Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When it comes to education in this country, if we are talking about access for those who want to go to university or TAFE, what we have seen demonstrated over the last six years by this government is shameful. To have Senator O'Sullivan come into this chamber and lecture us in relation to the opportunities for young Australians to get a job, when in my home state of Tasmania we have excessively high youth unemployment—in fact we've lost over 5,000 jobs in recent time under the leadership of this government. So, coming into this chamber as a member of the coalition government, there is nothing to be proud of. University is supposed to be universally available for all young Australians, but that certainly is not the case.

But I am really here to speak about the Higher Education Support (Charges) Bill 2019 and the Higher Education Support Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2019. Labor supports these bills; however, there are elements that need to be commented on. We treat education as a priority. That is what Labor does. Year in, year out, when we have been in government and at every election, we go with a substantially strong education policy to take to the Australian people, because we believe that education is the gateway to having the future that all Australians aspire to. How students are treated is so important, whether you are talking about early childhood education—and we know the track record of this government there—or funding of education in general.

Whether it's contributions from the Liberal state government in Tasmania or this federal government, every tier of education has been cut in my home state. We are not investing the amount of money that we need to. Those opposite have recklessly damaged the quality of Australia's world-class higher education system during their entire two terms of government. Under the Abbott-Turnbull and now Morrison government, the Liberals have cut billions from universities by effectively capping undergraduate places and slashing research funding. These are the facts that need to be placed on the public record.

Remember that famous interview that Mr Tony Abbott gave on the eve of the 2013 election? He famously said, 'No cuts to schools; no cuts to hospitals or to pensions.' Well, Mr Abbott took a knife to education in this country. That is the reality. We are still paying a heavy price now, and I am sure that our country will pay a heavier price in future, economically, culturally and socially, as we move forward with this Liberal government being re-elected.

On the other hand, Labor has a proud story to tell when it comes to education. It was Labor that created Australia's world renowned income-contingent loan scheme, HECS now HELP, the Higher Education Loan Program. Unlike the Liberals, we believe that funding education is an investment in our nation's future prosperity, not a cost burden. It is an investment in Australia being a country of hope and aspiration.

The changes in these bills would introduce small charges for higher education providers, including universities, to access their HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP schemes. The bill also introduces a small application fee for prospective education providers when they are applying to become approved providers under the Higher Education Support Act 2003.

This government has a track record of not consulting with the sector and not consulting with educators and educational institutions. But Labor understands that governments must consult, because we all learn from diverse opinions and from those who actually work in the education space. That is why Labor referred these bills to a committee for better consultation. There is no doubt that education and its delivery has changed and continues to change. What we need to ensure is that courses and skills meet job demands on the ground.

In my home state of Tasmania, we need to educate our young people so that they can go into jobs as the employees that businesses require for the future. We have a fantastic and very advanced agricultural sector which requires a certain set of skills, so our educational institutions must provide those courses so that students can find the jobs once they graduate. It's good for the individual, because they can find work as soon as they graduate, and it's good for our economy.

The University of Tasmania transformation project has potential for my home state, but if we do not get the settings right in terms of finding the jobs and educating for those gaps then we won't be able to meet the demands of the future. TasTAFE is another great institution that this government has continued to cut the funding for over the past six years. We all understand now, but 30 years ago, people were saying, 'The panacea for a great future in this country is that you must go to university.' Well, you don't have to go to university to be successful. We now have in this country the basic shortages of skills which are needed right across this country. What we should be doing so that we don't have to bring the skilled migrants into this country is funding our TAFE institutions so we have the best teachers, the best instructors and the best tradespeople who are upskilling the people we need going forward to the future.

We have a lot of infrastructure being built in Tasmania, and trying to find a tradesperson is hard—whether you want to do an extension to your home, or build a home or build a new hotel. It means we're seeing this pipeline where, all of a sudden, we have this massive demand for tradespeople and then it falls off. We have to do something about that so that we ensure that we don't lose the tradespeople in Tasmania who are working there now in six to 12 months because there aren't any future projects. But today it's been acknowledged that teachers and instructors in the TAFE system in Tasmania are actually losing confidence because of the cuts that have been made to their sector. There have been resignations and course delays. If you're a young person undertaking a traineeship or an apprenticeship and your course has been delayed, that puts you backwards and behind. You won't finish your requirements from an educational point of view, and the delay in being fully qualified means that you will learn less money. That may not worry those on the opposite side, but it certainly worries me and I know that it worries others on this side of the chamber.

What we should be doing is investing more in TAFE, not making these cuts. As I said, having a Liberal state government and a Liberal federal government, we've seen education eroded in my home state. We already know that we have some of the worst figures when it comes to retention of young people to get their HSC and go on to university or to TAFE. It is the responsibility of the Commonwealth government to ensure that every young Australian has the opportunity to further their education, not to put up roadblocks to them or to TAFE. Our best and brightest lecturers and teachers should be available for young Tasmanians.

