Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Anybody who had listened through the course of this debate would think, first, that all Australians should and must go to university if they are to have a good and meaningful life. Then there would be people who would come away from this debate thinking that Australia has no ability to assist people from poorer families to get to university—that there's no loan scheme that allows people of lesser means to access university. You'd be forgiven for coming away from this debate thinking that life isn't worth living unless you get free education. Well, what a load of utter rubbish all of that has been.

Let's do some fact checking, shall we? University is not essential to earning a good living. University is not essential to having a good life. Trades, for instance, can offer you much more money, if that's what motivates you. They can offer you real chances to build serious businesses and to contribute massively to this nation, to your economy and to your family's financial independence. Many people are much better suited to a hands-on type of learning and working.

Let's do some more fact checking. There's absolutely nothing to stop a smart, motivated person in this country accessing education at university simply due to cost. That might be uncomfortable for some people in this room, but it is the truth. What we call the HELP scheme—it has been known as HECS in my time—allows for affordable loans that don't need to be repaid until that person is working and earning a pretty good living. That's fair. And it means that a kid of modest means—like me and, indeed, many people on the coalition side of this chamber—has been able to go to university despite the fact that they're nothing fancy.

There's something that seems to be getting lost in this debate—the idea that university is something that mum and dad always pay for, or the idea that you shouldn't be doing anything else but studying while you're learning. My experience of university was that working part-time while I studied was not only something that helped me pay my way but a big part of the experience of learning to be an adult. Working four jobs while I was at university taught me to prioritise my spending, to manage my time, to communicate with my employers about my commitments and manage them well, and how to chat to people from all walks of life and appreciate their different strengths and interests. I can tell you that the time I spent selling linen in a shop, bookkeeping for small businesses, waitressing in a steakhouse and in an Italian restaurant and tutoring schoolkids was good for me. I learned skills that I draw on every day in this place and drew on in my career before this. Indeed, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that I learned a lot more from that than I did from many of my university classes.

The phrase 'free education' gets bandied around a lot in this place both by Labor and those in the Greens Party. But you know what? That is nothing more than a bold-faced lie. Everything you get for free has got to be taken from somebody else, particularly under the redistributionist worldview of those in the Greens. It's particularly hypocritical, though, when we hear this from Labor, because they didn't indulge their free-education fantasy when they were in government during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. If they really believed that that was the right thing to do, then why didn't they do it when they had the chance? The answer is that actions speak louder than words. It is nothing more than a slogan designed to mislead young people in particular—a lie on which they never plan to deliver. The Greens might just be silly enough to genuinely believe in it, but, with their usual approach of 'Free everything for everyone', they've got no idea of how to pay for it. That's the kind of reckless indulgence that is only available to minor parties who know they will never have to come good on their talk. Talk is cheap. But let's hope it stays that way, because our nation would be an economic basket case quick as a flash if the Greens and their unicorn fantasy policies were ever the order of the day.

Madam Acting Deputy President Askew, you might not know that I used to be a sessional academic at a school of business and law in one of the major regional universities before I came to this place. It was a job I did part-time—there you go, part-time work again—while I was in full-time practice as a barrister. I really enjoyed teaching my students. It was a really fulfilling activity but I was regularly troubled by the concern that there were people enrolled in my classes who enrolled every year who never once submitted assessment, never once showed up, never once passed—of course, with that kind of record—and they got billed for it every time. It was a windfall for the university, which didn't have to apply any resources to educating these people. It was a bill to the Commonwealth which was, at least for the time being, paying for that person's non-education and it left a student with a bill, with no education—really—and with no plan to pay it. So, quite rightly, here, this government is putting this kind of practice to an end. It's simply common sense.

I was also concerned about the job prospects of my students who found class, sometimes, a struggle. There were many who I thought were better suited to a less bookish way of learning, and there were more practical types whose strength in the practical was something to be celebrated and encouraged, because the fact is, not everyone is suited to the academic life. Not everyone gets the best out of university education. And while there's a real demand for people to be able to retrain at the moment, if we step back from the COVID crisis, I think there's a real conversation to be had about whether, as a nation, we are sending too many people to university, building them up with the expectation of careers in fields that simply aren't there. So this bill does something very good for students in that way because there is a reality that says we have, particularly COVID-related unemployment but, at the same time, we have skills shortages in some fields.

This is about making sure people are getting all of the encouragement necessary to focus their education on the areas where there are jobs. Isn't that the promise that, as a country, we make to the people who go to university, the promise that what they are learning is something they will actually be able to use, that they'll have the dignity of a career in which they can work and earn a living and get ahead and rise to the top of their profession through hard work because we didn't delude them into believing they could have a career in a job that isn't there? I think it's just being honest. The fact is there has never been more spent on education, but we still have a real skills shortage, even as we are dealing with unemployment. So let's not build false hope in students by educating them in fields for which the jobs just aren't there, when we have real demand in great career areas that do lead to a meaningful job. This bill does great work in this sphere.

By providing for cheaper education in areas where this nation has high skills demand, we are doing the right thing by students, because they won't finish university with a debt for an education that they can't repay because they've been educated in something for which there isn't a job. It's doing the right thing by students. We're putting them on a long-term path to success, not a long-term path to disappointment. It's good for our economy, because we're going to be able to meet those skills shortages so that businesses can snap up these talented, educated Australians and make the most of their talents to grow this nation's economy.

And it's good for the taxpayer too, because it means that as more and more of those educated people go into real work they reach the point where they can start repaying their HELP debt so much sooner. And that's the right thing to do by the Australian taxpayer, particularly those Australian taxpayers who are not themselves university educated, who never got the benefit of the taxpayers subsidising their learning and yet are nevertheless expected to do it for others now that they are paying tax. Indeed, there are people who come to me from time to time who say: 'I learned on the job; I did a traineeship. I worked really hard and I still work really hard. I never got five years at university paid for by the taxpayer, either in full or subsidised by half, and yet I'm expected to pay for it for everyone else.' It's a pretty fair point. Why do we ask the construction workers, the labourers, the hairdressers and the shop assistants to subsidise the career prospects of our lawyers, our accountants, and our marine biologists and our women's studies arts graduates? We asked them to do that, but it's a lot to ask for people who never got that kind of help themselves.

This bill makes modest increases in study areas where skills demand doesn't exist because we need fewer graduates in that area, and it makes it cheaper to study in areas where there is skills demand. When you step back and put it like that, you go, 'Well, this is just plain common sense.' The fact that we have spent so long in this chamber with people bleating at the injustice of it, carrying on as though this represents an enormous human rights violation—confected outrage of the most exaggerated sort—it makes me understand why so many Australians think this place is out of touch. Most Australians don't expect this. They don't expect free everything. Most Australians don't expect to be educated for free in an area of unicorn fantasy study for which there are no jobs and which others should be paying off, despite the fact they didn't get the same kind of education themselves. This is the kind of utter nonsense that explains to me precisely why Australians get frustrated with politicians.

Let's do another quick fact check before I wrap up. There has been a lot of talk about student debt and, yes, we do ask students to make a contribution to their education. But let's not pretend that they don't also get support. Overall, Australian taxpayers will continue to pay more than half of the cost of Commonwealth supported places in universities, with funding prioritised to the areas of high public benefit and those areas most needed by the labour market. Quite frankly, to do anything else would be a dereliction of our duty to the taxpayer. It's right for people to invest in their own education, because they get some private benefit. But with that 50 per cent contribution from the Commonwealth, the public benefit that comes from having an educated society is also recognised. It is fair to students, to our economy and to the taxpayer; it is fair for all.