Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm happy to embrace my turn! I think it's very important that those listening to this debate understand what we're talking about when we talk about the so-called 50 per cent rule that was introduced by the previous coalition government. You're under this rule if you studied eight subjects in a bachelor's degree and failed five or more out of eight. Just reflect on that. Over the course of a year—your first year at university, say, or at the end of your second year, if you're going part time—you'd have to fail five out of eight subjects. Under that rule, the Commonwealth government was basically saying, 'We are not going to continue to provide funding for you to enter into further debt to study further subjects in that course where, to date, you have failed five out of eight subjects.'

That—which, from my perspective, is a quite reasonable policy position from the perspective of the Commonwealth government and the taxpayers who fund someone to go to university—is what Senator Ayres is outraged about. You tell me if you are really helping someone who has failed five out of eight subjects when they're undertaking a course. Are you really helping that person if you say you are going to continue to provide funding and increase their debt so they can continue studying and failing subjects? Where do you draw the line?

My father was the first person in his family to get a university education. There'd be many people here who were either the first person or whose parents were the first people in their family to get a university education. The concept that someone should be able to continue to fail, year after year after year, enter into further debt and be funded by the Commonwealth government to do so is just absurd. It could well be that they're not suited to that course. It could well be that it's in their own best interests to be doing something. But it can't be in their best interest to continue failing and continue incurring debt. That is the commonsense policy basis for the proposition that the coalition adopted in its last term of government. I fail to see provided special circumstances exemptions, which is coalition policy, for example, if someone has gone through the trauma of a sexual assault on a university campus, and Senator Waters referred to some of the horrifying evidence we received in the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee's recent inquiry into those issues. Of course there should be dispensation but, absent those special circumstances, for the life of me, I can't see how it helps anyone—the student, the taxpayer—except maybe the education institution that continues getting the fees to provide courses to students who are failing them. I can't see, for the life of me, how it is in the best interest, the bona fide best interests, of anyone to keep funding someone to keep failing subjects at university. There has to be a line put somewhere and, for the life of me, I can't see why a reasonable line is not achieving a 50 per cent pass mark in eight subjects, which means you are required to pass at least four subjects out of eight. You could have failed four of them and kept going but you have at least have to pass 50 per cent. For the life of me, I can't see how that is unreasonable. As for the faux outrage, that is ridiculous, absolutely absurd. The resources available for education, for health, for defence, for any of the things we do in this place are not limitless. There have to be boundaries and there have to be guardrails. The 50 per cent rule, from my perspective, is quite a reasonable basis upon which to proceed.

Another point my colleague Senator Henderson, who is doing a fantastic job as spokesperson in this area for the coalition, has referred to is the fact that the minister, when he introduced this policy getting rid of the 50 per cent rule, quoted all sorts of statistics as to the number of students who have been prejudiced by the coalition's 50 per cent rule. But when the committee looked at the evidence it didn't support the minister's assertions. The minister asserted 'more than 13,000 students at 27 universities have been hit by this' in the past two years, mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds. This was proven to be demonstrably false, so this act as been put forward on false premises. The evidence doesn't support the basis upon which this act has been proposed. It simply doesn't support it whatsoever.

The other point I would make is this: what we're talking about is students incurring debt to continue studying courses at universities where they have failed more than 50 per cent of eight units. What does it mean for them to incur that debt? Let me give you these statistics. During the time of the coalition government, those HECS debts were indexed on average by two per cent a year. That was the annual indexation rate if you had gone to university and passed four subjects, failed four subjects. You have taken out a loan from the Commonwealth government to undertake the study. That is a debt that you will carry for the rest of your life when you are trying to buy a house, when you are trying to get ahead.

