Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We can all agree that Australia needs to invest in the minds that will shape the 21st century. Our decisions on university funding today are going to shape the opportunities of tomorrow. So the question that we are facing today is: do we want an Australia where opportunity is based on the content of people's character and ability or an Australia where opportunity is based on the size of their parent's wallet? We absolutely should strive for world-class education for all.

From 1974 to 1988, Australians enjoyed free university education. I was the beneficiary of this, and I imagine many of the people in this place were too. We must not take it for granted. I recall being at university, and the cost of my university education was not an issue at all. There was a sense that the world was my oyster; I could go on, realise my potential and do whatever education was necessary in order for me to be able to contribute to the best of my ability to Australia. I had the confidence to take on those challenges, knowing that the ability to be able to be educated and to be able to achieve to the best of my ability was there.

This Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014 that we are debating today is going to make it harder—much harder—for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their potential, by stripping funding from public universities by $5 billion and forcing them to compete against private providers. And these private providers—the for-profit universities—will not be required to offer a wide range of courses, to undertake research or to engage in the community service that our universities do today, like their public competitors. Do we really want to create a system like in the United States, where the most vulnerable are lured by the promise of breaking the cycle of poverty only to find that they are in debt for the rest of their lives for a substandard education?

In my home state of Victoria, there are more than 325,000 students and around 30,000 staff at Victoria's universities who are going to be affected by these regressive higher education changes. I think of the students I have met from Victoria University, which is near my home. Most of the students at Victoria University did not grow up in the richest of households or go to the swankiest schools. The campuses are in Footscray, St Albans, Hoppers Crossing and Melton. These are people who have had to work hard, who have not had all the benefits of wealth. Some have left their friends and family in regional Victoria to take up the opportunity to pursue a tertiary education. Others have come from poor backgrounds, determined to break the cycle of poverty through education. Very large numbers are first generation Australians. They are kids from families with migrant and refugee backgrounds who are determined to get an education and to contribute to Australia to the best of their abilities. They are not, under this proposal, going to have the same opportunities to learn.

Even if they do manage to go to university, it is going to cost them so much more and it is going to take them so much longer to pay their debt off. For many, the prospect of this kind of debt is just too great, especially if they do not have a financially secure family to fall back on. If your whole life has been about scraping together enough money to survive, the prospect of taking on a huge debt is just too much and you say, 'No, I am not going to do it.'

It is not going to impact kids like my two sons, who are 23 and 20. Yes, it would be an impost on them, but I know they have a financially secure family to fall back on if they end up with a massive debt. They can have that confidence that comes with youth—not really thinking too far into the future. My 23-year-old gets his HECS fee statements and he says, 'Yes, that's fine', because he knows that, if things go wrong, his parents will probably come to the rescue. But I know so many of their friends who went to the same really great state public schools—they do not have that background. They have come from broken families, they have moved out of home at the age of 16, they have struggled to pay rent—particularly in the tight Melbourne rental market—and they are saying, 'No, I just cannot take the risk.' They do not have the confidence to take on that level of debt.

While on my way to Canberra, I had a listening tour through regional Victoria—stopping off on my bike all along the way. I asked people what they wanted me to be doing for them in Canberra, how they wanted me to represent them. Many of those hundreds and hundreds of people I met talked to me about these proposed higher education changes and talked to me about the brutal government budget.

One story that particularly sticks in my mind is that of a woman I met in Bendigo. We were having afternoon tea in a cafe in Bendigo and I just got chatting to her, telling her that I was about to go to Canberra to be her senator and asking her what she would like me to represent her about. She immediately talked about the higher education charges. She was in her forties. She had worked in dead-end jobs all her life and she told me she had just reached the stage in her life where she felt capable of going, and wanted to go, back to university. She wanted to do an arts degree. She wanted to end up as a social worker or to do something else using the benefits of a degree. But, having heard about the proposed changes in higher education funding, she said, 'No way.'

