Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

I table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

We have a good education system.

But it can be a lot better and a lot fairer.

This bill is an important part of achieving that goal.

It is the first stage of the implementation of the Universities Accord.

It will wipe out about $3 billion of HELP debt for more than 3 million Australians.

It will introduce, for the first time, a Commonwealth Prac Payment. That is Commonwealth Government financial support for teaching students, for nursing students, for midwifery students and social work students, to help support them while they do the practical part of their degree.

And it massively expands Fee-Free Uni Ready Courses—the courses that act as a bridge between school and uni, and help ensure that more Australians get a crack at uni and succeed when they get there.

All are key measures recommended in the Final Report of the Universities Accord, led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC.

Professor O'Kane is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Adelaide and NSW's first Chief Scientist and Engineer as well as the first woman to be a Dean of Engineering at an Australian university.

Professor O'Kane was supported by an esteemed group of Australians, including:

The Accord Panel has provided us with a blueprint to reform higher education over the next few decades.

Funding it and implementing it is going to take more than just one budget.

We have to do this in stages.

But we have bitten off a big chunk.

29 of the 47 recommendations, in full or in part.

That includes the measures in this Bill, which amends the Higher Education Support Act2003 and related legislation.

First, the bill amends the Higher Education Loan Program, or HELP, indexation methodology to be based on either the Consumer Price Index or the Wage Price Index—whichever is lower.

This change applies to HELP (or what we used to call HECS), VET Student Loans, Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans and other student support loan accounts.

The big hike in student debt last year hit a lot of Australians hard, in particular a lot of young Australians.

They've made their voice heard. The Albanese Labor Government has heard them and we're acting.

That's why this bill will wipe around $3 billion in student debt for 3 million Australians nationwide—easing pressure on workers, apprentices, trainees and students across the country.

It will provide significant relief for people with a student debt while continuing to protect the integrity and value of student loans systems, which have massively expanded tertiary access for more Australians.

And we are going further.

The bill backdates this relief for student support loans including HELP, VET Student Loans and Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans that existed on 1 June last year.

In other words, we're going to wipe out last year's unfair CPI indexation rate of 7.1 per cent and replace it with the lower WPI rate of 3.2 per cent. It will also wipe out the 4.7 per cent from this year and reduce it to 4 per cent.

For someone with an average debt of $26,500, they will see around $1,200 wiped from their outstanding loan this year.

For someone with a debt of $45,000, it will mean that their debt is cut by about $2,000.

For someone with a debt of $60,000, it will mean that their debt is cut by almost $2,700.

Corresponding changes are made to the VET Student Loans Act 2016, Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans Act 2014, Social Security Act 1991 and Student Assistance Act 1973 to ensure that the revised methodology also applies to VET Student Loans, Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans, Student Start-up Loans, ABSTUDY Student Start-up Loans and the Student Financial Supplement Scheme.

Second, the bill amends the Higher Education Support Act to allow for grants to be paid to higher education providers for a new Commonwealth Prac Payment.

This is an important reform.

A lot of students tell me that when they do their prac they've got to give up their part-time job, or they've got to move away from home or work fewer hours.

Sometimes that can mean they delay doing their degree or don't finish it at all.

That's why for the first time ever, we are introducing this payment for eligible teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students.

This will give people who have signed up to do some of the most important jobs in this country a bit of extra help to get the qualifications they need.

This is practical support for practical training.

Just to give you one example of what this will mean, a few weeks ago I met a midwifery student at UTS who told me this:

"I'm a first-year mature-age midwifery student. This payment is going to be absolutely life-changing for me. As a mother of two small children, I'm often balancing between practical work, placement and looking after my babies.

"There are literally some days where I'm doing 16hour days between my study and my work and looking after my children.

"I cannot wait for this payment to be available for myself and other future mature-age students who might also want to enrol in this course who previously couldn't financially afford it."

That's what this reform is all about.

Third, the bill establishes a new Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding cluster for "FEE-FREE Uni Ready Courses".

These free courses are effectively a bridge between school and university to give students the foundational skills they need to succeed at uni.

Some universities offer these courses already.

Not many do it better than Newcastle Uni.

They have been doing it now for 50 years.

One in five people who get a degree from Newcastle University today, start with one of these FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses.

People like Jennifer Baker.

Jennifer was a mum at 19. She worked in hospitality for 10 years and one day saw an ad for one of these free courses in the local paper.

Now she's got a science degree. An Honours degree. A PhD. And a Fulbright Scholarship.

She's a computational medicinal chemist.

That's what these courses do.

And what this bill does is effectively uncap FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses, right across the country.

Giving more Australians the life-changing opportunity to get a crack at going to university.

Another good example of this is the University Preparation Program at the University of Tasmania where 51 per cent of students who go through the program are the first in their family to attend university.

And 39 per cent are from a low SES background.

Mr Speaker this reform is expected to increase the number of people doing these free uni ready courses by about 40 per cent by the end of the decade and double the number in the decade after that.

Fourth, the bill requires that higher education providers allocate a minimum of 40 per cent of the student services and amenities fees revenue they collect from students to student-led organisations.

