Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I did flag in my speech on the second reading of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill that I needed to withdraw two of the amendments I have circulated, and I formally do so. The government has made clear that it has adopted in its guidelines the issues in amendments (1) and (2). That is great. Those amendments went to the accountability of expenditure and the reporting on consultations. I am extremely pleased to see that the government has adopted those and we do not need to proceed with the amendments.

I still have standing on sheet 6183 amendments (3), (4) and (5) that I would like to proceed with. Amendments (4) and (5) are dependent on amendment (3), and I now move amendment (3):

(3)   Schedule 1, item 6, page 7 (lines 12 to 14), subsection 19-67(3) TO BE OPPOSED.

This amendment goes to the heart of my major concerns relating to this bill and, while I put it clearly on the record that the Greens want to see this legislation passed, we want to see student services restored on university campuses, we are concerned that there is an explicit reference in the bill that says that this money cannot be given over to student organisations directly. We firmly believe that if students are going to be charged a fee they should be able to administer how it is spent. That means ensuring that we give it to representative bodies that can make sure it is spent on the services they need, that it is spent in relation to their various different representative structures. I do not think we need to debate this for very long. I assume that the opposition will oppose this amendment but I would like to think that the government would at least entertain the idea.