Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have sat in the chamber for the last little while and I also watched much of this discussion on the television in my room before I came in here. Some of the comments from across the chamber have been quite extraordinary, including some, Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, which came from your good self when you were giving your contribution earlier this morning. Senator Urquhart claimed this morning that Mr Pyne, the education minister, had made these claims about our universities falling behind the rest of the world, as if it were only Minister Pyne who was making those comments. But I would like to draw to the senator's attention to a letter that I am sure we all received. It has been in the media. It was issued by Universities Australia. It says:

Dear Senators,

As you are aware, without strong and sustainable universities, Australia risks being left behind.

Unfortunately, competing calls on constrained public finances have meant that per-student funding has decreased in real terms over a number of years.

It is now clear that a new approach to funding is needed to maintain the quality education students expect, but that approach needs to be fair.

This is where you, the Senators of Australia, have the chance to make a difference, a chance to champion a new higher education package that is fair for all: fair for students, families and taxpayers.

If you have a look at that, you can see that these are not the words of just Mr Pyne; they are the words of Universities Australia, which is the peak body representing Australia's universities. I will draw the attention of the chamber to the last three comments I quoted from this particular letter—fair for students, fair for families and fair for taxpayers.

One of the things that was very, very clear in the original suite of reforms that was put up by Mr Pyne and the government was that student was not going to be required to pay back one cent of the loan for their education until they were earning in excess of $50,000. It was also very clear in the package that there was an intention to expand the loan opportunities for post-secondary education to courses that were nongraduate, something that has never happened in the past before. In creating a level of equity for students, there is no expectation for them to start paying when they cannot afford to. There is also a broader equity in this space to make sure that it is not just students who seek to have a graduate education who are going to be looked after under this particular scheme but also students who possibly do not wish to go for a graduate education but want to undertake vocational education and the like. This means that there is a huge base of people out there that previously had not been covered by the opportunities to get financial assistance for their education that now will be.

It is fair for families. Not everybody in a family will want a tertiary education. Some may well want to do vocational education. If you have a look at the opportunities across the broader family space, each individual in a family will be able to choose the area that they wish to pursue in their education and not feel that they are disadvantaged by one of the other members of their family who decides they are going to do a tertiary degree.

This is particularly fair for taxpayers. Many of my colleagues have made a comment in their contributions about the fact that, at the moment, 60 per cent of a university degree is paid for by the taxpayer and that the individual student is required to pay approximately 40 per cent. So non-tertiary educated people are paying for the education of those who seek a tertiary education. Whilst the argument for universal education is one that has been put forward here, we also have to have a balance with the argument for equity. Those people who want to seek a tertiary education need to be very mindful that those people who are paying their taxes out there on the ground are the ones who will actually be funding their education.

In the immortal words of one who is often quoted by those opposite, the Hon. Paul Keating:

There is no such thing, of course, as "free" education somebody has to pay. In systems with no charges those somebodies are all taxpayers.

This is a pretty important point: a "free" higher education system is one paid for by the taxes of all, the majority of whom haven't had the privilege of a university education.

Ask yourself if you think that is a fair thing.

That was said by Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1995. Nobody is saying for a moment that higher education is not a fantastic thing for the community and that it does not bring a public good, but the point that Mr Keating makes is that you cannot have a free education. There is no such thing as a free education because there is a cost associated with it. If there is a cost associated with it, somebody has to pay.

Through the debate that has occurred since this bill has been touted and negotiated amongst those in this place, it is very clear from just about everyone you speak to—apart from those whose heads remain well and truly lodged in the sand—that doing nothing is not an option. There are also a whole heap of things within this suite of proposed changes in the education space that those opposite would be happy to throw out, to have no changes and to continue along with the status quo. But, as we have seen from the comments made by the universities of this country, standing still and doing nothing is actually tantamount to going backwards. We are going to throw out even things that those opposite would have to admit are good in this suite of legislation. I certainly would be surprised to hear anybody opposite suggest that extending loans to those people that were not choosing to get graduate courses was a bad thing. I am sure no-one in this place would be saying that. I also do not think that anybody in this place would be considering that it is a bad thing that additional funding is made available to support scholarships for people that come from low socioeconomic backgrounds—I am sure that would not be the case. We need to be very clear about the fact that doing nothing is not an option. If we holus-bolus throw this legislation out and do not seek to address and make the changes so that we can end up with the best working model that we possibly can put out there for the benefit of everybody in this country—not just a few people—then I think it would be very disappointing that, with this bloody-mindedness, we would see some fantastic changes that are being purported in this space not pursued.

