significant. First of all, how the decision is made is important. It has to be made in a transparent way. It has to be done in a way that allows sufficient debate to take place.

Inadequate levels of student income support are also having a huge impact on our students, leaving them high and dry. We already know that student income support is a key in access and equity. It is a key to ensuring that, in particular, students or aspiring students from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds can enter into and participate in higher education. You would be aware of course, Madam Deputy President Crossin, of the recent student income support inquiry. Actually, it was not so recent: we reported just over a year ago—there was a slight hiatus because of the election. It was Democrat initiated and it was the first Senate inquiry to look solely at the issue of student income support.

Look at the anomalies that that inquiry threw up. The inquiry found that Austudy recipients are not eligible for rent assistance. That still exists—isn’t that extraordinary! Part-time scholarships are not exempt from tax. There is no logical policy reason for any of these. Even the government has not been able to put forward reasons for these anomalies, yet they hurt and hit our students. The inquiry recommended that the rent assistance anomaly be dealt with, but so far nothing has been done. Why not deal with some of these issues that are crying out desperately for some fixing instead of tampering unnecessarily with the HESA Act?

A recent inquiry found that half of the part-time students surveyed would rather be full-time students if their finances permitted. One-third believed that a lack of government support was stopping them from studying full-time. The study also showed that part-time students were more likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and have attended public schools. Student income support matters—it makes a difference. But loan schemes and increased full-fee courses do little to improve that access. I would prefer it in a way if the government did not pretend this was about addressing shortages and just said: ‘Yes, it’s okay—we’re happy with an elite education system for the rich. If you have money, you can pay and we’ll see what happens to the rest of you.’ The reality is that these measures are a financial and psychological disincentive to participating in education at a higher level. That is shameful.

According to the COAG website, the Commonwealth, states and territories agreed that these new measures are not to displace current places or future increases in Commonwealth funded student places. Apparently, an increase in Commonwealth funded medical places will be considered at the next COAG meeting, which is in June. Why wasn’t it considered in February? Why not consider that instead of increasing the number of full fee paying places? The state health ministers are waiting for the June COAG meeting to hear whether or not the number of additional HECS places addresses workforce shortages. While some have welcomed this increase in full fee paying places, they have made it clear that they are expecting a significant increase in HECS funded places to address doctor shortages, particularly in hospitals and regional areas. Queensland wants 325 HECS places and my own state, South Australia, wants at least a modest 46. I urge the government at the next COAG meeting to come up with a better outcome—one that is a real solution and does not disadvantage those students who are traditionally disadvantaged; one that does not place more barriers and financial obstacles in the way of people who want to pursue education at all levels, specifically those people who want to become doctors. (Time expired)