Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I'll say from the outset that it is disappointing to see that the Liberals and Nationals said in the dissenting report on the inquiry into this bill that they are opposed to this bill. However, we shouldn't be surprised. They were responsible for the introduction of the deeply unpopular Job-ready Graduates package. The Job-ready Graduates package massively increased fees for many students. In fact, according to the National Tertiary Education Union's submission, it reduced the Commonwealth contribution per student place on average by 14 per cent. As a result, Australia now ranks as the fourth-worst country in the OECD for public funding of tertiary education. The Job-ready Graduates reforms were widely opposed when they were introduced and rushed, by those opposite, through parliament.

The Tertiary Education Union and Alison Barnes' report made a number of observations regarding the implementation of those reforms: 'It rips billions out of public universities, while unfairly burdening many students with excessive and even lifelong debt. We also predicted that the changes under job-ready guarantees would be unsustainable.' Well, it turns out this was a pretty accurate prediction of the destruction by the Job-ready Graduates package unleashed on the sector.

In May 2023, the ABC reported on a student named Jess who started university in 2021. After the Job-ready Graduates package had been enacted, Jess chose to study arts despite the increasing fees. They reported that her HECS debt at the end of her studies would be $45,000—more than double what it would have been if she had commenced her studies a year earlier.

Bailey Riley, from the National Union of Students, summarised both students and institutions' views of the Job-ready Graduates reforms, saying: 'It's very unusual for universities and student unions to agree, and we all agree that the Job-ready Graduates was in terms of the funding very terrible for students and for universities.' There seems to be pretty clear evidence across the board that it didn't succeed in any of its marks.

Andrew Norton, from the Australian National University, in analysing the impact of the Job-ready Graduates package, told the Australian Financial Review in January 2023:

the Coalition's 2020 Job Ready Graduates package fail to shift student demand into its desired courses—

So not only did the Liberals and Nationals' university reforms make higher education less affordable and less accessible but it even failed to achieve its objective, which was supposed to be pour students into specific courses.

Those opposite have a disturbing anti-higher-education agenda here, because we already know that they are anti-TAFE. The shadow minister for skills and training, Ms Ley, said fee-free TAFE is 'wasteful spending'. The Leader of the Opposition hasn't even said the word TAFE in this place since 2004.

It's also clear that they're opposed to making university more accessible and affordable for middle-class families. In addition to making university more expensive for Australian students, the previous Job-ready Graduates laws also introduced a new rule that revoked Commonwealth assistance from students experiencing difficulties in their studies.

I'm very pleased to say that this bill removes that callous, inconsiderate rule. Since being elected in May 2022, we've started the process of writing the wrongs of those opposite through the Australian Universities Accord process. The interim report, led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC, makes five recommendations for priority action to make a difference to the experience of university students. We are urgently taking action on all five of these recommendations, and this bill deals with two recommendations which require a legislative response.

The first recommendation is removing the 50 per cent pass rule. That was forced upon students in the previous government's deeply unpopular Job-ready Graduates reforms package that was rushed through this place. The Liberals and Nationals' 50 per cent pass rule means that any student who cannot maintain a pass rate of 50 per cent of units studied will automatically lose eligibility for Commonwealth assistance. Let's be clear: the Liberals' and the Nationals' 50 per cent pass rule discriminates against and penalises those who are doing it tough—surprise, surprise! The interim report on the Australian Universities Accord, handed down in July this year, reported that the 50 per cent rule has a disproportionately negative impact on students from poor backgrounds and from the regions. Of course, we don't hear the Nationals saying anything about this. Heaven forbid they start thinking about the regions and the impact on their own constituency! We know that many—not all; there are a few people over there who have a bit of a conscience—on the opposite side don't think about people that are poor, as is clear from the policies they support and put forward.

The removal of this punitive action is supported by advocacy groups and institutions across the sector, including the peak body for the sector, Universities Australia. As of 19 July 2022, 13,000 students at 27 institutions are reported to have been affected by this rule. Its removal is supported by the University of Adelaide, Monash University, University of Technology Sydney, University of the Sunshine Coast, University of New England, University of Newcastle, Queensland University of Technology and Western Sydney University, among others, as well as the National Union of Students, which represents over one million Australian students, and the National Tertiary Education Union, which represents 27,000 academics and university staff. To be clear, not a single witness at the inquiry into this bill was opposed to removing the 50 per cent rule.

