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

Labor supports the Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2017. Labor recognises that there is a genuine risk that our higher education system could be targeted by unscrupulous providers and that ensuring Australia's world-class higher education system and our students are properly protected is absolutely critical to their ongoing success. Labor fully supports a robust and rigorous higher education regulatory system. We welcome an additional focus and greater scrutiny placed on the background of organisations that wish to operate in our higher education system. The reforms proposed in this bill rightly acknowledge there has been a surge in applications from vocational education providers to become higher education providers.

Labor also supports greater protections for students, particularly those who are accessing the FEE-HELP scheme. Students who take on debts for their study need to do so with confidence, and we welcome the changes the government proposes to the arrangements for accessing FEE-HELP. It is troubling that there is evidence that students haven fallen victim to unscrupulous marketing activities, and it is even more troubling that there is evidence to suggest that many providers have had tax file numbers passed on from the ATO. It is pleasing that this bill will ensure that this does not happen. It is important that we protect Australia's higher education system from some of the poor practices we have seen in the vocational education sector. The government needs to ensure that it continues to properly consult with the sector. It also needs to ensure that it properly provides the higher education regulator, TEQSA, with adequate resources to do its job. Labor supports this bill to ensure greater integrity and confidence in Australia's higher education system.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2017. I ask: what is the difference between a public university and a leech? It's not a joke; I'd actually like to know the answer.

The government continually serves up cash and customers to public universities, and the public universities keep on asking for more. For starters, the government gives public universities $7 billion a year through the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. No private university or vocational education and training provider gets a drop of funding from the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. This enables public universities to impose charges on prospective students that are well below cost. This draws customers away from private universities and vocational education and training providers. Some could call this predatory pricing. The government further lures customers into public universities by hitting students at private universities and vocational education and training providers with a fee on their government provided student loans. No such fee is applied to the already heavily subsidised courses at public universities.

With the bill before the Senate today, the government plans to extend red tape that is already strangling vocational education and training providers to the rest of the higher education sector, with an exception for public universities. There is no justification for piling red tape on everyone other than public universities. Public universities lure students into courses through slick marketing. They offer shonky courses that not only will never lead to a job but actually leave the students dumber at the end of the course than when they started. Public universities have terrible completion rates. They pay their vice-chancellors and senior staff extravagant salaries that they could never attract in the private sector. More to the point, the massive subsidies for public universities and their students mean that, more than any other students, public university students don't bear the financial costs of their decisions, so they are less wary about committing to a course than someone who has money in the game.

These are all reasons to cut the subsidies to public universities, and, if they are not cut, public universities should face the heaviest regulation. For these reasons, I oppose the Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2017, which singles out public universities for special treatment. But I will be the only senator to do so. Only the Liberal Democrats stand up for students in private universities and in vocational education and training; the other parties are all captured by the leeches.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions, and commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.