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

I rise to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. This bill, while it is a step in the right direction, does fall short of what is actually needed. No-one can deny that our universities in Australia are in deep crisis. Universities are increasingly being run as big corporations where vice-chancellors earn millions and students are funnelled through like cash cows. Funding cuts, fee hikes, systemic wage theft and rampant casualisation have eaten away at the very foundations of our universities. Expensive degrees are leaving students in decades of debt—tens of thousands of dollars of it. From June last year to June this year, student debt increased by a whopping one per cent, just in one year, and it is rising faster than it can be paid off. Unpaid placements and unlivable PhD stipends are pushing students to the limit while the cost of living soars. Staff are in insecure, casualised jobs where they are routinely overworked and underpaid. And university spaces are unsafe, with hundreds of students assaulted every week and nearly one in three staff having experienced sexual harassment.

These crises have continued to worsen for years, and Labor is doing nowhere near enough at the moment to respond. Students and staff are suffering on campuses right now. They cannot wait for months or even years for the uni accords process to first be completed and then be implemented. Tinkering around the edges is not what we need here. Big, bold action is needed to reimagine universities as public places where staff and students can thrive and flourish. Labor can and must do much more right now to lift students out of poverty, improve staff working conditions and make campuses safe for all. We know that universities should be well-funded, democratic places of public good where students have fee-free access to a safe and effective learning environment and staff have secure jobs and excellent pay.

What I want to do is to talk a little bit more about aspects of the bill, about aspects of our education system that need to be reimagined, and about why this bill is a missed opportunity to fix some of these. I will start with Commonwealth supported places for First Nations students. This bill is a really welcome step to improve First Nations university participation by providing Commonwealth supported places for First Nations students in undergrad degrees. But education should be accessible as a lifelong pursuit, and we know that First Nations students experience pretty big financial barriers to participating at all levels of university, including at the postgraduate level. The average cost of postgraduate coursework degrees is $28,000 per year, and a significant amount of literature shows that financial barriers are often the primary reason why the number of First Nations students transitioning from undergraduate to postgraduate education is so low. Students in postgraduate degrees are generally older and have greater family and financial obligations, which makes paying for postgraduate study even more difficult. Current financial support and scholarships are inadequate and not available for part-time students.

So I will be moving a committee of the whole amendment to provide Commonwealth supported places for all First Nations students in postgraduate degrees, in addition to the undergraduate degrees. It makes no sense that we increase that support for First Nations people for undergrad degrees but not for postgraduate ones. The amendment is supported by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association, and it would deliver on the Universities Accord recommendation that all students, including postgraduate coursework students, should have access to sufficient financial support to support their study. Ultimately, university should be free and all student debt wiped, but lowering this financial barrier of entry for First Nations students at all levels of study will be an incredibly important step. If we are serious about improving First Nations university participation and about closing the gap and reducing the disadvantage that First Nations people face in this country, we have to listen to First Nations people and take a step towards reducing educational disadvantage. I hope that my colleagues in this chamber can support this amendment.

I now come to the 50 per cent pass rule. This bill removes the punitive 50 per cent pass rule introduced by the Liberals' Job-ready Graduates package, and that's really good, but the bill does nothing to reverse the absolutely disastrous fee hikes and funding cuts that were introduced at the same time. The Job-ready Graduates package cut government funding for student learning by $1 billion per year and increased student contributions by $414 million per year. Fees for arts and humanities degrees rose by a massive 113 per cent. Women, lower SES and First Nations students are hit the hardest by the fee hikes and the resulting unfair rise in student debt, so excuse me if I am cynical about the coalition then coming in here and crying with concern about the rise of student debt.