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

Labor supports this bill. We have been calling for a VET ombudsman for a long time now, and we took this policy to the last election. This is because Labor understands that students need someone in their corner to stand up for them and their rights. We know that there are dodgy providers engaging in bad practices in the vocational education sector, and students need someone who will fight for them.

Labor have always stuck up for students and we always will. We are glad to see the government adopting yet another one of our policies, to this end. And it is about time. The unfair situation that many students have found themselves in is the result of this government's neglect. They were simply not paying attention to the VET system. They ignored all of the warning signs, concerns and complaints while they were busy changing ministers five times. The system has fallen into crisis on the Liberals' watch. VET FEE-HELP loans have blown out from around $700 million in 2013 to a staggering $2.9 billion in 2015.

Make no mistake, Labor has led the way on this debate. Fifteen months ago we moved to establish a VET ombudsman in this place. At that time, the minister said he would look into it and promised that the idea would be progressed, and late last year, when the government introduced their VET Student Loans Bill, the assistant minister said that the government would establish an ombudsman. Labor was glad to finally see some action. But a closer look at the bills revealed absolutely nothing about establishing an ombudsman. After a whole year of promised progress, including the issuance of a discussion paper seeking feedback from the sector on the idea of establishing an ombudsman, there was nothing—even though the RIS for these bills noted the concept of creating an ombudsman was the single most popular idea put forward by the government in their discussion paper, and even though students, providers and consumer advocates were all calling for an ombudsman.

It fell to Labor to step up and take action to protect students. It fell to Labor to move an amendment to establish an ombudsman, at which time the government again made yet another promise and undertook to return to the parliament with standalone legislation. They may have been dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing, but Labor are pleased this legislation is before us today, and we are glad to support the implementation of one of our election promises.

Labor knows how important the broader debate on skills, training and jobs is. Just last month, the Leader of the Opposition hosted a national summit to bring business, government, TAFE, unions and providers together. We know that Australia needs long-term policy solutions for opportunities, jobs and the economy. Labor are putting in the work to ensure that we have a plan to skill our local workforce for the jobs of the future. There are longer-term reforms that we should consider in this place. We know that the establishment of an ombudsman has been strongly supported by stakeholders, consumer law advocates, providers and, of course, by students. Indeed, many have argued for an ombudsman who has a broader remit beyond the loans scheme, or holds powers of arbitration. Labor believes these ideas have merit and should remain under consideration as part of the long-term reforms to the VET system that are so desperately needed.

Labor believes the government have brought forward this legislation in good faith, and that the government and the department will use the powers available to make sure the ombudsman operates effectively. Labor expects to see the recommendations of the ombudsman respected and heavy punishment for any providers that do not cooperate. Because students must come first. Their rights must be protected.

The government is on notice here. There are many thousands of students who have been treated wrongly in recent years, and Labor expects to see results from this ombudsman. Labor has always said that effective implementation will be what makes or breaks the government's VET reforms. They owe it to students and to all the providers who are working hard and doing the right thing to make the changes they have and to make sure these changes are implemented in the interests of the sector and of students.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on behalf of the Australian Greens in support of this piece of this legislation before us. The Education and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No.1) 2017, creating a Commonwealth ombudsman position which would oversee the VET loan system, is absolutely essential.

I would say from the outset that I think it is important we do not see this as the only way that this ombudsman role could operate. The Greens, along with many stakeholders, believe that this could and should become part of an expanded ombudsman role that would look at and oversee the broader VET sector, but this legislation is an important first step and something that has been called for time and time again. It is as a result of the significant amount of rorting that has happened within the VET sector and, indeed, in relation to the flawed and abysmal VET FEE-HELP system that was established under the previous Labor government and then continued under the Abbott-Turnbull government.

Right from the word go—the moment the Labor Party deregulated this system—there were warning signs and the ringing of warning bells that should have been heard and responded to. But, of course, we saw nothing from the Labor Party at the time, and then it took years for this government to act. The result of that has been a system that has blown out in budgetary terms from something like $329 million, which is what it was originally listed at, to well over $2 billion—in fact, $2.9 billion, just short of $3 billion. That is how much the budget for the VET FEE-HELP system blew out under this government. That is because the moment the system was deregulated and the moment it was seen by dodgy providers as an opportunity to make money rather than to provide an educational experience for students, some providers took that dodgy path and exploited it for everything it was worth. This created a system where for-profit private providers were setting up dodgy courses, some of which did not really even exist, signing up students who did not even know they were being signed into courses and reaping hundreds of thousands, millions and billions of dollars from the Australian taxpayer. It has been an absolute shambles and a disgrace that this system was able to continue the way it was.

