Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The blokes who put this bill together: the Prime Minister, the Minister for Education and the Treasurer are probably proud of themselves for crafting fee hikes that disproportionately hurt women. On average, fees for women will rise by 10 per cent compared to six per cent for men. They shouldn't be allowed to run from the misogynist consequences of their policy. To make matters worse, the bill also disproportionately impacts First Nations students. IRU analysis has found that First Nations students' fees will increase by an average of 15 per cent—that's years and years more debt. For struggling students the government's cruel answer is to take away their HELP loan if they fail subjects. I will be moving an amendment to strip this cruelty from the package.

Altogether, those are plenty of reasons to scrap this bill. But it gets worse. Universities themselves have said this plan encourages them to enrol students in courses with the highest fees instead of the supposed national priorities. That absurdity also destroys the vital research presently cross-subsidised out of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. Our researchers, who should be focused on securing a vaccine and helping us navigate through the pandemic, are instead worried about their jobs. A whole generation of young researchers working casual jobs are already being shown the door. Thousands of additional researchers are expected to lose work in the year ahead—and they won't come back.

This plan does nothing to protect university workers. The government has stood idly by as thousands of jobs have been lost already. They have rigged JobKeeper three times to exclude universities, voted down my disallowance motion in this chamber which would have scrapped the unfair rules and exacted the punishment they've long hoped to on a sector that they hold in utter contempt.

The impact of that contempt, which riddles this package, will be felt most by regional communities. Regional unis are at the heart of our communities. The great benefit of regional education is that students who study locally tend to work locally. The terrible consequence of this bill is that every dollar of extra debt for a regional student is a dollar not being spent in their communities when that spending is desperately needed at this time. You can guarantee the sweeteners promised for regional unis will disappear. Further Liberal cuts to education are a safer bet than the sun rising tomorrow. It's wishful thinking that they won't use the impending recession to eventually yank support from regional universities. In the meantime, as Charles Sturt University submitted, this bill will hurt the agricultural workforce. The university may need to concentrate enrolments in a smaller number courses leading to fewer opportunities for regional students and with flow on effects for the agricultural workforce.

This whole thing is a policy disaster. The Liberals arrived at such an all-round useless bill by relying on useless labour market predictions that even their buddies and donors on the Business Council disagree with. This bill will see, for the first time, students paying different rates for units depending on what type of psychology degree they are a part of. This not only runs counter to the idea that students should be able to make unit-level decisions but is completely confusing. The new funding rates for units are based on bad, incomplete data from the Deloitte report that doesn't fully cover the university sector, or pass intellectual rigour as one expert put it. Relying on it is an exercise in diving to the lowest common denominator that saves the government money at the expense of diversity of teaching offerings and research. Let's not forget the made-up TEQSA integrity unit the minister slapped together when he was called out on the perverse incentives in this legislation. Let's be clear: even if the plan was good, this legislation sucks! The few carrots the minister has dangled for industry and student support in the package aren't implemented in the legislation, and vital details are desperately lacking or totally absent.