Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I'm pleased to stand here and speak on this bill after we finally had the opportunity to examine it through the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. It should be said that initially the Labor Party and the Greens didn't want this bill to have an inquiry. The Selection of Bills Committee report that came here did not include this bill being sent to an inquiry. A typical pattern we're seeing emerge with this government is one of not wanting to open themselves up to proper scrutiny. That is the role of this place here. The reason we have this house of review, the Senate, is to hold inquiries and look at bills to check that they're actually going to meet their stated objectives, to check that they're actually going to deliver effectively and, importantly, to check that there are not going to be adverse impacts on those the bill is designed to impact. It was very disappointing that the government didn't want to hold an inquiry into this bill, but I acknowledge the support of all the crossbench senators. We don't win many votes in this place now that we're in opposition, but this was one vote I was very pleased we were able to win in this place—to amend the Selection of Bills Committee report to ensure this inquiry was able to go ahead.

I thank the committee for the opportunity. We work well together as a committee. While we come at issues from very different perspectives, I think there is a real collegiality in the way we operate. I want to acknowledge the chair for the way that he conducted the hearings and, as deputy chair, I appreciate being able to work with the chair on that. As I said, we come at things from very different perspectives, but we do show respect to each other, including Senator Faruqi and the Greens. I just want to acknowledge that.

We held two constructive public hearings, and I acknowledge that some in the sector do support this bill. However, the gaps that are left that we've been able to expose through the inquiry leave us, as an opposition, in no other position but to oppose this bill. I guess the real key, and the main reason I want people to take home from this, is that there is an alarming lack of evidence to support the changes that are contained in this piece of legislation. The aims of the bill we can find some agreement on, but the way they're going about it, what they're doing and the lack of evidence to back up their decisions are very, very alarming. This is proving to be a pattern and a way of operating for this government. They do it in many other areas. We're seeing it in the committee I am on in the current inquiry into the closing loopholes bill. What we're seeing exposed there is the lack of real evidence behind, and justification for, some of the changes. That's what we're seeing with this bill as well. Policy should always be evidence based, and not based on flimsy evidence pulled out of the air.

The coalition introduced the 50 per cent pass rule to protect students who failed more than half their units from accumulating massive amounts of student debt with nothing to show for it. The shadow minister for education, Senator Henderson, who's still here in the chamber with me, outlined in her remarks the big issue, which is that students are encumbered with significant amounts of debt. That's fine if you've completed your course and gone on and got a job in the area you've been trained for, but if you're constantly failing courses you still end up with the debt. That's not going to help you get a job, so you're never going to be able to properly repay that. This is a big issue.

Students should be directed and cautioned of the fact that they'll be withdrawn from their course if they don't get a minimum pass mark over a period of time. To not have that is really setting a very low expectation. There's an old famous phrase that we shouldn't suffer people the soft bigotry of low expectations. That goes to the very core of my concern about this bill, which is that we're setting too low expectations for students that it's going to be okay. It would be fine if it was matched with proper support for students, but what we're seeing it that there's not enough going on to provide support to students, and ultimately students are just being left to themselves while accumulating debt with courses they're not able to complete.

Senator Faruqi belled the cat, in my view, with a remark that she made in her contribution before that universities shouldn't be just job factories. Frankly, that's exactly what they should be. They should be job factories. The whole reason for someone undertaking a university course should be so that they can add significant value to themselves, to their education, to their knowledge and to their skills so that they can take those and apply them in a future career. Or maybe they're in a career and they're wanting to grow in their knowledge and experience, so undertaking a university course leading them into a better and higher paying job is a good thing. That's really what it should be. That's primarily what the universities should be about. That's what public funding going into supporting students to be able to undertake these courses should also be aimed at. We shouldn't just be funding students to undertake leisure courses—things that just pique their interest in a fanciful sort of pursuit. They should be about research. They should be about developing a body of knowledge that's necessary for the future prosperity of our nation. That is what universities should be about. They shouldn't just be about allowing people to undertake a course to fulfil an ideological dream they might have. They have to be about real, tangible, hard things.

