Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007. I have some comments about the bill but also some comments about the process of the Senate inquiry into the bill. It is an increasing trend with this government that when legislation is referred to committees it is done so with a very tight timetable. This is raising concerns across many committees, not just the committee which I am deputy chair of, that there is not adequate time to take public submissions or adequate time after the inquiry process for the committee to reflect on, digest and come to a considered view of the information that has been presented to the committee.

In this particular case the government insisted that the committee report on 1 May, which is a non-sitting day. While initially Labor Party members on the committee protested about the day and the logic of it, the government insisted. As a consequence, it is our view that our fundamental concerns with legislation have not been adequately reflected in the report that was tabled out of session on 1 May. I cannot understand why this report could not have been tabled yesterday. If it were a serious problem where the government wanted to see that report in advance of this debate taking place, it could have been tabled out of session last Friday. In any case, it would have given more time, and therefore probably more adequate time, for our concerns to be properly reflected.

While Labor does not oppose this legislation, it is appropriate that our concerns are properly placed on the record. The Senate committee process, unfortunately on this occasion, did not allow us to adequately do that. As deputy chair of the committee and on behalf of the Labor members of the committee I have produced some additional comments which I will be seeking leave to table later in the day along with the tabling of the report that will be accepted by the Senate—the report that was tabled out of session on 1 May. Those additional comments will go into the detail of our concerns. The time that I have to speak to this bill today will not enable me to do that in full.

I will go through and summarise our concerns. We have grave reservations about the research quality framework. We believe it is a fundamentally flawed approach to measuring and assessing research quality in our universities. Labor support measuring the effectiveness and impact of research undertaken in our universities but we do not believe that the RQF is the right approach. The RQF will be expensive to administer, it sets the bar too low on quality measures, it emphasises a poorly defined impact measure and its adoption will mean that university ratings would be based on where the academic is now working, not necessarily where the academic has done groundbreaking research. Many of these concerns were expressed in a submission to the inquiry into the legislation and I note that these concerns, while picked up in the body of the report, were rejected by the government majority on the committee with the following throwaway line:

It is highly likely that criticisms made of the legislation—bearing mostly on detail—will be addressed as implementation proceeds at least to the extent that the current concerns of stakeholders require alteration.

As a passing observation, most criticisms are usually of detail because it is in the detail that the problems will usually be found. That is why we have had concerns about the RQF model expressed by universities, the NTEU and, perhaps most objectively, by the Productivity Commission itself in its final report Public support for science and innovation. This research report, released in March, reported adversely on the proposed framework and noted: ‘The costs of implementing the research quality framework may well exceed the benefits’ and ‘While the RQF may bring some benefits, the UK and New Zealand experiences suggest that these would have to be substantial to offset the significant administrative and compliance costs.’

While Labor do not oppose the legislation, we believe it is flawed. While we remain concerned about its ultimate effectiveness, we do not oppose it. It is not just in relation to the RQF that we have concerns. The amendments made by the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007 are also required to give effect to the revised national protocols for higher education approval processes which were agreed by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs in July 2006. The problem here is that the government still does not have in place the guidelines that are to govern the protocols, which are not expected to be completed until June 2007 at the earliest, meaning that these guidelines will not come into force until the end of this year at the earliest as each of the states and territories will have to amend their existing legislation to allow for the national protocols to take effect.

In relation to Commonwealth assistance for FEE-HELP and OS-HELP, concern has been expressed to us that the requirement that Commonwealth supported students must reside in Australia while undertaking their studies may be to exclude students studying overseas, via distance education or on exchange, from accessing FEE-HELP. More broadly, by allowing international higher education providers and specialist higher education providers to establish themselves as universities or university colleges, the changes may lead to the further liberalisation of the university sector. While we support greater liberalisation as a pathway to greater competition and better educational access, we would not be prepared for this to lead to a diminution of quality standards.

Not one of these points was properly or adequately picked up by the majority report. It is for this reason that Labor will, as I have said earlier, seek leave to table additional comments to that report into the legislation. We do not oppose this legislation, because we support measures aimed at improving the overall quality of our higher education sector. Despite our criticisms of this legislation, that is still its aim.