Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contributions to this debate. This is an important bill that implements a number of the recommendations of the Universities Accord final report, a blueprint for reform of our higher education system for the next decade and beyond. The government has agreed to implement 29 of the 47 recommendations of the Universities Accord in full or in part. Some key ones are in this bill.

Firstly, it will wipe out about $3 billion worth of student debt for more than three million Australians by making indexation on debts fairer. It will ensure that growth owing to indexation on debt—including HELP and other student loans—does not outpace growth in wages by setting the indexation rate to the lower of the Consumer Price Index and the Wage Price Index. This change to the indexation rate will be backdated to 1 June 2023. That will provide significant relief for those with a student debt while continuing to protect the integrity and value of the HELP and other student loan system, which has massively expanded tertiary access for more Australians.

Secondly, the bill establishes a new Commonwealth prac payment from 1 July next year. This is expected to support about 68,000 eligible teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students in higher education to complete the practical part of their degree each year. Practical training helps ensure that graduates have the skills and the experience they need to enter the workforce. A lot of students have to give up their part-time jobs or move away from home when it's time to do the practical part of their degree. For a lot of people that can mean delaying finishing their degree, or not finishing their degree at all. We need more teachers, nurses, midwives and social workers. We can't afford to have them drop out of their degrees because they can't afford to do prac. In line with the University Accord's recommendation, we are starting with students who are studying teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work as a priority because of the significant workforce shortages we need to address in those areas.

By establishing the new Commonwealth grants scheme funding costs for free university-ready courses from 1 January next year, this bill ensures that students can get the foundational skills they need to start a university degree and succeed when they get there. These are free courses that act as bridges between school and university. The former government tried a number of times to dismantle them; we are massively expanding them. We have committed an additional $350 million over four years to do this, and this is an ongoing funding commitment. It provides funding certainty for universities and it ensures that these courses will remain free for students. The Department of Education estimates that this will increase the number of people doing these free courses by about 40 per cent by the end of this decade and double that number in the decade after.

This bill also requires higher education providers that collect student services and amenities fees—the SSAF—to allocate a minimum of 40 per cent of that revenue to student-led organisations from 1 January next year, with appropriate transition arrangements for higher education providers that may require more implementation time. Last, but not least, this bill establishes the new Adelaide University. It facilitates the merger of the current University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia and supports their ambition and that of the South Australian government to become a global education and research powerhouse.

As the Minister for Education said, this bill helps with the cost of degrees. It also helps with the cost of living and, most importantly, it helps with the cost of so many young people missing out on the chance to go to university in the first place—in particular, young people from poor families, from the outer suburbs, and from the regions and the bush. I foreshadow a second reading amendment, and I commend this bill to the chamber.