There was no way she was going to do it. She was going to keep working in the same dead-end jobs she had been working in. She said there was no way, at her stage of life, she was going to take on the massive amount of debt she would have to under these changed higher education rules. Because she had been on a limited income her whole life, she had been very wise in her financial management. She had never had a credit card, she had never gone into debt for anything and she was not going to even consider the prospect of doing a degree now under these new arrangements. I think that is just so sad.

All over Australia, there are hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of people like that woman in Bendigo who are saying, 'No, I am now not considering taking up the opportunity to try to reach my full potential.' And do not be fooled by the claim that the so-called 'Commonwealth scholarships' will come to the rescue of people like the woman I met in Bendigo and other disadvantaged students. The brutal Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey budget abolished $800 million worth of start-up and relocation scholarships, to be replaced by these Commonwealth scholarships that will be funded by $1 for every $5 of student fee increases. So these will only be created by massive fee increases paid by those not lucky enough to be awarded with a scholarship. Very few students will benefit from all the others paying through the nose.

Modelling by the National Tertiary Education Union shows that for a third of students at the University of Sydney to receive some form of limited financial support the annual fees paid by the remaining two-thirds will have to rise by more than 160 per cent. This will mean an extra $12,800 in student fees. This is not creating more opportunities. And what will these scholarships cover? Will they cover tuition? Will they cover books and equipment? Will they cover the cost of living? And at the end of it all, will it all need to be paid back as yet another loan? The answer is we simply do not know.

Neither the government nor the vice-chancellors of the Group of Eight universities have disclosed how their scholarship programs will work. They do not want the senators on this cross-bench to know the truth. And appallingly, the students who are going to be the hardest hit by these changes will be those in regional areas and in the outer suburbs of our cities.

The minister's claim that the universities so vital to these communities will benefit from Commonwealth scholarships is simply ridiculous. Students at these universities are already the most burdened by fees and the most in need of scholarships. Any scholarships they have to offer will be spread far too thinly across the large number of disadvantaged students. The bill will make it harder for disadvantage students to go to university, it will increase the cost for those who do go to university and it will reduce the quality of the education provided. The loss of opportunities for the people being affected by this and the loss of opportunities for innovation are going to affect us all.

It will no doubt hit our future jobs market because we know that jobs are available to people with skills and education in the areas for development in the Australian economy. Yet the government has the nerve to argue that this will help the youth unemployment rate. In my home state of Victoria, youth unemployment is hovering around 14 per cent and it is more in outer suburban and regional areas. Education is the key to reducing this figure. We need to be giving more young people the opportunity to excel, not to be imposing barriers. I really do think the results of the Victorian election on the weekend show that people understand this. The results really show that people were voting against changes that are not going to give people opportunities. Victorians were voting for providing services and opportunities through maintaining quality education being available to all.

The government has proposed a 10 per cent cut across the board to cut the Research Training Scheme, as well as a fee of up to $4,000 for PhD students. This is another incredibly regressive and backward element of the bill. It is also on top of cuts to the CSIRO, to the cooperative research centres, to the Australian Research Council, to ANSTO and to DSTO. These cuts are not just going to hurt the scientists and the inventors who have dedicated their lives to research. These cuts are going to hurt us all through a lack of Australian innovation.

As Australia continues to grow, we cannot let Australia lose its position as a preferred trading partner. We need to keep investing in education and innovation. It is the absolute bottom line, fundamental to the Australian economy. Otherwise, we are going to lose out to neighbours who continue to invest in research. It is a choice. We can continue to see our economy as, increasingly, the dig it up and ship it out mentality or we can be investing in education, in research, in innovation.

As a regional leader in education, we should be harnessing our knowledge not just to benefit ourselves domestically but to use these skills to export goods and services. That is the area that is going to make the Australian economy grow and that what the Australian economy is going to depend upon in the future. The renewable energy sector is a very good example of that. It is dramatically expanding in the United States, in China and throughout Europe. We here in Australia have an opportunity to be a world leader, but we need to be investing in education. We need to be investing in research. Otherwise, we will be throwing that opportunity away with the flick of a switch. For the sake of the minds that are going to shape our nation in the coming generations, we must not pass this bill.