The other thing is that there are some really significant budget implications. We talk often about the issue of the HECS debt that students who undertake courses will have to be responsible for into the future. These young people are going to have a debt, as those who undertook their education in the last 20 years have incurred a debt. The choices here are that we either allow these young people who have received an education—which allows them in most instances to be able to get a job that pays more and gives them greater capacity to pay back the debt—to pay, or we continue with the escalating debt incurred by an unsustainable position with the amount of money that has been paid in the higher education space so that everybody in Australia is going to be burdened into the future with higher debt repayments. It is either taking a user-pays approach to things or continuing to rack up debt on the Australian public's credit card so that, into the future, these people may well not have the same level of debt that they might have specifically relating to their tertiary education but the debt that they will have individually, because of the burden that is going to be placed on them by the increasing debt that has been occurring in this country, is likely to be far greater. So we have to make a decision about how we are going to deal with debt. Are we going to stop increasing our deficits and try to deal with our debt so that these future generations, whom we are talking about now, the young people that are about to get their higher education, when they are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, will have a smaller debt burden? What kind of debt burden as a nation are we going to leave them—let alone worrying about the burden that they possibly will have in relation to their education? What about the greater debt burden, which we as a government should be seeking to reduce in this place and not increase?

I noted that Senator Whish-Wilson, in his contribution earlier today, made the comment that the reason that he was not going to support this suite of deregulation activities in relation to higher education was that the government had not flagged it before the last election. I do not know whether this is too much of an extrapolation, but I would suggest that, on the back of that, he was basically saying, 'Had the government taken this intended piece of legislation to the election and the government was subsequently elected, then the government had obviously sought and achieved the mandate that it was asking for in relation to this policy position.' That was the logical conclusion I reached from the comments made by Senator Whish-Wilson. If you take that one step further, you would suggest that the government had a mandate for removing the carbon tax, it had a mandate for removing the mining tax, it had a mandate for stopping the boats, but it also has a mandate for reducing the budget deficit and debt. That is absolutely clear. We went to the election with a very clear policy position about the fact that we want to be fiscally responsible and that we were going to try and reduce the debt and deficit, yet time and time again we have come into this place with measures that we think are reasonable to reduce the level of deficit and debt in this country, and time and time again people like Senator Whish-Wilson and his colleagues in the Labor Party seek to stop us from achieving that. I would say to Senator Whish-Wilson, if he is going to hold the view that, if you take something to an election then it is reasonable that you should be allowed to enact it, he probably should have a look at some of the other legislation that he and his colleagues are choosing to block in this place.

The other thing I would like to do today is to commend the rational, responsible behaviour of a number of the crossbenchers in relation to this suite of measures. I particularly refer to Senator Madigan and Senator Day, who are currently in discussions with all of the stakeholders that are involved and likely to be impacted by this suite of changes. I draw your attention to a media release from this morning from Universities Australia, and I would just like to read a couple of lines from it. It says:

Chief Executive of Universities Australia Belinda Robinson praised Senator Madigan and Senator Day for their constructive dealings with the Government and urged other crossbench Senators to work towards a new, fairer package.

She went on to say:

The elements that both Senator Madigan and Senator Day have put forward are very consistent with what Universities Australia considers to be a fair and reasonable compromise …

Our message to all Senators this week is not to defer decisions and ignore the unique opportunity they have to shape a new, fairer higher education package this year.

Delaying taking action, or rejecting the package outright, is not the answer and risks condemning Australia's higher education system to inevitable decline.