This will ensure that students have a significant voice in how their services and amenities fees are spent.

Universities can apply to the Secretary of my Department for a transition period to implement this change.

Any transition arrangements for public universities must be completed within agreed timeframes, up to a maximum of three years.

These are all recommendations of the Universities Accord.

And they are all important measures in themselves.

But they are only one part of what we need to do to build a better and a fairer education system.

Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the number of Australians finishing high school jumped from around 40 per cent to almost 80 per cent. That was nation changing stuff.

We're now taking the next step.

We've set a target for the nation that by 2050, 80 per cent of our workforce hasn't just finished school, but they've also gone on to TAFE or gone to university.

If we hit that 80 per cent target the economic dividend is real.

For individuals it means they earn more.

The evidence is if you go to university, then you earn more.

It also means the whole country earns more.

My Department estimates the economy will be better off to the tune of about $240 billion in additional income up to the year 2050, in today's dollars.

So how do we hit this target? How do we build a workforce where 80 per cent have a tertiary qualification?

The short answer is we can't unless we build a better and a fairer education system.

And this bill is part of that.

What the Accord says is to hit that target, we need to break down two big barriers.

One of those barriers is artificial. The other one is invisible.

The artificial barrier is the one we have built ourselves between vocational education and higher education.

We are not going fix the skills shortages we have, and will have, unless they are more integrated.

Unless they are more joined up.

Unless we fix things like recognition of prior learning.

Make it easier for what you have learnt in TAFE to be counted towards a degree at university, so you can get the degree quicker and cheaper.

In the Budget, we announced $27.7 million into immediate measures aimed at breaking down the barriers between VET and higher education to ensure a more seamless and aligned tertiary education system, including recognition of prior learning and streamlining regulation for dual sector providers.

And we are already doing things here.

One: we are working on the business case now for a National Skills Passport.

An app where you can upload all of your skills, qualifications and work experience to make it easier for employers to find the people they need.

Two: we are investing about $650 million with the states to establish up to 20 Centres of Excellence. These are places where TAFEs and unis come together. Where you can get a certificate, a diploma or a degree.

But what the Accord says is to get the two sectors working more closely together, we need one body that can help better integrate the two and what they do.

They recommended an Australian Tertiary Education Commission to do this job.

And that's what we are doing.

We want to get this right so we're consulting with the sector about the design details.

The second barrier we have to break down is the invisible barrier that stops a lot of people from poor families, from the outer suburbs of our big cities and from the regions going to uni in the first place, and succeeding when they get there.

This bill lays the foundations to massively expand the number of people doing FEE-FREE University Ready Courses.

We've released consultation papers on the design of a new funding system for higher education that includes managed growth and needs-based funding to help people who start a degree to finish.

Feedback from stakeholders will help shape these important reforms.

But this is also just the start.

The truth is, if we are going to be successful, reform can't just happen at the university gate.

We have got to reform every part of the education system.

That means fixing funding for public schools and tying it to practical reforms.

At the moment, the number of kids finishing high school is going backwards. In the last seven years it's dropped from 85 per cent to 79 per cent.

And in public schools that drop is even bigger, from 83 per cent to 73.6 per cent.

We've got to turn this around. That's what the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement I tabled in Parliament yesterday is all about.

All up, I have put $16 billion of additional investment for public schools on the table.

To put that into context—this would be the biggest increase in Commonwealth funding to public schools ever delivered.

I have made it clear this funding must be tied to reforms.

Practical things like phonics checks and numeracy checks, evidenced-based teaching and catch-up tutoring, to identify kids who need additional support and make sure they get it.

The sort of things that will help more kids catch up, keep up and finish school.

But reform also doesn't start there.

If we are serious about this, we have to go back even earlier.

The first five years of a child's life are everything. Everything they see, everything they hear, everything they eat, every book they open, every lesson they learn shapes the person that they become.

And what we know is, it's children from poor families who are the least likely to go to early childhood education and care, and the most likely to benefit from it.

The Productivity Commission's final report is on my desk right now and it will help chart a course to building a universal early education system.

If we're going to build a universal system, then the first step, the very first thing we need to do is build the early education and care workforce.

And that involves better reward for the work that our early educators do.

That's why last week we announced the Government will fund a 15 per cent wage increase over two years for early childhood education and care workers.

This is good for parents and good for educators.

It's good for the economy.

And most importantly, it's good for our children.

The child care debate is over. It's not babysitting. It's early education and it's critical to preparing children for school.

The US President makes the point that if a child goes to preschool, they're 50 per cent more likely to go to college or to university. So this isn't about changing nappies, this is about changing lives, and that's what our early educators do.

And if we are going to hit that 80 per cent target by 2050, then we need to be building a better education system for the children in our early education centres and primary schools right now.

Children like my little guy in 2nd class.

Or his little brother still in nappies.

And for the babies who will be born tomorrow and the day after that.

Into poverty and into wealth, and everything in between.

They will grow up in big cities and outer suburbs, in the regions and the bush.

They will go to school in the 2030s and TAFE or uni in the 2040s.

This bill is an important first step in making sure that we are ready for them.

I commend it to the House.