This bill has too many gaps in it. There's not enough evidence to back up the measures in it. The Senate inquiry— which, ultimately, the government didn't want us to have—revealed that the department went to Universities Australia, which conducted an informal survey of its members, and it came back with a number that Minister Clare is currently taking as gospel. When we asked what the evidence was behind this, the committee was told that a survey was done. The minister is using the results of that survey to justify this bill.

Universities Australia provided two key caveats. Firstly, they said that the data was 'indicative only'. So it's not concrete; it's not something that you can hang your hat on. That's the first thing. It asked providers for the number of students affected by the rule. 'Affected' did not mean that students lost their Commonwealth supported place. It also included those students at risk of being affected by the rule. So what's the problem we're trying to fix? Are we counting the number of students that were actually impacted by the 50 per cent pass rule and that actually did lose their Commonwealth supported place? Or were they measuring people that could have potentially been impacted by it? We found that it was the latter. They were people that were at risk of being affected by the rule. I cast no aspersions over UA. They do terrific work across the sector. But, by their own admission, the majority of students did not lose their place.

The coalition asked for evidence, provided to the department, but we were told that it simply did not exist. And it was a legislative requirement for the department to collect this data. Claims that this rule is punitive or disproportionately affected students from equity cohorts are also not based on any facts or numbers but, instead, on anecdotal data. If there were real evidence to say this is what was happening and equity students, in particular, were being impacted, we wouldn't be having this argument. But there's no data to support that claim. That is our issue. So don't come in here with legislation that doesn't actually match the reality of what is going on. If there are serious needs and serious issues, for sure, bring that in and show the evidence. It would then be very hard to argue against it.

I fear that we are lowering expectations. We are saying to students undertaking these courses that, by this sort of measure, it doesn't matter. I don't know about you, but when I was studying, you had to get at least 50 per cent, and, if you only just got 50 per cent, you were barely getting through. We're lowering the expectations. What is going on in this country? What is going on in our education system that we can't have higher expectations? Scrapping the rule is a knee-jerk overreaction by the minister. It's a rule that has been in place for barely a year. It will leave students vulnerable, without a new safety net. We know that the government has fudged the numbers and that it does not have the evidence to back its decision to scrap this rule. Labor only wants to throw this rule out because it knows it's getting a failing grade in education. That's what they're facing. If anyone's failing, it's the Labor Party—in terms of their grip on putting forward effective policies that will make a difference in our education sector.

I want to talk about student wellbeing and safety measures. We know that student wellbeing and safety deserves more than half-baked policy made up on the fly. Again, that's what this government's doing. How do we know that? Well, we know that, in the bill, there were measures to provide support for wellbeing and safety. But, when we actually went through it, we found out it was just a blank piece of paper; there was nothing there. To anyone listening: I'm not exaggerating; there was nothing there. So this parliament is being asked to put in place legislation for something that the government will, in the future, put in detail. Through the inquiry, we were able to highlight this fact.

You'd have to say that, on any analysis, the minister was dragged into providing some detail, and that was only after pushback from the sector as well. When we asked the sector: 'Do you support this measure to provide support for student wellbeing and safety?' they said: 'Well, we don't actually know. We can't, in all conscience, give you any substantial comment because we haven't seen the detail.' Because of their advocacy, and through our support, the government has provided some detail, but it's simply not enough. There needs to be more time for proper consultation on this, and just rushing a time line for implementation of this important measure is very, very concerning.

Concerns from the sector included not just the lack of consultation and the rushed time line for the implementation, but also the potential for regulatory overlap and inconsistency—this is the problem, when you don't properly spell things out—and that's going to be a big problem. Concerns included also the duplication in reporting and regulation, leading to more red tape and administrative burden for universities. Universities should be focused not on paperwork but on educating their students and providing a safe and supportive learning environment. That's what they should be focused on. Let's not burden them with more red tape and regulation.

But, in classic Labor fashion, the only thing that they were clear on was that they would fine universities $16,500 for noncompliance with a scheme that they didn't even have any detail on. So they're going to be fined, but they don't know what they're actually going to be measured against!

This is unacceptable. This bill is half-baked. There are some sentiments in it that I can agree with, but the implementation of it is poor, and it's just demonstrating the lack of understanding that this government has.