Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. This government is determined to undermine anything that creates opportunity for all and attack anything that addresses inequality, and that is what we have in this bill before us today: an outright attack on education. Those of us on this side believe university education should be accessible to all Australians, while those opposite would see it restricted to an elite few.

In their budget the Abbott government announced a triple hit to student fees. The changes cut the Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding for course delivery by 20 per cent, deregulate fees and change the HECS repayment indexation rates and thresholds. All of these changes will lead to higher costs for degrees. Today in question time we have seen in a response to a question from Senator Back by Senator Payne the government back away to the changes to the HELP/HECS indexation rate, but this is not enough. They need to abandon this package and go back to the drawing board. No amendment, no tinkering is going to fix this bill, because the bill is fundamentally wrong. The bill is a dog's breakfast.

This bill is nothing but a blueprint for an Americanised higher education system which will create a two-tier system. The Abbott government's first budget included massive cuts to funding for Commonwealth supported places which subsidise the cost of undergraduate university degrees for domestic students. Those opposite intend to cut on average 20 per cent from Commonwealth supported place funding, with some degrees cut by as much as 37 per cent. The government's own figures reveal that these cuts will rip $1.9 billion from universities. The impacts of these cuts are clear. Organisations from the Group of Eight to the National Tertiary Education Union have released modelling showing that university fees will need to go up by around 30 per cent just to make up for the cuts to Commonwealth supported places funding. In fact, according to Universities Australia, the cost of important courses like engineering and science will have to increase by 58 per cent just to make up for the cuts.

To facilitate these huge fee hikes the government is also seeking to remove price controls—that is, to deregulate student fees—from 1 January 2016. The removal of these price controls will see the prices balloon not only to cover the funding gap created by the government's cuts but also to fund research and a government mandated provisions of scholarships.

And let's be clear about the impact of fee deregulation. Fee deregulation will lead to substantial fee hikes. The international experience shows us what the future of higher education in Australia will look like if these changes go ahead. Nowhere in the world has deregulation of university fees led to price competition and lower fees for students. In fact, our own experience of partial deregulation of student contributions have already proven the fallacy of price competition in university fees. When the Howard government partially deregulated student contributions to allow universities to charge anything from zero to the maximum for a course, we saw every single university put the student contribution to the maximum amount.

We know that fee deregulation will not keep student contributions down. We know this because of the international experience and through our own experience of partial deregulation. Instead fee deregulation will see university course fees double or even triple. We will see degrees with $100,000 price tags. There should be no doubt that the Abbott government's plan for $100,000 degrees will make many talented students think twice about pursuing a university education. Those who deny this obviously do not understand the decisions that families and students face. Saddling the next generation with debts of this scale will see people unable to buy a house or they may even put off having a family. People in the community understand this and understand the decisions people will have to make when they are considering going to university. That is why almost two-thirds of people reject the government's proposed changes to higher education, changes that will lead to a society made up of haves and have-nots and changes that strike at the heart of the idea of a fair go. This is neither fair nor in the best interests of our nation. These changes are not only short-sighted, but they are also ill-advised. The changes will have a particularly vicious effect on rural and regional universities, on mature age students and on people in vital but comparatively low-paid professions. Labor believes that government have a responsibility to properly fund universities, because quality higher education not only transforms lives but it transforms families, communities and our economy.

We all know the benefits of a good education and the power education has in transforming people's lives. Labor knows the benefits of giving young students hope and optimism and a reason to strive to achieve and get good results. We know that a university education should depend on your results at school and a student's commitment to hard work. It should not have anything to do with your parents' bank balance or where you live. A university education should be accessible to everyone and not just to a privileged few who can afford it. As Gough Whitlam said:

… a student’s merit rather than a parent’s wealth should decide who should benefit from the community’s vast financial commitment to tertiary education.

The changes in this bill will make higher education inaccessible to so many. They will deter many people from going to university. In spite of all the evidence that shows the crippling impact of higher fees, Mr Pyne and those opposite have tried to claim that their changes to higher education will actually benefit students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds because of the deceptively titled 'Commonwealth scholarships'. These Commonwealth scholarships will receive Commonwealth funding of zero dollars. These scholarships will be funded entirely by students. Under the governments proposed changes, universities will be required to direct 20 per cent of the additional revenue raised by higher fees to providing equity scholarships. This means that students, including those from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, will be funding these scholarships. And because of the ill-conceived design of the policy, it will be the elite universities, which we know have the lowest proportion of disadvantaged students, that will have most for these scholarships because they will be able to charge higher fees. These Commonwealth scholarships could be the biggest con in this entire package. But people see through this and through the bluff and bluster of those opposite and know that these higher education changes are not going to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Minister for Education, Mr Christopher Pyne, claims that his proposed changes to higher education will benefit regional universities. He went as far as to say:

… regional and rural universities will be the big winners from these reforms …

However, the evidence presented to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee inquiry into this bill painted a very different picture. Professor Peter Lee, Chair of the Regional Universities Network, told the inquiry's Brisbane hearing that the combined effect of a 20 per cent funding cut and uncapped fees would cause serious financial hardship for students at RUN campuses. Professor Lee said that he thought:

A mature age student who is working, often part time, an enrolled nurse … trying to become a registered nurse and a bookkeeper trying to become an accountant are not well remunerated. A teacher aide trying to become a full teacher … These are the characteristics of our students at regional universities … I think it does have a disproportionate impact on the types of students we enrol.

