Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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—

Today I introduce the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2015.

This bill combines six routine, noncontroversial measures. As such, there are six schedules that amend three acts.

Each of the measures achieves a noncontroversial but nonetheless significant, welcome and—in some cases—long awaited change.

Turning to the specific measures in the bill:

Schedule 1 of the bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to allow certain New Zealand Special Category Visa holders to access the HELP scheme from 1 January 2016.

It will assist New Zealand citizens who first came to Australia as children, who have lived here for at least 10 years and who deserve the same support as Australian students to go to university, TAFE or study at one of Australia's high quality private higher education or training providers.

While these New Zealand citizens have access to Commonwealth-supported places in higher education, they have been denied the option of deferring their tuition fees through HECS-HELP and similar schemes.

Tertiary education plays a crucial role in creating opportunities for individuals—it enriches their lives and careers.

It also provides the skills needed to boost productivity and improve Australia's economic competitiveness.

The HECS-HELP schemes ensure that eligible students do not miss out on these benefits because they cannot afford up-front fees.

As the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, announced during his visit to New Zealand last weekend, this bill honours a long-standing commitment by Australia to our Kiwi family.

It provides opportunities for New Zealanders who have long called Australia home.

And it provides fairness, given Australians on certain visa categories have long had access to New Zealand's student loan scheme.

If the bill is passed this year, around 2,600 New Zealanders are expected to be eligible for loans to help them study in 2016.

Australia and New Zealand have begun cooperating on ways to share data that will help overseas student loan debt recovery efforts.

These efforts are being supported by legislation that is currently before this Parliament that will require anyone living overseas to repay their Australian student loans.

The extension of student loans to young New Zealanders who have grown up here and think of Australia as their permanent home has been on the government's agenda for some time.

In fact, this is the third time we have brought this measure to the Parliament.

We look forward to the opposition's support for this bill, to ensure that it can be in place in time for 1 January 2016.

Schedule 2 of the bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2013 to add Torrens University Australia to the list of 'table B' providers.

Torrens is a new Australian university.

It was registered by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (or TEQSA) in 2012, and commenced operations in January 2014.

However, because it is not currently listed on table B, it is not eligible for the same research funding support as other private Australian universities.

Adding Torrens to table B will address this inequity.

It will mean this promising university is eligible to receive research block grant funding, which includes tuition fee support for PhD and Masters by research students, and funding for research scholarships including the Australian Postgraduate Awards.

This measure advances a fair and competitive university research system and supports greater access and opportunity for students.

Like the previous measure to extend access to HELP for certain New Zealand citizens, this measure is only necessary because the opposition failed to support the government's higher education reforms.

Those reforms contained measures to enable the minister to extend access to such programmes beyond those institutions listed on table A and B, which would have made it possible to extend research funding eligibility to Torrens.

In another measure previously presented to this parliament but rejected by the opposition, Schedule 3 amends the Higher Education Support Act 2013 to reflect the change of the name of the University of Ballarat to the Federation University Australia.

This name change took place in mid-2013 and the new name took effect from 1 January 2014.

This amendment to the act serves simply to update the list of 'table A' providers to reflect the new name.

Schedule 4 inserts a provision that confirms the relevant heads of constitutional power that part 2-3 (other grants) of the Higher Education Support Act 2013relies upon, in addition to the effect that part 2-3 otherwise has.

This measure makes the constitutional head of power for these grants clear and provides the confidence and assurance to our universities and their students that Commonwealth support for university research can be maintained.

Schedule 5 amends the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to streamline and clarify the reporting responsibilities of TEQSA following the passage of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013.

It removes the requirement for the commissioner of TEQSA to prepare annual operational plans, as the PGPA Act now requires commissioners to prepare and publish a corporate plan.

As the annual and corporate plans cover the same material, this measure removes duplication and reduces regulatory burden, in line with the government's broader agenda to cut unnecessary red tape.

Importantly, it means TEQSA is able to direct more of its resources to supporting high quality higher education, and less on unnecessary paperwork.

Further, revising the day by which TEQSA must provide its corporate plan from 31 January to 30 April provides commissioners sufficient time to prepare the plan in alignment with the relevant Portfolio Budget Statements, whilst ensuring the minister may properly consider the plan prior to its commencement on 1 July each year.

Schedule 6 increases the funding caps in the Australian Research Council Act 2001in line with inflation and ensures that the government can continue to provide support for thousands of research projects.