Frankly, one of the things that have not been answered through this whole process is: who in the education department here in Canberra knew what was going on? Who in the education department knew that this system was being rorted, that people were making billions and billions of dollars from the Australian taxpayer, and yet no-one said a word and no-one acted until it started to break through into media and public awareness? Someone in the Department of Education and Training is covering somebody else's backside, because I do not see how you can get from having a loan system for courses that is budgeted at $329 million to it then all of a sudden costing the Australian taxpayer almost $3 billion. Are you trying to tell me that no-one in the education department or the various ministers' offices knew this was going on? It is just not believable.

It is good that we have seen the system cleaned up—that there is now action to clean that up and to put in place proper oversight. But, boy oh boy, someone knew this was going on, and they have not been held to account. In years to come, I am sure we will find out just who was scratching whose back in order to cover up such a shambles that was going on for years out of the education department, with these private for-profit providers reaping so much money from the Australian taxpayer coffers to provide them with huge profits under the dodgy auspice of offering VET courses.

Of course, it is the students themselves who have been left high and dry as result of this absolute balls-up of both the previous Labor government and the Turnbull-Abbott government. It is the students themselves who have really copped it as a result of this. The quality of courses has dropped. We know that students have been left with thousands of dollars worth of debt, which some students did not even know they were going to be signed up for.

The role of a Commonwealth ombudsman to oversee this system is absolutely essential because these for-profit dodgy providers have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, and the Commonwealth education department has proved itself to be absolutely incompetent to manage and foresee the dodginess and the rorting that was going on. So it is essential that this ombudsman role is created, but we need to make sure that it acts with teeth and with integrity. To that point, one of the things that I urge the federal Minister for Education and Training, Minister Birmingham, and his department to do is to really look at how we can have proper powers of arbitration included in this role of an ombudsman and also to consider how it can be broadened beyond the loan system, because, if these dodgy providers can get away with it, they will. That is what we have seen. The proof is in the pudding. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been ripped off the Australian taxpayer and ripped out of the pockets of students and have gone straight into the pockets of these dodgy providers as profit, and they need to be held to account.

The creation of a Commonwealth ombudsman to clean up this system and to provide proper independent oversight—because clearly the Commonwealth government and the departments cannot be trusted to be competent enough to do it themselves—was an election promise that the Australian Greens took to the campaign. We are glad to see that now both the Australian Labor Party—despite the fact that they were the government at the time who put in place this dodgy system—and the government of the day, the Abbott-Turnbull government, have seen that a Commonwealth ombudsman is indeed essential and needs to be created. I also give kudos where kudos is due. I believe that the education minister has acted in a fairly timely way following his promise of introducing an ombudsman. It is only a few sitting weeks on that we are now seeing this legislation before us and can have it passed into law today.

I commend the bill to the chamber, but I say: let us not have the finger-pointing across both sides of the chamber here. This system, this dodgy, rorting system, was established by the Labor Party and continued by the Liberal-National coalition. Both sides sat back while the rorting got out of control. They sat back while hundreds of millions of dollars were sucked out of the taxpayer coffers and hundreds of thousands of students were screwed over. Both sides of government in this place sat back and did nothing for far too long. And we know that not one person in the Commonwealth education department has been put up and held responsible for this system getting totally out of hand. It is not something we are going to forget. We are going to continue to prosecute just who knew inside the Commonwealth education department that this was going on and why on earth they stayed so silent for so long.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to stand up today to support the Education and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2017. A quality education is the best opportunity anyone can get to improve their life. While for some it is a university education, for many others it is a vocational education at TAFE or other training organisations. However, over the past few years we have heard numerous stories about dodgy and unscrupulous providers who have taken large amounts of funds in payments yet have delivered little meaningful training. Students and the Labor Party have been crying out for a VET Student Loans Ombudsman to act on the complaints of students and to bring some fairness back to the sector.

