Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is quite a lot to unpack in this debate tonight, and I note that it has been quite wide-ranging in considering some broader issues facing our higher education sector and, particularly following Senator Carr's contribution, the relationship that some of our universities have with China.

I disagree with Senator Carr's characterisation that people who question the relationship that our higher education institutions have with the Chinese Communist Party are fearmongering. The number of students on our university campuses who have spoken to me and other colleagues about their concerns about free academic inquiry on campus, as well as the influence of the CCP on university campuses, completely flies in the face of that characterisation. On an evening when we are meant to be talking about a quite straightforward piece of legislation, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2010, I find it regrettable that we are engaging in a debate about the relationship that our higher education institutions have with China and that people who question that relationship and just want some transparency in the relationship are characterised as fearmongers. Quite frankly, I find it really disappointing.

I will get to the legislation that we have at hand now—the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019. I think it's safe to say that cheating has changed a little since I was at university. Ten years ago, when I was studying at university, you always heard these stories of some of the more creative ways students had found to try to work their way around the system: writing the answers to exam questions on pieces of clothing, which they would then remove during the exam; eating notes once they were caught with them in the exam; or copying the text directly from Wikipedia, which, when the hyperlinks showed up in the essay, was a bit of a giveaway.

But the advent of the internet and enhanced communications means the art of cheating is now smarter and in many cases more commercial. Back in the day, in terms of proving an offence of cheating, universities would have academic misconduct policies in place and disciplinary processes in place and it was often contingent on finding the evidence and simply building a case that impropriety had occurred. But we know from the reviews that have been discussed in the debate tonight, undertaken by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, that these policies and procedures are perhaps not enough. Indeed, that is why we are having this debate tonight, talking about this piece of legislation.

I think it's interesting to note the history of how we've come to this position, because it is important to consider that universities are primarily responsible for maintaining the integrity of their academic services, so to speak. Commercial cheating came to the attention of this government through the MyMaster scandal back in 2015. That was, as we've heard tonight, a website through which students could obtain a prewritten essay. After this came to the government's attention the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency investigated this issue on the recommendation of the government. They came up with a report that suggested, as I alluded to earlier, that a stronger response from the government was required in order to regulate the higher education sector to strengthen it so that this new commercialised form of cheating service couldn't occur.

The minister then requested that the Higher Education Standards Panel advise on options to deter commercial cheating based on those recommendations from the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, which I'm going to refer to as TEQSA for ease of pronunciation—and otherwise we're going to be here all night! I would like to read from the report on student academic integrity and allegations of contract cheating by university students undertaken by TEQSA—just a short paragraph—because it really does go to where this issue has come from and why it's necessary for us to have this legislation in front of us tonight. The report says:

Contract cheating – the purchase of another person's work to present as your own – has a long history. Recently, the ready availability of sophisticated communication technology and the rise of social media have increased the opportunity to access and/or repurpose another's work to present as your own. Availability of essay writing services is pervasive with both local and international websites advertising their services. A number of assessment strategies have been devised to minimise the opportunity for such fraudulent activity by students and to detect it when it occurs. However it should be noted that the efficacy of such strategies has not been established and the favoured way to combat such behavior is by the promotion of academic integrity in the student body.

I mean, this report fundamentally explains how universities had these policies and processes in place, yet it wasn't actually preventing this cheating from occurring, as we saw with the MyMaster scandal back in 2015. So, the natural question was asked: what more can be done? The legislation we are discussing here tonight is what could be done.

We know that cheating services are a blight on our education system. These are people who are exploiting vulnerable students and undermining the integrity of our high-quality degrees. A lot of the government speakers I have listened to tonight have talked about the importance of maintaining the integrity of our degrees, because having a degree should be a worthwhile exercise and a degree should be a worthwhile commodity that should be preparing our students for the workplace.

This bill that we're debating here this evening is aimed at commercial cheating services, not the students who use them. Students who cheat will still be subject to their institution's own academic integrity policies and sanctions, including any consequences that flow from those, like the ones I discussed earlier. The national regulator, TEQSA, will be given new powers to investigate and recommend prosecution of cheating service providers. TEQSA will also be empowered to seek court injunctions to force internet service providers and search engines to block cheating websites.

This bill gives effect to the advice of the Higher Education Standards Panel that I referenced earlier—that legislation is required to deter third-party academic cheating services. Like I said, when universities have policies and procedures in place and have embedded these policies and procedures in their teaching processes and yet this sort of cheating is still occurring, we know that more needs to be done. The Higher Education Standards Panel found that the array of state, territory and Commonwealth laws relevant to cheating offences made it difficult to pursue legal solutions against providers of these cheating services. The panel's advice was that additional legislative backing is needed to more effectively deal with such risks. The panel advocated modelling this on New Zealand's approach, which is outlined in section 292E of the Education Act 1989, which is a piece of New Zealand legislation. The panel recommended that this legislation should be aimed at those who provide cheating services and not at students who might use such services. Like I said, students who cheat will remain subject to their institutions' own policies, processes and sanctions if that is deemed appropriate in the individual situation.

We have consulted broadly on this bill. An exposure draft was issued for comment in early 2019. A number of submissions were received in response which generally supported the need for the legislation and raised some small concerns around the bill. The bill that we have in front of us this evening has been revised to take account of these.

This bill will amend the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to make it an offence to provide or advertise academic cheating services to students or arrange academic cheating services for students studying with Australian higher education providers, whether the services are provided from within Australia or overseas. Criminal and civil penalties of up to two years jail and fines of up to 500 penalty units will apply where the cheating service or advertising is for a commercial purpose. Civil penalties of up to 500 penalty units will apply where the cheating service is provided without remuneration. Strict liability will apply to the criminal offence of providing an academic cheating service in order to undermine services' tactics of disingenuous disclaimers regarding the purpose and use of their products.

As I alluded to earlier, TEQSA will be appointed to enforce the new law, with its powers to include monitoring, intelligence gathering, investigation and prosecution of identified offenders. TEQSA will have additional power to collect and disseminate information about cheating websites and their users to help institutions combat cheating activity on campus but with safeguards to protect the unwarranted sharing of personal information of those who purchase cheating materials. TEQSA will have the ability to seek court injunctions to force internet service providers and search engines to block cheating websites, as I previously alluded to.

I think that last point around disseminating cheating websites is a really important one. Like I said, back in the day when I was at university, cheating was still—let's call it—paper based. It was very much around borrowing a student's notes and using another student's work to complete your essay or writing your own notes and taking them into an exam and relying upon them when you were completing an exam question. The way that students can access information now has completely changed not only their educational landscape generally but, of course, the ways in which they can be preyed upon and the access, potentially, that they might have to services such as these that can provide essays online.

I think the bill that we are discussing here tonight is an important one. It is important that we maintain the integrity of our higher education system, because the qualifications that result from it are only ever as valuable as the integrity of the broader sector. So I certainly commend the bill to the Senate, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate around this bill, which, as I mentioned in my opening statements, has been somewhat wideranging.