Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That Amendment 2 to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines No. 1, made under section 238-10 of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, be disallowed.

Put simply, the coalition is seeking the Senate’s agreement to disallow these regulations in order to reinstate the very important national governance protocols that applied to universities and other higher education providers up until the making of these regulations by the Minister for Education, Ms Gillard. These national governance protocols were developed in consultation with the higher education sector. They stipulate various requirements for a best practice regime for university governance. Indeed, at the compliance date at the end of August last year universities and higher education providers were complying with the requirements of the national governance protocols.

The issue is very simple: it is about continuing the accountability of universities to the minister, and through the minister to parliament, for the expenditure of billions of taxpayer dollars every year. What is not at issue is the reintroduction of the higher education workplace relations requirements. As honourable senators would be aware, AWAs and, therefore, higher education workplace relations requirements cannot be reintroduced at Australian universities because that type of workplace agreement does not now exist in Australian law. I am not a very good lawyer, but subordinate legislation cannot create legal architecture for a law that does not exist.

By way of background, the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines No. 1 introduced certain conditions for universities to receive increased levels of Commonwealth funding—2.5 per cent in 2005, five per cent in 2006 and 7.5 per cent in 2007. In February of this year the Minister for Education, Ms Gillard, amended the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines No. 1 to remove the conditions for additional Commonwealth funding. The effect of this motion, if passed by the Senate this afternoon, will be to disallow Ms Gillard’s February changes to the regulations and to restore compliance with the national governance protocols as a condition for providing additional funding to Australia’s universities.

Ms Gillard’s change to regulations to remove the funding conditions has been an interim measure, as the minister is currently seeking to amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to remove altogether the principle of conditionality of funding. I know the debate occurred this morning in the House of Representatives, and I suspect that the debate on the bill will be with us very shortly—perhaps as early as tomorrow.

The opposition believes that the national governance protocols are playing an important role in the management of our universities and should be retained. They were introduced in 2004 following the recommendation of the Higher education at the crossroads review conducted by the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, and now Leader of the Opposition, Dr Nelson. But they also echo recommendations of various reviews of higher education at both the federal level and the state level going back at least 15 years. The purpose of the protocols is to apply some corporate governance—which is, Mr Acting Deputy President Chapman, an issue I know interests you—standards to university governing bodies, which of course administer moneys from the Commonwealth.

The protocols, for example, deal with the size of governing bodies so that they are efficient and manageable, or deem the members of governing bodies to be trustees so that they act in the best interests of the university as opposed to acting as a representative of a specific constituency they otherwise represent. For example, the guidelines refer to:

Protocol 1: the higher education provider must have its objectives and/or functions specified in its enabling legislation.

Protocol 2: the higher education provider’s governing body must adopt a statement of its primary responsibilities, which must include:

a) appointing the vice-chancellor as the chief executive officer of the higher education provider—

and so on and so forth. This is a compliance list of best governance practice for Australia’s universities. I actually have some experience of this, and I know Senator Carr does as well. Both of us served for a couple of years, I think, on the council of the Australian National University. While I would like to believe that I made some worthwhile contribution, I think it is fair to say that I learnt more from the ANU council than they learnt from me. I was more an enthusiastic amateur than a director of a company. What has happened, and what has been done in consultation with the universities, is the building up of governance protocols to better manage universities.

I might add I thought that Senator Carr’s role in the ANU council was distinguished. But, again, I was representing the government and Senator Carr was then representing the opposition—we were representing certain interests outside the university. Part of the aim of the governance protocols is to ensure that it is only people who have the interests of the university at heart that are members of the university’s governing body. So people that represent, for example, the government, the opposition or indeed trade unions or big business should no longer be on the council simply by virtue of being members or representatives of a certain interest group. Those days are over.

Removing these protocols as a condition of increased funding would remove the incentive absolutely for universities to strive for and to excel in best practice. It is absolutely imperative that universities, which receive billions of dollars in public funding, manage that money in the most professional way that they can. It is also imperative that the people of Australia, who provide the funding through their taxes, can rest confident that their money is being spent in the most professional way.

Furthermore—and this is important—universities are themselves supportive of these protocols. Let me quote from the University Chancellors Council-Universities Australia joint submission to the review of national governance protocols last year. It says:

The view of the Chancellors and Vice Chancellors is that the existing National Governance Protocols have worked well and that little variation is needed at this stage.

Secondly, it goes on to say:

It is clear, however, that the effect of the Protocols has been positive overall and has prompted improvements in a number of areas, including in some cases the induction and continuing instruction of members of governing bodies. They have also been helpful in clarifying the respective roles of governing bodies and the executive in the governance framework.

Finally, in case this is raised in debate this afternoon, on the question of if the protocols have had any negative impacts on universities, the chancellors and vice-chancellors had this to say:

Not of any significance. They have increased the costs to Universities of compliance. However, to this point, Chancellors and Vice Chancellors have not seen this as a matter of major concern.

So let me make this clear once again: the opposition does not oppose the government’s attempt to remove funding conditions as they relate to the industrial relations requirements that I mentioned before. It has clearly happened with the removal of AWAs as a lawful form of workplace agreement. But I understand that the National Tertiary Education Union have engaged in a bit of a scare campaign. I was looking at their press release before and they said:

If this disallowance motion is successful, about $300m of university funding will once again be made conditional on universities complying with the controversial Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs) and National Governance Protocols.

That is wrong. Dr Carolyn Allport, National President of the National Tertiary Education Union, said today:

While the Coalition is claiming its objective is to maintain the governance protocols, if it is successful in its disallowance motion next Wednesday the effect will be to immediately reinstate both the HEWRRs—

that is, the workplace relations reforms—

(effectively WorkChoices for universities) and the National Governance Protocols.

As I mentioned, I am not a good lawyer, but that is plainly wrong. The industrial relations reforms, the AWAs for universities, are impossible now because the legal architecture for their reintroduction does not exist. I think the legal term in relation to this regulation, the reference to industrial relations and the higher education workplace relations reforms, would be otiose—in other words, irrelevant.

Quite simply, old Work Choices AWAs cannot be reintroduced because they no longer exist. Universities cannot offer a type of workplace agreement that does not exist in law. It is as simple as that. I know Mr Smith, the shadow minister, the member for Casey, made this very clear back in March of this year. He has been at pains to make it quite clear to the government and indeed to the higher education community that this has nothing to do with the reintroduction of AWAs at universities. This is all about ensuring that the national governance protocols remain and that those governance protocols are a condition of further revenue for universities.

But this scare campaign about Work Choices and industrial relations is merely a distraction from the fact that the government seeks to remove all accountability mechanisms from university funding. Furthermore and moreover, this disallowance motion would not be necessary if Ms Gillard, the Minister for Education, had not jumped the gun and decided to change regulations back in February, instead of waiting to amend the act, which is currently for debate in the House of Representatives.

In conclusion, I will not hold up the Senate any further this afternoon but will simply say that the coalition is concerned to ensure that the national governance protocols are reinstated in the regulations. What this will do for Australian universities is ensure that they partake of best practice and that Australians can feel comfortable that there is accountability in the university sector.