Education is an issue that I have had a particular interest in for many years, firstly through my employment background as an early childhood educator and currently as a member of the Senate Education and Employment References Committee. When I worked for the Australian Services Union, I was also their Tasmanian representative on a number of industry training boards. I wrote curriculum for early childhood education. I helped implement traineeships into local government in Tasmania for the very first time. So I have had quite a broad interest in education for many years.

This bill consists of two schedules. The first schedule amends the Ombudsman Act 1976 to insert a new part IIE, establishing the office of the VET student loans ombudsman. It also makes consequential amendments to the Ombudsman Act and the VET Student Loans Act 2016. The second schedule amends the Australian Research Council Act 2001, the ARC Act, to update indexation against appropriate funding caps for existing legislated amounts and includes an additional forward estimates amount.

Back in November last year, I spoke in this place on the VET Student Loans (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016. I welcomed the government's commitment to creating a VET student loans ombudsman. Labor have been calling for a VET ombudsman for a long time and we took a policy of establishing an ombudsman to the last election, because we know that students need someone in their corner to stand up for their rights and to fight back against bad practices and the dodgy providers. Labor have always stuck up for students and we are glad to see the government adopting another one of our policies to this end. Unfortunately, an unfair system was allowed to flourish because those opposite were simply not paying attention to the VET system and were too busy changing ministers—I think we are up to No. 5 at the moment. While we would like to believe that dodgy providers do not exist, unfortunately we have heard too many stories, including in my home state of Tasmania. Back in March 2015, when speaking on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2015, I told the story of a Tasmanian student, Jake Wright, and his experiences with a registered training organisation. Jake was pretty excited when he signed up for a double diploma of business and management with Careers Australia, but he was completely out of his depth and contacted a tutor, who advised him to watch YouTube videos. Jake said:

I found them quite hard to understand and when I actually asked him if he could assist me at all he just told me to watch the videos and I said, 'I've watched them, I can't do the work.'

Jake's mother, Lexia Brown, helped him unenrol, but not before he had racked up a VET debt of more than $8,000. His mother said:

Even under supervision he would not be able to do it. He can do many other things but not a double diploma in business and management.

Unfortunately, there are many thousands of stories like Jake's from around Australia.

So, as I said, we are very pleased that, finally, the government are putting in place the systems and the resources to help students who have been victims of dodgy private VET providers. Fifteen months ago, Labor moved to establish a VET ombudsman in the Senate. At that time, the minister said he would look into it and promised to 'progress' the idea. Late last year, when the government introduced the VET student loans bills, the assistant minister said in her second reading speech that the government would establish an ombudsman. Unfortunately, though, the government had not included the establishment of an ombudsman in those bills. Who knows why? In November last year, it had been a year since the government promised to 'look into it', and so surely they could have done it then, but at least they are doing it now, so we are pretty happy about that. We know the idea of an ombudsman is an extremely popular one because students, providers and consumer advocates have all been calling for an ombudsman for quite some time. So it fell to Labor to move an amendment to establish an ombudsman, at which time the government again gave an undertaking to come back to the parliament with standalone legislation.

The government have been dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing, but, as I say, Labor are pleased to see the legislation in the parliament today, and we will keep leading the broader debate on skills and training. The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, hosted a national summit in March to bring business, government, TAFE, unions and providers together to work on long-term policy solutions for opportunity, jobs and the economy. Through Senate inquiries and in public debate, stakeholders have strongly supported the idea of an ombudsman, from consumer law advocates to providers and, of course, those most affected: the students. Many have argued strongly for an ombudsman with a broad remit beyond the loans scheme or with powers of arbitration. I believe these ideas have merit and should remain under consideration as part of the longer term reforms to the VET system that are so needed to make sure it better meets the needs of students and businesses. Labor believes that the government has brought this legislation forward in good faith and that both the government and the department will use the powers available to make sure the ombudsman operates effectively. And we expect to see the recommendations of the ombudsman respected and heavy punishment for any providers who do not cooperate—because students have to come first. The government is on notice. There are many thousands of students who have been treated wrongly in recent years and Labor expects to see results. Labor has always said that effective implementation will be what makes or breaks the government's VET reforms. It owes it to students and to all the providers who are working hard and doing the right thing to make the changes work.

