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

To continue what I was saying yesterday, university students, both domestic and international, need to know that when they make the largest investment of their young lives, they are investing in a quality product which is untainted by scandal or deliberate attempts to deceive. Every time a student gets away with cheating, they devalue the qualifications of everyone who has graduated from that institute of higher learning, they devalue the institution itself, and they devalue Australia's higher education sector more broadly. In my home state, the University of Tasmania has managed to leverage quality education with the liveability of the cities of Hobart, Launceston and Burnie, and this brings income into our state. Education has become an export industry, in the same way that exporting our manufactured goods or our raw products has. Nationally the Australian Bureau of Statistics valued exports from international education at $18.8 billion in 2014-15, making it Australia's third-largest export. There were more than 350,000 international students enrolled in the higher education sector in Australia through 2017. According to the Department of Education and Training Research Snapshot published in November 2016, international education provided Tasmanians with $211 million in goods and services export revenue in 2015-16, making it my home state's fourth-largest source of export income. We must secure the integrity of the service that this revenue is based upon.

Labor supports the intention of this bill to implement the recommendations of the Higher Education Standards Panel, or HESP, to introduce deterrents to third-party academic cheating services in higher education. HESP, in their advice to the minister for education in March 2017, considered that inadequately constrained cheating activity 'has the potential to cause great damage to the domestic and international reputation of Australian higher education'. HESP was asked by the education minister for advice on opportunities to deter and prevent organised and commercial cheating in Australian higher education following the MyMaster cheating scandal that was revealed in 2015. Those listening may recall that the MyMaster company was hired by up to1,000 students from 16 universities to ghostwrite their assignments and sit online tests. Thankfully it appeared that students from UTAS had no involvement in this scandal.

There is currently no Australian jurisdiction with offences specifically aimed at deterring or punishing cheating by students or organised cheating services. HESP considered that organised commercial cheating presents possibly the greatest current reputational risk to Australian higher education. This bill seeks to create an offence in providing, offering to provide or arranging for a third party to provide an academic cheating service to a student undertaking an Australian higher education course of study or an overseas higher education course of study provided at Australian premises. To fall within the definition of 'academic cheating service' a provider must provide work to or undertake work for students where the work forms a substantial part of an assessment task that students are required to personally undertake. The explanatory memorandum particularly notes that the incidental or inconsequential assistance, advice or example answers that might be offered to a student are not at risk of being captured by the new offence provisions.

Labor understands that there is strong stakeholder support for legislation to safeguard academic integrity in Australia's university sector, including from the Group of Eight universities, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations and the National Union of Students, as well as other universities and TAFEs. The offences in this bill are accompanied by harsh penalties in order to deter and combat the detrimental consequences academic cheating services have on the reputation of Australia's higher education product. Where an academic cheating service operates for commercial purpose, strict liability will apply to the physical element of the offence, and both criminal and civil penalties will apply, including a maximum penalty of two years in prison. Where an academic cheating service is not operating for a commercial purpose, only civil penalties will be incurred.

The business model of academic cheating services is becoming more insidious. The explanatory memorandum to the bill suggests that the persuasive advertisements for their services may exploit vulnerable students by promoting themselves as altruistic enterprises or even as acting in the interests of students who are under academic stress. The bill creates offences for advertising, publishing or broadcasting an advertisement for an academic cheating service to students, and these offences also carry a maximum penalty of two years in prison if the academic cheating service that is advertised is operating for a commercial purpose.

Labor is very concerned about vulnerable students being targeted by academic cheating services. As well as deterrents provided through the offences in the bill, Labor would encourage universities and higher education providers to provide and publicise support services for these students so that when they are struggling they will have somewhere to turn. This is particularly important for international students, who may be away from family and friends for the first time. As I said earlier, Labor support this bill, but we do not support—and cannot support—the attacks on the higher education sector that have come from this government.

Labor knows all too well that investing in and maintaining our world-class universities is good for us all. The value that university education has added to Australia's productive capacity is estimated at $140 billion in GDP. We know Australia will require an additional 3.8 million university qualifications by 2025, according to a report prepared for Universities Australia. That's why Labor invested in the university sector when we were in government.

After years of neglect under the previous Howard government, Labor boosted investment in universities from $8 billion in 2007 to $14 billion in 2013. We also opened up the system with demand driven funding in 2012, which saw an additional 190,000 Australians able to get a place at university before the government ended demand driven funding. We also wanted to ensure that the opportunity to go to university was made available to all Australians, particularly those who have to overcome structural disadvantages. It worked. Labor policies saw an extra 220,000 Australians have the opportunity of university education. Financially disadvantaged student enrolments increased by 66 per cent; Indigenous undergraduate student enrolments increased by 105 per cent; enrolments of undergraduate students with disability grew by 123 per cent; and enrolments of students from regional and remote areas increased by 50 per cent. Yet, when it comes to our higher education system, this government's approach is cut, cut, cut. They have capped university places, cut $2.2 billion from the system and locked more than 200,000 students out of the opportunity of a university qualification. They have cut $328.5 million from university research. The minister himself said to the National Press Club that the productivity improvements in the higher education sector can deliver $2.7 billion to Australia's GDP per annum. How will this be achieved when the government's policy is to destroy the sector?