The Australian Research Council (or ARC) invests in excellent fundamental and applied research that helps improve the quality of people's lives, that supports Australian businesses, and that ensures our nation remains at the cutting of research, innovation and global competitiveness.

For example, earlier this week, the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, and the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Sussan Ley, announced 76 researchers would share in $43 million in joint ARC and National Health and Medical Research Council funding to tackle the impacts of, and to find ways of preventing and curing, dementia.

This is part of the Coalition government's $200 million election commitment to dementia research.

The ARC is the most significant single source of competitive funding in Australia for research across all disciplines.

The amendments in this bill to extend funding through to 2018-19 provide certainty that Australian researchers will continue to have access to critically important taxpayer funding for their work.

The bill will also remove the specific provisions contained in the act requiring the development of an annual corporate plan.

As with the TEQSA amendment, this will reduce duplication of effort and resources, whilst ensuring the ARC, like all other Commonwealth departments and agencies, remains accountable through the PGPA Act, which requires the development of an annual corporate plan.

Conclusion

Each of these measures makes an important change to Australia's higher education system.

Australia has one of the world's best higher education systems, with some of the world's best universities.

This higher education system, along with our world-class vocational education and training system, will help ensure Australia has the workforce it needs to grow, to be innovative and to remain globally competitive in the future.

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2015. Labor supports this bill which implements six unrelated measures. Several of them do, however, have this in common: they are overdue. They are mostly minor reforms that the government could and should have acted on earlier. When the Minister for Vocational Education and Skills introduced this bill in the other place he sought to blame Labor for the delay. These reforms could have come sooner, he said, if Labor had not insisted on opposing the government's higher education reforms. Not everyone who heard that speech would have understood what the minister was saying, because his tongue must have been wedged firmly in his cheek.

It is the government not Labor that is responsible for the delay in introducing these reforms. There was never any justification for making the extension of HECS-HELP access to long-term New Zealand residents of Australia dependant on fee deregulation and cuts to Commonwealth supported places. The government wanted to make the rectification of a small injustice conditional on the perpetration of a much greater one. It wanted to make 2,600 New Zealand students hostages to its plan for $100,000 degrees and the Americanisation of Australia's university system. The opening up of HECS-HELP to long-term New Zealand residents never should have been bundled with the government's agenda for deregulation of university fees. Labor could never support such a fundamentally unfair agenda. As the previous minister for education twice found to his cost, that agenda was never going to be accepted by a Senate responsive to the wishes of the Australian people. So I am pleased that his successor has seen sense in reintroducing this reform with other measures that will also receive bipartisan support.

But let us be clear about how we got to where we are now. This is a mess of the government's making. Labor was never going to acquiesce in the previous minister's stubborn refusal to act in a bipartisan matter on what surely should have been a noncontroversial matter. As senators will be aware, senators including Senator Carr sought to resolve the problem earlier by introducing a private senator's bill to extend HELP access to long-term New Zealand residents in Australia. There is nothing in this bill now before the Senate that was not in the private member's bill introduced by Senator Carr. If the government had supported Senator Carr's bill, the issue would have already been resolved. But it did not. Labor is supporting this bill so that the eligible New Zealand students will not have to wait any longer. They have waited far too long already.

It is a long accepted principle that the recipients of the various HELP schemes should be people who will be able to repay the loan because they will be paying Australian taxes. The operation of that principle has been slightly modified by the recent bill—which Labor also supported—to recover HELP debts from Australians working overseas. It has become possible to do that because other jurisdictions in which a significant number of Australians work, such as the UK and New Zealand, also have income-contingent loans for higher education. The principle remains intact. In any case, it was never going to be undermined by the opening up of HELP to long-term New Zealand residents in this country. 'Long term', in this context, means people who reside here for at least 10 years. As Dr Andrew Norton of the Grattan Institute, a former adviser to the present government, has said, most of these people:

… have been in Australia for much of their lives, went to Australian schools, talk with Australian accents, and consider themselves Australian for most purposes …

It was always normless and unfair that people who could be so described should be excluded from HELP because they happened to have New Zealand passports. Australians in the equivalent position in New Zealand have access to the Student Loan Scheme. This bill fulfils a longstanding commitment on both sides of politics to balance the Australian side of the ledger.