Unfortunately, the system has fallen into crisis under the Liberals' watch. In 2014, the graduation rate for the 10 largest private providers was under five per cent, with $900 million in federal money spent, or over $215,000 for every graduate. Students have been tricked into racking up massive debts for courses that offer little hope of leading to a job. We all heard about students being signed up to a course with the promise of a new iPad or a laptop without knowing or understanding that they were actually signing up to thousands of dollars worth of debt. Around 10,000 qualifications were cancelled in Victoria alone because they were not worth the paper they were written on. We have seen an explosion in short courses and online courses and, I am sorry to say, a decline in quality. It is estimated up to 40 per cent of VET FEE-HELP loans will never be repaid, and much of this is because of the government's inaction. Most ridiculously, there have even been reports of students being offered online training as a jockey, without riding a horse—we can see how successfully that might work out—and students have been signed up to loans without even knowing they had been signed up. The vocational education sector has been mismanaged by this government. VET FEE-HELP loans have blown out from about $700 million in 2013 to a staggering $2.9 billion in 2015. Unfortunately, the government just let this explosion happen. How can they possibly justify to taxpayers their failure to do anything about it?

As I said earlier, Labor is the party that is committed to the vocational education sector. We have fought for it over many decades. Late last year, the Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, Ms Andrews, the member for McPherson, questioned whether the national partnership for skills agreement was even needed in the future. She said she was meeting with the states 'to determine whether there are reforms to VET that warrant a new agreement'. This is very concerning. The current national partnership, put in place by Labor, expires in the middle of this year. Over $500 million a year in Commonwealth support for TAFE and skills is on the line, and the minister does not even seem to know whether a new agreement is needed to continue supporting TAFE. We must rebuild TAFE for the future.

Between 2013 and 2015 the Liberals oversaw a 21 per cent decline in TAFE enrolments and an almost 75 per cent decline in TAFE and VET capital investment. Apprenticeship numbers are in freefall under the Liberals. Since the Liberals came to government, those numbers have gone down by 30 per cent—that is, 130,000 fewer apprenticeships. Let me remind you: we have been very clear on this side that we back public TAFE. That is why we took a TAFE funding guarantee to the last election and why Bill Shorten committed at the Press Club earlier this year to put quality TAFE back at the heart of our VET system. TAFE is where people get the technical and semi-professional skills they need for growing industries—the skills that are being demanded by industry and the skills Australia needs to be competitive with other countries. TAFE is the backbone of our apprenticeship system.

Generations of Australians know how important TAFE is for our economy, and they know the first-class skills and opportunities that going to TAFE can provide—but the Liberals just don't get it. At a state and federal level, the Liberals have an ideological problem with TAFE. Before the last election, Labor promised to undertake a comprehensive National Vocational Education and Training Sector Review to build a stronger VET sector and weed out dodgy providers and student rip-offs. Labor's review will ensure that the VET sector is properly equipped to train Australians for the jobs of the future, proper standards are enforced and the central role of our public TAFE system is recognised.

Our national skills and training sector used to be the envy of the world. I remember back in the mid- to late-seventies, when I left college, TAFE was such a great place for people to go to increase their skills, to get an apprenticeship and to have jobs into the future. One of the interesting things I see now is that all of the people who did apprenticeships back then—all the builders, plumbers and electricians that I know—have all got more work at the minute than they know what to do with. I think that is great but it shows us—as they all say to me—that we do not have enough apprenticeships and that we need to make sure that there are more apprenticeships. Our national skills and training sector, as I said, used to be the envy of the world, but since the election of the Liberal government it has been significantly damaged by shonks and sharks ripping off vulnerable people. People's livelihoods are being destroyed and their job prospects ruined. It is an absolute disgrace, and action has to be taken.

Having a strong VET sector is an important part of Labor's plan to tackle inequality. The vocational education and training sector deserves a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to policy-making to ensure it is fit for the critical task of preparing Australians for the jobs of the future. While schools and universities have had full reviews into funding with the Gonski and Bradley reviews, the vocational education and training sector has been left behind. The sector has not undergone a full review since the Kangan report in 1974. It is time for a full review of the operation of the sector, including quality, funding and access. As new jobs emerge and existing industries go through extensive restructuring, the nation will rely on an effective, quality vocational sector to provide the qualifications to enable people to enter the workforce, upskill or retrain.