Universities are economic powerhouses within the community, particularly in our regions. They provide jobs, train regional workers and prepare our young people for the future challenges that our country is facing and will face. Researchers found that seven in 10 regional university graduates take up work outside of metropolitan areas. Those universities and students reinvest more than $2 billion a year in regional communities with university campuses. I know that UTAS makes an important contribution to my home state of Tasmania. However, it's facing very rocky times following the COVID-19 pandemic. It was recently reported in the media that the University of Tasmania has taken on debt of $130 million and has frozen salaries. It was also reported that its financial modelling shows that it faces revenue losses in 2020 of between $30 million to $34 million and between $60 million to $120 million per year in 2021-22. Vice-Chancellor Rufus Black said that the institution would take on $130 million in debt over the next four years in a bid to share the costs between current and future generations. Apparently, $40 million to $50 million a year would need to come from salaries, and it is prioritising a voluntary redundancy process over forced layoffs.

It's clear that the Morrison government is not adequately supporting our university sector. Workers shouldn't have to bear the brunt of failed government policies. Australia cannot afford to let our universities fall off a cliff. The Australian government must act now to shore up our universities. The COVID-19 pandemic and global travel restrictions have led to a crisis in this funding model with income from international students plummeting over recent months. The government cannot explain—or is yet to explain—why full-time university workers, many with families to support, are not eligible for JobKeeper when workers in other sectors are. Universities across Australia employ 260,000 people. That's an enormous sector, and it does great work. Research conducted at Australian universities is saving lives and leading the world. Already this year, University of Melbourne researchers were the first outside China to develop a lab-grown coronavirus in a major breakthrough that will speed up work towards a vaccine for the disease. The University of Queensland has been asked to use its recently developed rapid-response technology to develop a new vaccine for the coronavirus outbreak which could be available worldwide in as little as six months time. Universities train the doctors, nurses and health experts that Australia has relied upon during this pandemic.

For months now, Labor has been urging the Morrison government to act, to help universities and to save jobs, but the Prime Minister hasn't done anything to help, and now jobs are being lost, with thousands more to come. We do not know how many voluntary redundancies will occur at UTAS or what will happen if enough people don't volunteer. The Morrison government changed JobKeeper eligibility criteria for universities after they were initially announced, which has stopped staff at many universities from getting fair access to the scheme. This is putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk, including many in regional Australia. Already we have seen announcements that hundreds of jobs will go at Deakin University, Central Queensland University and La Trobe University. The impact on regional communities will be devastating. Universities supporting 14,000 jobs in country Australia— (Time expired)

(Quorum formed)

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

I thank senators for their contributions to the detail of the debate on the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019. I note there were a range of other more extraneous and unrelated comments and contributions made during the debate as well. On that front, I would again remind senators that higher education in Australia continues to receive record levels of funding, support continues to grow in the forward years of the Australian budget and indeed the government has provided guarantees in relation to the flow of taxpayer support to Australian universities during the pandemic. But those matters are not what this bill seeks to address.

This bill seeks to ensure that we as a nation deliver a strong stand against cheating in Australian universities which tarnishes the reputation of our very valuable higher education sector. Our efforts here are designed to ensure that we continue to deliver a world-class higher education offering to students from Australia and from around the world who choose to study with Australian institutions. The penalties in this bill are designed to deter the undertaking of cheating and particularly to deter the provision and advertising of cheating, especially for academic cheating services. The capacity to block cheating websites will make it harder for students in Australia to access those services and for those websites to provide their scurrilous offerings.

I would like to thank the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills for their consideration of this bill. As requested by the committees, an addendum to the explanatory memorandum was tabled to explain the compatibility of the civil penalties in the bill with the processes used in criminal law and reasons for placing the burden of proof on the defendant for particular offences. I'd also like to thank the opposition for their constructive engagement on the bill. Several other amendments to the explanatory memorandum were made to provide additional clarification on matters they and other stakeholders raised. These include clarifying that students who publish their old essays will not be subject to prosecution under the bill and that people who inadvertently promote academic cheating services on social media will also not be affected.

The development of this bill has been, indeed, a lengthy process. It commenced during 2016 and 2017 with consideration by the Higher Education Standards Panel of the issue of contract cheating. I was pleased to have initiated those considerations by the panel at the time. The panel found the complex array of state, territory and Commonwealth laws relevant to cheating offences made it difficult to pursue legal solutions against providers of cheating services. The panel's advice was that additional legislative backing was needed to more effectively deal with such risks, and the panel advocated that this should be modelled on New Zealand's approach, which ensures legislation is aimed particularly at those who provide the cheating services rather than at students who might use those cheating services.

I thank the Higher Education Standards Panel, which reviewed this issue and whose work under the then chair, Professor Peter Shergold, has provided the strong basis for our government's actions in this bill. I thank the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, under its leadership, for their work and advice, as well as various universities, advisers and other stakeholders to government, including previous advisers Professor Don Markwell and Darren Brown, who have helped to drive this. I note the very valuable consultation and work that my successor in this portfolio, Minister Tehan, has continued to undertake with his advisers and team to ensure that we have a bill that will give public confidence in the quality of graduates from our higher education institutions and stop unscrupulous cheating services preying on vulnerable students.

Once again, I thank senators for their engagement in this topic and commend the bill to the chamber.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. I believe there are amendments, so we'll move to the Committee of the Whole.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.