It is not possible for universities to continue to deliver the quality that students and parents expect under a system that remains both financially unsustainable and uncertain.

Senators this week have the opportunity to shape a new, fairer higher education package and end the uncertainty and anxiety felt by students and their families who have no idea what will happen in 2016.

With key changes, such as those announced today, the Senate can design a package that strengthens our universities while keeping it fair for students, parents and taxpayers.

I think that epitomises exactly what we should be doing in this place. Everybody cannot always have everything that they want, but that is not to say that by a process of negotiation, by putting forward alternatives—some of which may have been better than the original legislation put forward; some of which recognise that some things may have been 'mismodelled' or whatever—and by constructive dialogue amongst the crossbenchers and the opposition on these sorts of bills we sometimes can actually deliver the best possible outcome for everybody. A bloody-minded approach that says, 'Because the government didn't tell us before the election that they were intending to make changes to higher education means that we are just not going to accept anything', is not in the best interests of the Australian public. It is certainly not, in this instance, in the best interests of the students and the families who are seeking to have an education.

The question that really does need to be asked is: why are those opposite scared of deregulation? Deregulation does not necessarily have to cost more. Quite often, in a number of instances, deregulation can actually see a reduction in costs because, as we have seen in so many instances, an overregulated marketplace can mean that the regulation itself increases the costs. We do need to be very clear here that deregulation, if it is enacted and introduced in a responsible and well thought out manner, can actually have massive benefits for everybody—to the taxpayers, to our communities and to our students—and most particularly it can ensure that the level of education and the quality standards of our tertiary institutions are at the highest possible level that we can hope for them to be. So there are huge amounts of benefits that can come from deregulation, and I would just like to quote from the chair of the Group of Eight universities, Professor Ian Young, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University. Professor Young said:

Deregulation will enable universities to differentiate. To play to their strengths.

It may generate some of the diversity that is enviable in the US system, where students have a real choice. They can go to institutions that include tiny specialised liberal arts colleges, outstanding state universities, niche private institutions, online private providers and world leading Ivy League schools.

What Professor Young is basically saying there is that by giving students choice, you give them choice about what they actually want to achieve out of this and allow the market to find where things are going to play out. There seems to be very little point for us to continue on with a one size fits all approach to our tertiary courses, only to find that we continue to graduate vast amounts of a particular course that is not in demand and we are under delivering in other courses where there is a demand. If you let the market determine where this is going to go, then the market, I am afraid to say, as much as those opposite do not like to hear this, will always find its own level. The market, if it is left alone, always comes up with the best possible outcome, and it will allow supply and demand to actually match each other.

What Professor Young is saying there is that it just allows each individual student to be able to determine what it is that they want to do. It allows them to specialise if they want to. And instead of everybody being thrown into this great big melting pot of one size fits all and pumping out at the other end a generic blancmange of students, which is what this particular suite of legislation is seeking to do, it aims to make our students as sharp as a possibly can be and to make sure the education that we have for our students when they go out into the workforce and are seeking to get a job are best matched to what the market is demanding of the skills that those students come out of university with. We need to be very clear that there are two parts to this bill: one is about deregulation, and that is the broader issue we are talking about here; the other is a whole heap of things that sit underneath that to work out how that deregulation is going to be achieved and to ensure that we have things in place so that we do not disadvantage people who come from lower socioeconomic areas and so we do not disadvantage students who live in rural and regional Australia.

I was quite astounded at some of the comments made by Senator Bilyk in her contribution, such as that this government did not care about NBN or modernising infrastructure. I think you will find that it is this government that is choosing to provide the NBN to people who have the worst possible service first, and most of those are in rural and regional Australia. And in terms of modernising infrastructure, I think you will find it is this government who has a massive infrastructure fund, which it is spending on building the roads and the infrastructure in rural and regional Australia that has been neglected for such a terribly long time. All I can say is that the scaremongering and the belligerence of those opposite means they have probably overlooked great benefits of this particular legislation. (Time expired)