As I mentioned earlier, the second schedule of this bill amends the Australian Research Council Act 2001. The amendment updates the funding profile for major Australian Research Council grant programs and is supported by us on this side of the chamber. Previously, this kind of basic, administrative change was held up by the coalition's attempts to pass its unfair and unpopular $100,000 degrees legislation. One of the drivers of Australia's success in research has been the provision of both competitive grant funding and programs and a long-term, stable block grant that allows universities to invest strategically in research in ways which foster its future development. Research funded by the Australian Research Council allows Australia's thinkers to produce outcomes that will help our country become more creative, productive and resilient and also better equipped to face and understand the challenges of the 21st century. Labor knows that economies and societies which invest more in research will generally show faster rates of growth in output and human development. The Abbott-Turnbull government sought to cut almost $900 million from science and research in its first budget. This included $75 million from the Australian Research Council.

In closing, Labor has been calling for the introduction of a VET ombudsman for a long time. Students in our VET sector need the support of an ombudsman in their court if they fall prey to unscrupulous training providers. I urge this chamber to support the Education and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No.1) 2017.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to address my remarks to schedule 2 of the Education and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No.1) 2017, which sets out the indexation funding caps for the Australian Research Council. The government has tried to use this updating of caps as an opportunity to boast about its commitment to research. It is a hollow boast at best. As I have said for some time now, this is a government that has substantially reduced the amount of money that is available for science, research and innovation. In fact, about $3 billion has been taken from science, research and innovation programs, and that includes $75 million from the ARC budget in the 2014 budget. I have argued that this budget ripped some $900 million specifically from science and research programs, not just $75 million from the ARC, $115 million from CSIRO; $27 million from ANSTO; $7.8 million from the marine institute; $16 million from Geoscience; $10 million from the Bureau of Meteorology; $120 million from the Defence Science and Technology Group; and $174 million from the Research Training Scheme, which is a 10 per cent cut.

Initially we saw a government that did not even appoint a science minister. Now, some four years after this government came to office, we have an opportunity to look at the detail of what the consequences of those reductions have been. We know that in terms of the science agencies there are 1,700 fewer scientists employed in the government agencies. We also know that, when we look at the science, research and innovation tables, in real terms the total government spend is now down by $453 million. That is a real figure, not a notional one. The ARC itself has lost $187 million between 2013-14 and 2016-17.

This is a proposition which means that there is less money available for research, from a government that claims it is suddenly interested in research, a government that has had monumental failure after monumental failure in terms of the research agenda of this country—a government that cannot even announce the appointment of the new CEO for the ARC. There is no doubt that that the acting CEO, Leanne Harvey, is performing in an admirable way. She is a woman who I have worked with directly and I have enormous regard for, but it has been 10 months since the former CEO announced that he was going. It has been a month since the minister, Senator Birmingham, told the estimates committee that an announcement was imminent. We know how important the research sector is and how important it is to have a CEO who has the confidence of the sector, and that means that they need to be a permanent appointment. We need to have a CEO with specialist knowledge and experience that the sector acknowledges will be there on an ongoing basis.

What we have seen, though, in this government's approach to research, is that it has to be research for a commercial basis. The emphasis now is on turning a quick quid. This is an undermining of basic research; an undermining of the fundamental principles of research integrity; an undermining of the principles of peer review; an undermining of what we have come to understand as the important questions that come to the role of the research community in assisting this parliament, and all governments, to face up to the big questions that are confronting this society. What we have seen is a government that says, 'What we need to do now is have a much higher emphasis on commercialisation.'

We have gone from a situation where we had no science minister at all, for much of the first term of the government, to a point where we now have had three science ministers in 12 months. Suddenly, the latest science minister has rediscovered climate change and rediscovered the importance of expert advice. That comes just a month after claiming that One Nation are a more knowledgeable and a more sophisticated operation, despite their attitudes and a whole range of fundamentally unscientific approaches to life, including that on vaccinations.

The ARC has developed a new impact and engagement model to research funding. These are particularly concerning, given the experience we have seen in the United Kingdom. The Stern review and the United Kingdom's Research Excellence Framework found that these types of exercises have imposed immense costs on our universities. A review of the Research Excellence Framework in the United Kingdom found that the estimated cost of running the so-called impact studies in 2014 was 246 million pounds, and 212 million pounds were borne by the higher education community in the process of preparing their submissions alone, for their so-called impact study.

