Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020, but I'm first going to talk about submarines and ships—asking for indulgence; I will definitely link it back to the bill.

In 2012 in the Defence Capability Plan there was an item listed for the Future Submarine project for 12 submarines for greater than $10 billion. That was the sum that was indicated in the Defence Capability Plan. By 2015, in response to questions at estimates, that number had gone to $50 billion. In the 2016 Integrated Investment plan, the number rose again to $60 billion. In 2019, the number was $80 billion and in a JCPAA hearing not too long ago, Defence came out with a new number: $89 billion. If I stick with the 2015 number, we can see that the submarine project has gone up from $50 billion to $89 billion. If I go to the Future Frigate program, in 2016 that program was listed to cost $30 billion in the Integrated Investment plan. In 2017, it had gone to $35 billion—that was in the Naval Shipbuilding Plan—and in September this year, in response to a question on notice through the Senate, the number had gone to $45 billion.

So the submarine project has gone from $50 billion to $89 billion. Most people don't even understand that number, so I will say it slightly differently. The submarine project has increased by $39,000 million, and the Future Frigate program has gone from $30 billion to $45 billion. It's increased by $15,000 million. All up, $54,000 million—and have we heard a peep? Have we heard it mentioned much in this chamber? No.

I come back to this bill that we're talking about. There have been motions, there have been inquiries and there has been extensive media coverage. We are now debating this bill. We're going to vote for this bill. This bill is about $1,000 million—$1 billion. It's about the government saving $1 billion. I just wanted to point out the contrast with what's going on here. We have considerable focus on a situation where the government's trying to save a billion dollars, to the great harm of our students. Yet, when we look at the defence side of the ledger, they can go up $54 billion and no-one even notices.

One of the problems we have is that on that side of the chamber you don't know how to deal with that. You want that to remain silent. You have no competence to be able to deal with what is a major blow-out in defence projects, yet you're quite prepared to come in here and cut $1,000 million from education. I just want the chamber to understand that contrast. Total incompetence on defence and total incompetence on project management in defence, yet you will then steer to gain some semblance of budget control—in your thinking—to save a billion dollars. And this is for ships and submarines, I might point out, that won't be delivered until late into this decade—2035, if we're lucky, for the submarines. We've got rising tensions taking place in the South China Sea, our geopolitical situation is changing dramatically, and we won't have a future submarine until 2035. It's like buying a parachute after the plane has crashed.

We are seeing, in this bill, a lack of investment in our future. Education is our future. Post COVID-19, the very thing we should be doing is investing in our future. And our future comes from our children, from our students. That's where we ought to be investing our money. This bill takes us in the wrong direction. While those opposite are squandering money on the defence side, not even paying any attention, completely incompetent as to what to do about it, they are destroying the future through a lack of investment in education.

The effects of this bill—to be very clear—were well articulated by the University of Adelaide's submission. Contrary to what Senator Griff said—that universities are purportedly happy about this—if you read the submissions from the University of Adelaide, Flinders Uni and UniSA, they all had deep concerns about this bill. Adelaide University put it very succinctly—'a nine per cent increase in HECS-HELP charges, on average, for their students; a 15 per cent reduction in federal support; and a very significant cut to core funding for university research'. I almost don't have to say anything more. The analysis there is that this bill is bad for students, it's bad for universities, it's bad for research, it's bad for South Australia and it's bad for Australia.

To suggest that the universities in South Australia are somehow in favour of this is ludicrous. This is a case of three steps backward and two steps forward if we look at the negotiations that have been carried out by Centre Alliance. They've attempted to put a bandaid on a broken bone and that doesn't work. At the Senate inquiry—which, I would point out, Senator Griff did not attend—the universities all agreed that the granting of regional status to their universities would be better but, overall, it would be a case of three steps backward and two steps forward. The negotiations by Centre Alliance have not addressed that issue.

The objectives of the bill are to increase the number of students who will go through STEM courses. But when you look at the numbers, when you add up the government contribution and the student contribution, the university now receives $28,958 for an engineering student. Under the new bill, they get $24,000. It's a reduction. It's the same with science. Engineering and science now both provide the university with less funding. It's the same with aquaculture, which is something we are trying to foster in terms of our economy. It makes no sense.

At hearing, the University of Adelaide vice-chancellor articulated a more perverse example of this bill's flawed approach. He said:

Maybe I could try a hypothetical on you. Let's suppose a university is one science student below its quota, its cap. Then adding one science student takes it up to its cap. A university could instead add 15 humanities students to take it up to the cap. Now the science student is going to net you $24,000 or $25,000. Fifteen humanities students will net you around $235,000. There's the potential for universities to be driven by that factor…

It will actually drive universities to the absolute opposite of the stated objective of the bill. People don't choose their courses based on a HECS fee; they choose them based on what it is that they think they want to do. They have looked around. At school, they have done work-experience placements. They have looked and said: 'This is what I want to do. This is what Mum and Dad did. Culturally, this is what I need to do.' No-one was suggesting the debt was a factor that would play in people's minds when they selected a course. Of course, that doesn't make the bill okay. At the end of the course, what's going to happen is they're going to be burdened with debt. Senator Griff to stood up and said that, for humanities and social studies students, the government is making a huge contribution. No, that's not the case. The government contribution for a social studies degree is $1,100 per annum, and the student has to pay $14,500. Again, if Senator Griff had turned up to the inquiry, he might have known that.

The real mechanism for controlling numbers into universities is, in actual fact, the ATAR. The bill should have focused on that. That's how universities control the number of students in each particular course category. It's something that they have direct control of because they can't control the other things. I can tell you I've just been through my daughter's choices for years 11 and 12. At no stage did we talk about HECS, but on the weekend she told me 'Dad, I can tell you every ATAR for every course at Sydney University.' She's memorised them. That's the lever the government could have played with if it really was concerned or driven to adjust the number of engineers coming out of universities and the number of scientists coming out. It could have funded them properly as well, but it didn't. It hasn't used the right mechanisms.

This bill cannot be salvaged. It is so broken, it cannot be salvaged. I want to spend the last couple of minutes just talking about the contribution of Senator Griff. He said, 'This bill is far from ideal.' We have a situation where a person could actually say, 'No, go back to the drawing board, reset the course, Minister Tehan. No resitting the exam on this one; it's so flawed, you've got to go back and redo the course.' Senator Griff could vote against this bill, which is 'far from ideal'—in his own words. This bill provides less funding for more places. Now, that can only mean one thing: that the quality of courses will go down. We are trying to be internationally competitive in Australia, yet the quality of our university degrees will fall as a result of this; there's no other choice. More courses, less money; more places, less money.

Senator Griff talked about better funding for regional universities through the 3.5 per cent increase, but that doesn't do anything to deal with the nine per cent cut to funding that the University of Adelaide talked about. And he says that it gives certainty. No-one in this place would ever think that the passage of a bill would give certainty, because, in two years time, when Senator Griff might not be here, the government of the day may pass another bill that changes things. The government had a particular regime in place which had more funding. To sell the idea that universities are going to less funding, but at least they're certain about the less funding, is just crazy; it doesn't make any sense.

Unfortunately, Centre Alliance has sold out students. Yesterday I listened to a girl named Keeleigh on David Bevan's morning show on the ABC in Adelaide, talking about how she was in year 12, had gone through all the prerequisites, had set herself up for a humanities related course and will now be lumbered with this. David Bevan said to her, 'Good luck', and I say to her, 'Good luck.' But I simply wish that Senator Griff had not put her in this position in the first place.