The 50 per cent rule is so deeply and widely unpopular that the only people opposed to its removal are those opposite, who introduced the requirement in the first place. They can never admit that they got it wrong. We all heard the former prime minister Scott Morrison finally being named in this place yesterday. They've run away from him for so long, but they still want to stick to his policies. The rule is universally reviled by students, their families, their teachers, student organisations and universities. Fundamentally, it is a policy which punishes people who are disadvantaged by where they live or by their background. The University of Newcastle found that, of the more than 1,000 students impacted by the rule, over 75 per cent were enrolled in enabling pathways, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and first-in-family students. We've had some pretty lively debates over this last week about the 'yes' campaign, and we've heard those opposite talk about 'what practical things we can do'. Well, guess what! This is practical, and you're opposed to it. You're opposed to helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Everyone on the opposite side has to take responsibility, regardless of their history and background.

The 50 per cent rule is a policy that punishes people who have to work long hours to make ends meet while studying as well. It is a policy that punishes those with caring commitments while they are studying. It is a policy that punishes people who experience sudden trauma in their lives, whether it's a death, an illness in the family, a personal injury or anything else that limits the time a student can dedicate to studying. It is a policy that is indefensible, which is why no-one at the inquiry into the bill ever tried to defend it—except Senator Henderson and those opposite. They defended the indefensible, and what rationale did they provide? They said they were worried about students failing courses and racking up student debt. If they were so worried about student debt, why did they pass the Job-ready Graduates bill, which lumped students with the biggest increase to course fees in modern history? They don't care about student debt. They care about punishing students from working families and from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and keeping them out of universities. That's the effect of their policy. That's the reality. That's the practical result.

The Queensland University of Technology Guild's academic advocacy service reported that it has assisted 'a number of students who were extremely distressed about the prospect of being excluded from their course due to not having the means to pay full up-front fees'. Your bank account or what your parents do for work should not determine what educational opportunities are available to Australian students. It reeks of elitism, but those opposite think that revoking Commonwealth funding from students doing it tough is good policy.

The second recommendation this bill addresses is the extension of demand-driven funding to metropolitan First Nations students. Currently, only Indigenous students from regional and remote Australia can access demand-driven places. We want to change that to include Indigenous people living in metropolitan areas, and so do universities across the country. Increasing First Nations access to tertiary education is a priority for our government. It is estimated this measure will double the number of Indigenous students enrolled in universities in a decade. That's real practical change. A decade is the same amount of time the coalition wasted on inaction and making it even harder for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend universities.

The shadow education minister says the coalition are:

… very concerned about the government's decision to reverse the Coalition's 50 per cent pass rule, which was designed to protect students not punish them. We do not want to see more students burdened by massive HECS debts they will not be able to repay.

It seems that those opposite, including Senator Henderson, are quick to forget the systematic way in which they increased the burden on students and their HECS debt. The Liberals and Nationals government increased the average students HECS debt by eight per cent through Job-ready Graduates. They reduced the Commonwealth contribution per student place, on average, by 14 per cent. The tuition fee increased to over 110 per cent for humanities, arts and social science courses, making it more expensive under the previous government to get a degree in social work or journalism than to get a degree in medicine.

The National Teritary Education Union put it best:

Taking these factors into account, the Coalition's opposition to the Bill based on concerns over students' financial wellbeing appears to be at best highly selective, given the impact of the JRG and other changes to HECS-HELP that the former Government enacted.

Senator Henderson says pulling funding from students experiencing difficulty in their studies is a cost-of-living measure. That is quite outrageous! If you're doing it tough, those opposite want to strip away your university funding—but they say it's for your own good. It really sums up their atrocious approach to higher education, whether it's universities or TAFE.

I look forward to continuing to work with the government, on the work this government has started, to ensure that universities are accessible and fair for all Australians.