The utility of the impact assessments, exercises like that undertaken in the United Kingdom, has been heavily criticised. Yet the government in Australia is ploughing on. Despite all the rhetoric about the importance of the science and the so-called platitudinous statements that we saw last week from the government, we never actually understood the implications of the relationship between basic and pure scientific research and the need to have commercialisation in a proper context.

Of course, without proper funding and without proper support for basic research, we will not have the capacity to ensure that we have the research that can be commercialised in later times. We see this particularly with the Education Investment Fund, which the government has said that it wants to abolish. We saw in the last parliament the attempt to use the investment fund for the privatisation of roads. We are fortunate that this Senate said that the asset recycling program was not a proper use for the investment funds, which were put aside for education funding, for research funding and for TAFE funding. A proposition that I moved was accepted by the Senate, and the proposals were rejected.

The government then went around the university sector and said, 'By executive fiat we will transfer monies to disabilities.' They said so in December, in the MYEFO statements, claiming that that had been done. Of course, it could not be done, because they needed to have a legislative instrument. You cannot willy-nilly take away these designated funds in the manner in which the government was proposing to do. This was in the context where the government itself had established a series of reviews into the importance of research funding. There was the Higher Education Infrastructure Working Group, which reported in 2015. It was by Bradley and co. There was the Research Infrastructure Review final report by Clark and co. that reported in September 2015. There was the draft National Research Infrastructure Roadmap, which reported in 2016. It had consultations over the Christmas period this year and through to 2017. No money was attached to it, of course.

In this same context, where these issues were developed and demonstrated to be needed in various reviews that the government had initiated, no money was actually put aside. But the very money that was available through the investment fund was to be taken away, to be used first for the privatisation program and now, it is said, for the disability program and for paying down debt. It was to be done by executive fiat. That has been demonstrated to be completely incorrect, because as we discovered in January—the finance department acknowledged in the estimates hearing—it could not be done without legislative approval.

It poses a much more fundamental question than the government's sleight of hand. A question was posed by the Bradley review:

The question needs to be asked why government no longer believes that it has any role to play in this form of nation building.

The review is specifically referring to the question of funding of research infrastructure. The fundamental proposition of research infrastructure at this time is that the government has sought to constantly seek someone else to undertake its responsibilities. It has set up a whole series of reviews. It has sought to delay any commitment. Essentially, it has failed to deal with its responsibilities by ignoring the need to fund a long-term research infrastructure plan for the country. There is no doubt there is a legitimate, an urgent and very much a real need to fund our research infrastructure so that we can develop the new knowledge, the new technologies and the new jobs to keep us an advanced industrial society. We have had highly qualified expert panels established, but the situation continues to deteriorate. The government thinks that it is enough to set up yet another review. This is a government that loves reviews: it means it can avoid having to make a decision.

We have emerging a funding cliff, a funding uncertainty in our universities and our public research agencies, while all the time a $3.7 billion fund is sitting on the government's book and not being used. It is collecting basic interest, and that is all. It is a farce. The fund was established—part of the Future Fund arrangements—precisely for this purpose. The uncommitted funds of $3.7 billion are exactly the sum that the expert panel identifies as the shortfall that the country needs for research funding at the moment. The Clark review makes the point that the government has this responsibility and has failed to fulfil its obligations in that regard. The government has set up a road map with no commitment to fund any arrangements under it. It is an exercise in fantasy to ask people, 'What would you like to do?' but not provide the money to actually do it. So an urgent task is acknowledged by the government but no provision is made to fund it.

The Clark review, for instance, acknowledges that the nation needs advanced research. The conduct of advanced research requires research infrastructure. The more sophisticated the infrastructure the greater the potential for breakthrough research. In the case of cutting edge landmark facilities, the scale of resources required, the uncertainty of commercial payoff and the long lead time for results all mitigate against individual businesses making the investment. Research infrastructure investment must be made collectively, typically by the nation or groups of nations, for the use of bona fide researchers. And so it goes on. The Clark review says:

Research generates knowledge, the use of which benefits society and opens up new opportunities for business.