Another noncontroversial matter that the government has bizarrely bundled with its two failed deregulation bills was formal recognition of the name change of the University of Ballarat to Federation University. The new name was the choice of the university's council and has been implemented by the recent state legislation in Victoria. It is a necessary formality that the Commonwealth also adopt the change by amending the Higher Education Support Act, HESA. And we are, at last, doing so through this bill. This bill also clarifies the constitutional head of powers that HESA relies upon to assure universities and their students that the Commonwealth will continue to be able to provide financial support. The bill further amends the Higher Education Support Act to include Torrens University on the list of table B providers. Torrens University, which was registered by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, TEQSA, in 2012 and began operations last year, is at present not eligible for the same research funding support as other private universities. Its inclusion on table B means that it will now be able to obtain research block funding, including fee support for postgraduate students and research scholarships, including postgraduate awards.

Labor takes the position that on the issue of inclusion of private universities among table B institutions, the horse has already bolted, as other private universities have already achieved inclusion. Further extensions of this kind of support should remain the preserve of the parliament on a case-by-case basis. This should not be taken as an indication that we are open to further privatisation though. Labor, most certainly, will not support the inclusion of private higher education providers, be they domestic or international, as table A institutions and eligible for base funding support to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme.

This bill also implements a change affecting TEQSA itself. The TEQSA Act is amended to clarify the agency's reporting responsibilities after passage of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act. The bill removes the requirement for the TEQSA commissioner to prepare annual operational plans, as the PGPA Act now requires publishing of a corporate plan. Since the annual and corporate plans cover the same matters, this change removes what has become an unnecessary duplication.

Finally, the government has at last moved to give the higher education sector greater certainty by increasing the funding caps in the Australian Research Council Act 2001 in line with inflation. This means that thousands of research projects can continue to receive government funding through to the 2018-19 financial year. As senators will be aware, the ARC is the most significant distributor of competitive funding in Australia for research in all disciplines. The bill also removes specific provisions in the act requiring the development of an annual corporate plan. As with the TEQSA change, this also removes the duplication while ensuring that the ARC continues to remain accountable under the provisions of the PGPA Act.

These six measures will together—as the government acknowledged when introducing the bill—help to maintain Australia's world-class university system. It remains a matter of deep concern and regret, however, that the government continues to be intent on degrading that system through its proposals for deregulated fees, cuts to the Commonwealth-supported places and extension of the Commonwealth Grants Scheme to private providers. If that agenda is never implemented, the cost burden on universities, their students and taxpayers will spiral upwards while the quality of the system declines. And the government is now hinting that it wishes to impose a further cost hike through increasing the GST and extending it to educational services. Australia's students do not need a system that will burden them with a lifetime of debt. Even less do they need a 15 per cent GST on top of that, which will mean paying even more. Once again, I urge the government to abandon its unfair and unnecessary higher agenda, to consult the sector and to start again.

Robert Simms (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2015. I say from the outset that there is much in this bill that we believe to be good. As Senator Dastyari has said, the bill would extend HELP loans to a subset of New Zealand citizens who have been long-term residents here in Australia since they were children, providing pathways to an affordable qualification in the Australian tertiary education system for thousands. This is a welcome change from the government, who only months ago was mute on the bill which Senator Carr put forward and which would have achieved exactly the same objective. My Greens colleague Lee Rhiannon at that time spoke in support of that bill, and the Greens are in support of that change. The bill would also end duplication in the reporting requirements that now exist in both TEQSA and the PGPA Act. Although the Greens are often accused of adding so-called red or green tape, it has always been the policy of our party that we support only necessary regulation, and in the case before us today the regulation is no longer necessary, so we support schedule 5.

Perhaps one of the nicest surprises is the increase in indexation for the Australian Research Council, which would not only see an increase in funding for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 financial years but also see funding extended out into the forward estimates. That is a welcome development. It is pleasing to see the government slowly accepting the reality that you need a well-funded university research sector to power a modern knowledge economy. Indeed, the Greens have been calling for such an investment in universities for many years, because we know that if our economy is to transition away from the 19th-century industries of coal and carbon and move into a new era of advanced manufacturing, information technology and renewable energy then we will need to put a robust public research program at its core.