Under the coalition government, that debt was indexed on average two per cent a year. In 2022, in the Labor government's first year, it was indexed by 3.9 per cent, nearly double the average two per cent. This year it was indexed by 7.1 per cent. In 2024, students are expected to be hit with a further indexation of six per cent. So you can see in a high inflationary environment the diabolical trouble students can get into if they continually undertake subjects which they then fail. So they don't ultimately obtain the skills, the recognition of skills through graduation et cetera to actually generate the income to pay back the debt which is indexed at higher and higher levels because of high inflation. That is the trap. It isn't the intention but that is the trap which the government is setting for university students by getting rid of the 50 per cent pass rate. That is the trap that they are setting. Just reflect on this. Under the coalition government, funding would continue provided that you pass at least four out of eight subjects. Is that too much to ask? Four out of eight subjects? Seriously? And this is going to disadvantage all those people? You've got to be kidding me. It's outrageous. I commend Senator Henderson on the work she has done in this area. Senator Ayres called upon us to reflect. I think Senator Ayres needs to reflect on the arguments he put forward. I just think they don't bear any scrutiny whatsoever.

The second point I wish to discuss is the response of the sector and the government to a very concerning issue, the rates of sexual assault on university campuses. I note that Senator Green is here and Senator Waters made a contribution to the debate. Senator Green is Deputy Chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, and the report which that committee delivered on Australia's sexual consent laws was unanimous. All three of us agreed with the recommendations. One of those recommendations was that there needs to be a body with teeth—we in the coalition are calling for an ombudsman—to be able to look at issues of sexual assault on campuses in Australia. The statistics are horrifying. They truly are horrifying. Surveys indicate that the rates of complaints of sexual assaults on campuses are truly horrifying. As Senator Waters said, even more disturbing perhaps is that, when students have raised complaints with universities and with the regulator, they're saying they are actually being retraumatised by that process.

In relation to that inquiry, we received from TEQSA some answers to questions on notice which were provided to the inquiry very close to our reporting date, so we weren't able, as a committee, to incorporate the answers into our report. That was very disappointing. In those answers, TEQSA, the government regulatory body, said they had received 39 concerns in relation to sexual harm on Australian campuses for the period since September 2017. They said:

Of the 39 concerns raised since September 2017: all cases went through a preliminary and secondary assessment. One such assessment is still active. TEQSA did not undertake an investigation into any of these concerns.

So, notwithstanding the devastating results of the survey on the prevalence of sexual assault on Australian campuses, notwithstanding the fact that students and their wonderful advocates, including from End Rape on Campus, had made complaints to TEQSA, 'TEQSA did not undertake an investigation into any of these concerns.' How can that possibly be the case, when our university students are raising these sorts of material concerns on university campuses? Again I quote: 'TEQSA did not undertake an investigation into any of these concerns.' That's why we need an ombudsman in this area, an ombudsman with teeth who can look into these issues and actually investigate the students.

What impact does this have on students? I want to quote from a publication provided by End Rape on Campus Australia and Fair Agenda. This is a direct quote from a student:

In TEQSA's sense they did resolve the complaint. Yes, they did resolve it. They didn't do anything to resolve it. It took well and truly over a year for them to resolve the complaint by doing nothing.

That's how the student viewed the response of TEQSA—it took them well and truly over a year to resolve the complaint by doing nothing. What a damning indictment of TEQSA. What a damning indictment of TEQSA! I'll go on:

The original outcome of the complaint was not at all a satisfactory response. For starters when my complaint was submitted there was already a similar complaint from another person at the same university …

So in that situation, where two different university students had raised the same complaint from the same university, TEQSA still didn't engage in a proper investigation. I'll go on:

… the same assaulter, and both being handled by the help of EROC … The original outcome [from TEQSA] on the 20th of October 2020 combined both of our complaints together even though they were submitted in different years and have no relation to each other. This was very wrong on their behalf and incredibly inappropriate, and a big breach of privacy and confidentiality. The outcome was also never sent directly to me.

That's a direct quote from a student who has suffered sexual assault on campus as to the response of the regulator—absolutely outrageous.

So we do need an ombudsman in relation to this area. We do need an organisation with teeth to properly investigate these complaints on campuses. The university sector as a whole has failed, as Senator Waters said. Even when given $1.5 million in funding by the previous government to come up with an education campaign to address these issues, they came back to the government, cap in hand, and said, 'We were unable to deliver it'—unbelievable.

Certainly the coalition—and, I would hope, every senator in this place—calls upon the federal government to undertake action, introduce an ombudsman, provide some teeth for regulation in relation to the matter and address this scourge of sexual assault on our Australian university campuses.