The ability to sustain a competitive edge in the generation of new knowledge, and of new scientific knowledge in particular, is at the core of the strategic plans of many nations as they position themselves for growth in a highly competitive global economy. Some countries started decades ago …

…   …   …

In contrast, the Australian research system is feeling the pressure of the chronic underfunding of key elements … countries investing in R&D are making the right choice. At the national level, multi-factor productivity growth is positively correlated to expenditure on R&D. The reverse holds true for countries with low levels of R&D expenditure.

So says the Clark review on the very first page of its report. It goes on:

To reach and maintain the necessary standards, we need the best researchers and they need quality research infrastructure.

A number of leading economies have recognised that quality research supported by quality infrastructure leads to jobs, growth and a more competitive economy.

That is on page 5.

Research infrastructure is an engine of economic growth and productivity. There are numerous examples of innovation and productivity outcomes from research infrastructure internationally and in Australia …

That is from page 6. This an argument that is not only internal to Australia but also related to our place in the global research effort, in which we are intimately engaged. The report says:

In a world in which research is increasingly undertaken across large teams of investigators from multiple countries, Australia will need to be a contributor to that effort to draw benefit. If we are to prosper as a strong but relatively small participant in the global wellspring of ideas and innovation, our contribution must be at the high standards required to earn us the connections that we need.

And so it goes on.

The reviews that the government established then tried to suppress demonstrate that there is an urgent need for action, which the government has yet to provide any support for. What we saw, of course, is that even the incoming Liberal government's 2014 National Commission of Audit endorsed the view about the importance of research infrastructure and the Commonwealth's role in funding it.

Quality research infrastructure is a critical component of Australia’s research and development system and, since 2001, the Commonwealth Government has provided a series of funding programmes for large-scale research infrastructure.

And it recommended:

… the Government take a more strategic, whole of government approach to the funding of research and development, including by:

… … …

… committing to ongoing funding for critical research infrastructure in Australia, informed by a reassessment of existing research infrastructure provision and requirements …

So it is not just people in the ARC. It is not just the people in government agencies. It is the government's own ideologically driven groups that are arguing this case. It is not just people on the left of politics that say that the future of the nation depends upon the capacity to actually build this capacity. It is right across the board, except within this cabinet. What we have is a failure of this government to recognise its national responsibility to the future prosperity of our nation. What we have in this government is a failure to come to terms with what it means to build prosperity and to build opportunities for Australians.

The minister made the point last week that we have to rely upon experts and we have to rely upon the importance of scientific research. Well, where does that come from? It does not come from reducing 1,700 scientists and by reducing the government's research budget. It does not come from the reduction in the ARC's funding by $187 million in real terms since this government came to office. It does not come from playing to the 'sophisticated' One Nation approach on climate change or on vaccinations, or playing footsies with those philistines that take the view that somehow or another all research must be moved immediately to make a financial return. Just imagine what we would do if we took that attitude towards the development of wi-fi? Wi-fi was one of the most transitional, most effective technologies this country and the world has seen. It is probably the hallmark technology of our age. It was developed as a result of research into examinations in astronomy of black holes. No-one, when they started on that project, would have said, 'We're going to create wi-fi out of this.' But, that is the type of exchange that is required. It happens so often in the research area.

The capacity that we have to develop, through major research infrastructure, new knowledge, new technologies, new jobs and new industries is, I think, of overwhelming importance to the future of the nation. Yet this is a government that has failed to provide the necessary wherewithal to allow our researchers to make their contribution to the future of this nation's prosperity. What we have is a government that has pandered to the anti-scientific lobby within our political system. This is a government that has failed to fulfil its obligations to modernity. This is a government that has shown a contempt for science. The recent rhetorical discovery, without the financial support necessary, means that there will be a continuation of the policies which have so undermined our scientific community in this country.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a senator who serves the people of Queensland in Australia, I want to raise some questions. I will take this opportunity to do that. We have not had time to have a good look at the Australian Research Council programs, but we did notice this: the Australian Research Council has a Gender equality action plan. I thought that science is supposed to be objective. Regardless of gender or race or religion, science is assessed objectively, based on evidence and based on proposals for grants. I wonder, is this an admission that science under the control or the guidance of the Australian Research Council is not objective? Is it not at times policy-based science rather than what has been put forward in this chamber as science-based policy? I have mentioned in the past that universities in our country are now teaching people what to think, not how to think.

