Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to provide a contribution to the debate relating to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Removal of the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements and National Governance Protocols Requirements and Other Matters) Bill 2008, which goes to the removal of the infamous HEWRRs—the higher education workplace relations requirements.

The main objective of this bill is to amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003 by repealing section 33.17, although there are some other minor technical changes too. Under the previous government, this section imposed on all higher education providers various funding conditions, under both the HEWRRs and the national governance protocols. This section provided for the government being able to reduce the higher education providers grant for Commonwealth funded places under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme if that provider was found not to have meet the HEWRRs and the governance protocols by the compliance date specified in the CGS guidelines.