Similarly, the changes contained in this legislation will be a disaster for my home state of Tasmania. The University of Tasmania is the state's only university. It will be celebrating its 125th birthday next year. At the University of Tasmania, 29 per cent of the students are from low-SES backgrounds. I have to say that it will not be celebrating this bill or the massive cuts it faces of $35 million a year. That figure is not put forward by the Labor Party; this figure has been put forward by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania, Professor Rathjen. Professor Rathjen knows that he will need to somehow come to grips with a massive cut of up to $35 million a year, each and every year. Even some of the government's own members of parliament belatedly understand the terrible effect of these cuts. The Liberal member for Bass, Andrew Nikolic, broke ranks and conceded that higher interest rates for student loans will hurt Tasmanian students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Mr Nikolic was reported in the media as saying:

Tasmania has a unique situation and I don’t believe a one size fits all solution works for a community like Tasmania, where there is one university with campuses spread across the state.

I said to him (Mr Pyne) that Tasmania was a disadvantaged community and we need to make sure that the smartest kids from the poorest backgrounds get a fair go as well.

Now Mr Nikolic and his Tasmanian Liberal colleagues need to stand up and admit that the funding cuts and deregulation will also disadvantage Tasmanian students. By now he and his Liberal colleagues should also understand that UTAS may be forced to close a campus in northern Tasmania because of these changes. UTAS will have to make some very difficult decisions, because we know that this bill and these cuts will be felt hardest in regional Tasmania and the impact will be diabolical. UTAS must decide whether to raise fees, slash courses, abandon research or close a campus or a combination of all of these terrible options because of this bill. This bill is deeply flawed, unjust and will financially cripple students. This bill is rotten to the core and is one Australians did not vote for. This bill represents yet another broken promise from this government, which promised 'no cuts' to education.

In August, I had the privilege of hosting, with my colleague Senator Carr, a roundtable on the changes to higher education at the Sandy Bay campus of UTAS. It was well attended and one of the main concerns was that these cuts will deter poor students from going to university.

For many, a university education will no longer be an option. As families sit around the dining table, discussing their future university education will not even be a topic for discussion. Parents already struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills will not want their children faced with crippling debts from studying. We are talking about massive debts, with $100,000 degrees. By any measure these are extraordinary costs.

At the roundtable, most of the participants feared that the cuts in this bill may create a social underclass. In fact, one educator said all students must be aspirational and she believes the cuts will create a new underclass. Another long-serving and internationally respected academic described the cuts as 'catastrophic' for the Tasmanian economy. Many young Tasmanians and many mature-age students will not want to take a gamble on being able to go to university and get a job and pay off their big debt.

This bill will have far-reaching implications for UTAS. These implications have been acknowledged by the Liberal state education minister in Tasmania, who has been pushing for a special deal for the University of Tasmania. The Tasmanian Liberal government is so concerned that it has been talking about the need to provide compensation for the University of Tasmania, because they know that the changes in the bill will be detrimental to the University of Tasmania, students and the broader Tasmanian community.

In his submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee inquiry into this bill the Tasmanian Liberal Minister for Education and Training, Mr Rockliff, stated:

The Tasmanian Government is concerned that an unintended consequence of the reforms will be the University of Tasmania needing to focus more on teaching and less on research, or limit offerings in important courses such as science, engineering and agriculture, or indeed, limit campus locations. Any of these changes could likely drive students away from the state.

It seems that driving young people to leave Tasmania is this government's only plan for my home state. But what those opposite need to realise is that we are talking about real people; real people will be affected by this bill.

But, as I have said, the implications for Tasmanians are much broader than just the impact on students. As well as contributing to the social fabric of Tasmania and the strong sense of community, UTAS contributes an estimated $1.7 billion each year to the state's economy and is one of Tasmania's largest employers. There is considerable concern about the impact these changes will have in Tasmania.

Properly funding universities not only provides opportunities for individuals, but for families and communities and the nation as a whole. Funding universities properly is an investment in the future of this nation. The government's changes are exactly the opposite. These changes would deprive so many people of the opportunity to attend university. These changes would deprive our nation of the next generation of social workers and nurses, of scientists and engineers. These changes would lumber people with a lifetime of debt. These changes would be yet another broken promise from a government that promised 'no cuts to education'.

And before I finish, I want to put on record Professor Rathjen's concern about these changes. He said:

The ability of the University to recoup those reductions in revenue—

That is the revenue I talked about earlier of $35 million each and every year—

through fee premiums may be limited by the economic circumstances of the island.

… Those subjects that we do not teach, the research that we do not conduct, or the social programs that we do not support are unlikely to be replaced easily by other providers.

There is considerable concern in Tasmania—and, as I have said, it is not just from the University of Tasmania; it is from the whole community—as to what this rotten bill will do to higher education in Tasmania.

This bill breaks another promise: the promise not to make cuts to education. I know that by now the Australian community and indeed the Tasmanian community are, unfortunately, very used to this government reneging on broken promise after broken promise after broken promise. No amount of tinkering, no amount of amendments—such as those that were announced today by Mr Pyne in question time, to continue the negotiations on this bill—will make it a good bill. This is a rotten bill and it should be rejected. I urge the Senate to reject this bill.