We need to unwind the series of cuts into the research sector, which go back as far back as the Gillard Labor government in 2012, when the Sustainable Research Excellence grants were slashed during the MYEFO process. That was certainly a dark day for the education sector in this country, when the Gillard government came out swinging the budget axe. We need to ensure that both our research block grants and our competitive grants see an increase in overall funding. We need to stop hacking into research organisations like the CSIRO and ensure that programs like the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy are not held hostage by government, so that scientists and researchers have the program stability they need to do their jobs with confidence. And we need to ensure that thought bubbles and captain's picks like the Lomborg Consensus Centre, which went over like a lead balloon, in my home state of South Australia, are off the table and never see the light of day again.

So, while I commend the government's actions today—and the Greens do support increases in funding for the ARC—it is insufficient to the task that confronts us. We hope the government will come back with a far more comprehensive program to back up its innovation nation rhetoric. And what better way to be innovative, what better way to be flexible and agile, than to actually listen to the community and provide appropriate funding for research? It is something for the government to think about.

However, despite all the benefits that have been identified, the Greens have some reservations with this bill. It is disappointing to see the inclusion of Torrens University as a table B provider. That is a new development in education. Torrens University, as many in the chamber may know, is a part of Laureate International Universities and a private for-profit institution. That is a rare thing in our country. We do have private universities, but we do not have ones that operate purely for profit, and Torrens University is one of those. As a table B provider, Torrens would be eligible for research block grants, postgraduate scholarships and a range of other forms of public funding, and that is concerning. One has to ask, when looking at an idea like this being put on the table, whether the government has learnt nothing from the complete debacle of the VET sector.

Public funding and for-profit education simply do not mix. The evidence is in, and we know that the situation within the VET sector is not working. The incentives do not line up. The chief outcomes of the higher education sector—qualifications, training, research and teaching—are so difficult to quantify and so diverse in their qualities that the profit incentive, even with regulation, almost invariably leads to rorting. That has been the experience in the VET sector. Now we are potentially talking about opening up Pandora's box and going down this pathway in our university sector. Look at how the dodgy RTOs in the VET sector have cut every corner to maximise profit at the expense of education outcomes. What confidence does the government have that this will not happen within our university sector once we open that door and start going down that path?

The inquiry into the for-profit VET sector by the Education and Employment References Committee found that:

… expanding a demand driven entitlement to the private sector to access Commonwealth subsidies for sub-bachelor and bachelor degree programs entails unacceptable risk to the reputation of Australian higher education.

Again, if one considers what has been unfolding within the VET sector, one has to wonder why the government is contemplating going down this path. I am referring to a system that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has described as 'absolutely scandalous'. This is potentially going to be opened up to our university sector as well, if we open this Pandora's box and if we go down this path. While we acknowledge that the bill does not yet expand access to HELP loans for Torrens students, and we are not suggesting Torrens University be classed as a table A provider, has the minister actually considered the evidence as to what effect for-profit entities receiving public grants will have on the integrity of our research sector? I know Senator Dastyari says the Labor Party do not support going down that path. But the worry is that, once we open the door to this, we are on that trajectory. That is a worrying thing for the higher education sector within this country.

The question must also be asked: if the money is available to expand grants to for-profit providers, why not instead put this money back into the public system? We know our public universities have a world-class research reputation, we know they have multiple safeguards that protect the integrity of research and we know that, unlike for-profit providers, they will spend all their money on research instead of skimming stuff off to try to make private profits. Why wouldn't we be giving the money to them? We know there is quality control in place. Putting public revenue into an established public university system is a smarter and safer way to spend taxpayer money and to avoid the kind of scandal, waste and exploitation that has characterised the VET sector that was initiated by the Labor Party and continued by the Liberal Party. We need to avoid having that system expand into our universities.

If we could go back in time to before the national partnership agreement that locked in the contestability model for VET and TAFE, to before the rollout of the VET fee help to for-profit providers, and put a stop to the appalling RTO behaviour that is plaguing the VET sector, then of course we would do that. I am sure most people in this place would recognise that, if they had the time again, maybe they would not have gone down that path. Today we have an opportunity to take a different path when it comes to higher education. Today we have an opportunity to prevent that first encroachment of the private contestability logic onto our university system. We do not want to bring that kind of modus operandi into our universities. As I said from the outset, there are many things that the Greens like about this bill. We support the expansion of HELP to select New Zealand citizens, we support the regulatory adjustment to TEQSA and we support the increased funding for the ARC. But as long as this bill sets the precedent for public funding of the for-profit business model in the university sector, then we do have some concerns. I call on this chamber to support the Greens amendment to remove schedule 2.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2015 and the many individual measures contained within. These are measures that, up until now, have been hijacked by the Abbott-Turnbull government in their ideological mission to deregulate Australian universities and to create $100,000 degrees. This crusade has not been abandoned. It has only been delayed—hidden and put away in the bottom drawer, out of sight until after the next election. For nearly two years Labor has been calling for these measures to be uncoupled from the Abbott-Turnbull plan to deregulate universities, to allow the higher education sector to continue to function as effectively as possible despite the prolonged uncertainty surrounding the government's deregulation agenda. Australian universities, researchers and students have had their futures put on hold while the Abbott-Turnbull government has zeroed in on its ideological crusade.