Let's be very clear: because of the Liberal cuts to TAFE, people are suffering needlessly. Students at TasTAFE are being forced to put their lives on hold, with courses being cancelled with no prior warning. Further to this, teachers are being worked to the bone. They're stressed and, ultimately, what they're doing now is resigning. People should not be treated like this and therefore they're looking for other opportunities. That leaves our young Tasmanians without the support that they need to get started in their careers. The fact that information technology students were in the middle of a course when it was cancelled is extraordinary! It's an indictment of TasTAFE under the Liberals.

Mr Morrison has told the Australian people that what we all need is more love. Of course, I want more love; I'm sure everyone in the gallery and everyone in this chamber would like to have more love. But the best way we can share that love around is to ensure that there's proper access for all young Australians, and Australians of all ages, to continue their education. Prime Minister, you have a responsibility. You made a commitment to the Australian people when you were elected. It's about time you stood up and invested in education in this country.

These students who have had their lives put on hold are under stress that they don't need to be under. One student said: 'I had to have some lengthy conversations with Centrelink. It caused some trouble because they did not understand why I was still a student but wasn't going to classes.' That's the reality of the lack of interest in and lack of funding commitments to TAFE. Young people now have to deal with Centrelink wanting to know why they're not going to class, because all the information they gave Centrelink at the beginning of the year is longer relevant. And it is out of their hands completely. It's unacceptable.

There is a further concern with these bills. We don't want to see higher fees for students in this country. Currently, Australia's students pay the sixth-highest fees in the OECD for a university education. This is not something any of us should be proud of. We on this side—and, I think, a good proportion of Australian people—think that if the Liberals had their way they would already have introduced $100,000 university degrees, as they wanted to do in the past two terms of their government. The Liberals have already forced students to start paying off HELP debts when they earn as little as $45,000—only $9,000 more than the minimum wage. This is happening when Australians are just getting established in the workforce and trying desperately to keep their head above water. They may even be trying to save for their own home. But, let's be honest, not many can afford to buy their first home on a wage of $45,000.

Labor understands that debt is a barrier to study, particularly for students from low-income families. Labor, instead of discouraging people, wants more people to take up the benefits of higher education, if that's something they wish to do. The decision of those opposite to effectively re-cap undergraduate places will devastate participation rates in higher education. The Mitchell Institute says that by 2031, because of the Liberals' reckless cuts, up to 235,000 Australians could be missing out on a university education. We should be ashamed of that. That would be devastating not just for the individuals and their families but, just as importantly, for our economy and society more broadly. Labor want to boost participation. We're committed to increasing equity and pathways for students to study at university. We, the Labor Party, are of the belief that there should be equality of opportunity. That is why we must support universities in Australia to do the job as well as they can and to be adequately funded to educate young minds—and the minds of all Australians—who want to have the option to go to university.

It's simply not fair that a student from the North Shore of Sydney is five times—five times!—more likely to go to university than a student from the west coast or the north-west coast of Tasmania is. Labor wants to see that change. It shouldn't matter where you live. It shouldn't matter what credit card you have access to. We should all have equal opportunity. Labor wants our students who have the ability and the desire to go on to university or to access TAFE to have that opportunity. That's the least that we can give young people. In contrast, though, the Liberals want to slam shut the doors of the universities to more than 200,000 Australians. Those people over there, who come into this chamber and talk about the great record that their Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has on education, ought to be honest with the Australian people. Own up to the fact that you've cut education. Own up to the fact that we have in Tasmania alone, let alone other regional areas of this country, too high unemployment rates for young people.

Five thousand jobs have been lost in Tasmania alone under this government. They want to privatise everything. They now want to privatise visa applications out to the public sector, so there are 2,000 more jobs around the country that are going to be lost. I've not heard one word from the Liberal Senate team for Tasmania talking about the 100 jobs that would be lost in Hobart if they privatise these services. They probably think 100 jobs are not many for Hobart or for a state like Tasmania, but that is a significant number of people, because it's not just the individual who loses their job; it's their family, it's their community and it affects our economy.

You can't sit back in your ivory towers and come in here and preach about your great track record around education and unemployment figures, because the reality is very different. The Australian people know that because they live with the consequences of it every single day. So we, in this chamber, will come in here, we will hold you accountable and we will put the facts on the table so that the Australian people know and understand what is really happening in our universities. They will know what the real issues are around youth unemployment, and I haven't even spoken about underemployment in this country, underemployment which is predominantly affecting middle-aged and older Australian men and women in this country. It's not good enough, and we've seen no leadership whatsoever from this government.

You never hear them talking about the benefits of training and education and getting older workers skilled and back into the workforce, because if they truly believed that they would be increasing the funding for TAFE in this country. If we look at the aged-care sector, it is facing a crisis because we don't have enough workers, we don't have universal training and we don't have universal registration of aged-care workers, but it's good enough for nurses to have a national register. My view has been for a very long time that there needs to be a national registration of workers in the aged-care sector. Hopefully, that will be a recommendation—I am sure it will be—out of the royal commission. This is a government who just doesn't care. They got elected without an agenda. They got elected without an agenda for education and doing something to inspire young people and to encourage older and mature age students to go on to university. Enough is enough! We will, at each and every opportunity, come into this chamber and put the real facts, and we will talk about what Labor would do and what we expect from this government. We will hold you accountable.