By my own personal experience with the Australian Research Council and holding it to account I have found very low levels of accountability. In this bill, taxpayer funds to the tune of $750 million—three quarters of a billion—are being given, in addition, to the Australian Research Council.

Contrary to Senator Carr's claims, One Nation believes in research. That is why we have based our position on climate and on the protection of our energy generation, availability and networks on hard, objective data—physical observations, measured data and hard facts. That is perhaps why we are alone in stating that that is what we do, because the others have never, ever—no other person and no other party in this chamber has ever—specified any specific objective evidence when it comes to their claims about the climate being affected by humanity's use of hydrocarbon fuels.

Senator Carr raises the uncertainty of university funding. Well, I raise issues of the need to seriously question the objectivity of the use for which the funds are provided. As I said, research is vital, and that is why we need to rethink and objectively assess what is happening with the billions of dollars that are spent by this parliament and by this government on research, because, in addition to research being vital, so are taxpayers. It is my belief that the taxpayers are being abused from many, many angles. I raise questions about the extra $750 million, the three-quarters of a billion dollars, set aside in this bill. Perhaps Ludwig von Mises's book entitled Bureaucracy would be instructive reading for people here in this chamber? It is only 100 pages long. He pointed out the importance of assessing things objectively and doing that in a free market. Instead, we are governed by a bureaucracy that is heading us more and more towards socialism in this country, and destroying accountability.

The final point I wish to raise is that there is legislation passing through this house at a very fast rate. Not all of us are expected to assess every piece of legislation—that would be unreasonable—but that makes it possible for central government in this country to waste enormous amounts of money, especially when there is very low accountability. We see the evidence for that in the ever-rising debt, the ever-growing deficit, the ever-growing waste of taxes, the ever-growing burden on individuals who are working hard. Our supporters have a strong moral compass and a strong work ethic, and they are very, very tired of the governance of this country—or should I say the lack of governance?

And then we see things like the climate change material—supposedly researched, but never ever specifying any empirical evidence or measured data—used to justify the destruction of South Australia, the imminent destruction of Victoria, and the slower but surer destruction of all states now pushing a renewable energy target. That was in fact introduced by former Prime Minister John Howard, who subsequently admitted to being agnostic on climate change. His then chief of staff is the current Senator Sinodinos, who is now Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. Never have we seen so much money wasted so profligately in this country, and so destructively. I raise serious questions, but we will be supporting this bill.

Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to sum up the debate on the Education and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2017, and I want to thank the contributors to the debate. In its essentials, there has been agreement over what the bill is all about, particularly in establishing a VET student loan ombudsman to investigate and act upon student VET FEE-HELP and VET student loan complaints. There is general agreement that that is the right way to go. Senator Birmingham, from when he became the minister, has been very strong on ensuring the matters around VET FEE-HELP were addressed. This was a system that the coalition inherited, and it was a system that needed to be fixed. It was the coalition that fixed it.

The bill also increases the funding caps in the Australian Research Council Act 2001 to continue the Turnbull government's strong support for thousands of research projects. The point I would make about that is that the Research Council and all of the other bodies that provide advice and make decisions in relation to the funding of research projects do so according to fairly clear and transparent criteria, and that is important. They have got to be criteria that are available to everybody to understand, and they have to be based on well-accepted postulates of the scientific method and the like. In other words, there has to be some general agreement about the methodology that will be pursued in undertaking research and then, of course, there is a matter of peer group assessment of proposals to make sure that these can be prioritised and all of the rest of it.

They are fairly open processes in relation to something like climate change, just to respond briefly to Senator Roberts's point. For policymakers, the important thing here is what is the 'no regrets' option? The no regrets option is to address an issue that scientific opinion, on the whole, is strongly of the view needs to be addressed, and sooner rather than later. What a policymaker does is weigh up the risks of not doing something as opposed to doing something. You may do something, and it turns out the problem was not there after all. I do not think in that sense you have done yourself great damage. But if you do not do something and the problem actually turns out to be catastrophic, you have done yourself and future generations a great deal of damage. That is the dilemma the policymakers face. On that score, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.