After going out of their way to derail the normal operations of our entire higher education sector, it appears the Abbott-Turnbull government is, in this small part, prepared to proceed with these important changes. Now that the government has delayed—not abandoned—its higher education package, it is good to see they have finally followed Labor's lead to see reason and to propose these measures in a separate piece of legislation. But it does beggar belief that we have had to bring it kicking and screaming into this chamber to ensure that this legislation, which is important to the higher education sector, will be debated and supported in this chamber.

This legislation is important, and Labor will be supporting it. However, it should be noted by those on the other side that we are vehemently opposed to any delay or any further attempts to ensure that university degrees in this country would have a price tag of $100,000-plus. That is not in the best interests of the higher education sector, and it is certainly not in the best interests of the community. In my home state of Tasmania it will certainly go no way towards ensuring that more of our young people and mature-aged people take the opportunity to experience the opportunities a tertiary education can offer you.

I must say, though, that Labor foreshadowed such a bill when we were in government, and we were prepared to work with this government to bring about this reform much more quickly. But, as I said, we had to bring them kicking and screaming to the table.

I would like to briefly touch on the individual measures contained within the bill. The bill expands access to the Higher Education Loan Program, HELP, to New Zealand citizens who have been in Australia since childhood. This is an anomaly that needs to be fixed and could have been fixed well over a year ago if it were not for the Liberal government's pig-headedness. I know many in my community, in this place and around the country are very much in support of this particular measure.

The bill adds Torrens University Australia to the list of table B universities under the Higher Education Support Act, making it eligible for the same funding support enjoyed by other private Australian universities. The bill will also update the name of the University of Ballarat to the Federation University in the Higher Education Support Act. It also clarifies the constitutional power that other grants under the Higher Education Support Act rely on.

Labor are pleased to see this bill streamlines the reporting requirements for the Australian Research Council and the Tertiary Education and Quality Standards Agency. We are also pleased that it gives certainty to Australian researchers and universities by guaranteeing appropriations for the Australian Research Council. Labor support this sensible measure and would have done so sooner if the government had ditched its plan for university deregulation and, instead, focused on achieving meaningful reform that has a positive impact on students and universities which, in the long term, benefits all Australians and our local communities.

In summary, Labor are pleased with the individual components of this bill, pleased that the government has now, belatedly, come to the party and pleased to support its passage through parliament. It is disappointing that it has taken so long to get to this point, and that the Abbott Turnbull government is continuing to pursue its $100,000 university degree agenda. But, as I said, it is good that those on the other side of the chamber have come to the table, though belatedly, and decided to use some common sense and ensure that these sensible measures in this bill are passed.

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those on the other side can yawn but that is what the Australian people do every single day when they wake up to find this out of touch government is still in office.

Labor will never support the government's agenda. Labor will never support an attack on the universities in this county. We will never support $100,000 university degrees being the only options for Australian students and those mature-age students who want to have the benefit of a tertiary education. We know that this government are sneaky. They try to say that they are nimble and that they are the government of the 21st century. What they are is a government that is hell-bent on ensuring that fewer Australians have the opportunity to go on to university. If they were serious, they would have brought this piece of legislation in more than 12 months ago and that would have then shown some credibility that they have an interest in higher education in this country. Unfortunately, as with so many other tests that have been put before them, they failed the test. They have failed the Australian people. They have failed the university sector. I am sure the university sector have, on many occasions, advised the government of their displeasure at the course of action that the government were trying to impose. But with the crossbenchers and the Labor Party on this side, we were able to stop that. We will always stand up for the universities in this country.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Senate for the debate on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2015. It is not my intention to take a long time in the summing-up speech, prosecuting arguments, as Senator Polley was just doing, on measures that are not actually relevant to this bill nor reflected in this bill. But, at the outset, I will make very clear that the government's commitment is to a strong higher education system in Australia, one where access is equitable and fair, and one in which we are providing the type of higher education system that skills Australians for the jobs of the future and supports research and development and the knowledge that can facilitate Australia's success into the future.

This measure amends three pieces of education legislation to achieve important and worthwhile changes but, largely, are minor and modest in nature. The government has chosen to group together a suite of six education legislation amendments that expand eligibility for funding support, resolve uncertainty in some places, streamline requirements and secure funding.

The passage of this bill, to go through those six measures, will amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to allow certain New Zealand special category visa holders to access the Higher Education Loan Program scheme from 1 January 2016. This will assist a number of New Zealand citizens who moved here as children and provide the same support as Australian students to undertake higher education. This has been the subject of discussions between the current Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, and the New Zealand Prime Minister, as indeed it has been for some period of time, including under the previous government, who never moved to legislate this measure.

The second area of amendment in this bill is to add Torrens University to the list of table B providers in the Higher Education Support Act. This will enable Torrens University Australia to be eligible to apply for the same funding support as other private Australian universities, including for research block grant funding.

The third measure will ensure that the Higher Education Support Act reflects the change of the name of the University of Ballarat to the Federation University Australia. The fourth measure confirms the relevant heads of constitutional power that part 2-3 'Other Grants' of the Higher Education Support Act relies upon in addition to the effect that part 2-3 otherwise has.

The fifth measure will amend the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to streamline and clarify the reporting responsibilities of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Authority, following the passage of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, and indeed applying similar measures, I believe, to other agencies, the ARC.

Finally, it will also provide amendments to the Australian Research Council Act 2001 to add funding for the financial years starting on 1 July 2017 and 1 July 2018, and also to apply indexation against appropriations for existing schemes. This amendment, importantly, will provide certainty and security of funding for the Australian Research Council through until mid-2019.

The measures in this bill have generally been welcomed by higher education institutions, the Australian Research Council, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and other key stakeholders in the higher education sector. I also thank and acknowledge the opposition for their support of this legislation and the support that Senator Kim Carr, as the relevant opposition spokesman, has provided to this legislation, where he has noted that all six measures are 'non-controversial measures that enjoy bipartisan support'. Senator Carr also noted, quite rightly, that the measures would provide certainty to researchers and scientists across the country, which indeed I concur with.

It is important that this bill be passed without further delay, and I am pleased that the Senate has dealt with it so swiftly today. Some of the measures are time critical because they change eligibility for funding support for the 2016 calendar year. This is especially important to those New Zealanders who are expecting additional support for their status. These are people who, because of their visa status, do not currently have a practical pathway to Australian citizenship and therefore are caught, in a sense, out of current arrangements.

The bill will also, as I mentioned, enable Torrens University, which is a successful university in Australia with a proven track record, to be considered for research block grant funding and funding to award Commonwealth postgrad scholarships to its research students. Torrens has established its track record as a quality provider of higher education and will join other successful private institutions, such as Bond University, on table B of the Higher Education Support Act. In listening to Senator Simms, I gathered that the Greens intend to move an amendment to this bill that would remove this particular measure. This amendment is unwarranted. The bill merely extends to Torrens University the same right to bid for research block grant funding that other private universities like Bond University already enjoy. As our smaller, regional and newer universities would attest, research funding should not be reserved for universities with a lengthy track record. It plays an important role in expanding their research capacity. It will also put Torrens University on a level playing field in terms of improving access and choice for PhD and research masters students to have some coverage of tuition fees and/or receive scholarships through, for example the Australian Postgraduate Awards. The passage of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2015 will ensure that this promising young university in Australia, a very credible institution, can further develop its research footprint and its postgraduate opportunities.

Finally, as I indicated, the bill provides certainty to the ARC by publishing the funding caps through to the end of the 2018-19 financial year. It allows for a further two years of funding, worth more than $1.5 billion in total. This vital recurrent funding stream supports the council's highly regarded National Competitive Grants Program, which builds our national research capability, creates and sustains momentum in research partnerships, and enables promising careers to thrive.

Overall, this bill is an important contribution to providing that certainty to our research providers to ensure that our research sector can continue to thrive into the future, and to expanding access to university places in a number of different but important ways. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.