Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Watt) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the student debt and safety at universities.

I rise to take note of the deeply disappointing response of Minister Watt to my questions on student debt and sexual assault in unis. We are in the midst of a soaring student debt crisis. We are in the midst of an horrific crisis of sexual violence on campus. Yet Minister Watt chooses to dodge the questions, ignore the issues and effectively is saying to students: 'Too bad; you're on your own'—how heartless. Every week we hear from students whose debt is rising faster than they can pay it off. We hear stories of helplessness and despair as young people with their whole lives ahead of them get caught up in a debt spiral. We hear of people being locked out of the housing market and denied personal loans because of student debt.

Labor has the power to wipe student debt and make uni free, but instead they choose not to. Shame! The cruel Job-ready Graduates scheme has gutted our universities, massively hiked student fees and cut billions of dollars of funding for overworked staff. It was a blatant, pathetic attack on the humanities by the coalition, which will result in students, especially female students, graduating with exorbitant student debts. Labor knows this scheme is a disaster, calling it 'broken beyond repair' while in opposition, but are doing nothing to reverse it. It's a pathetic abdication of responsibility. They should have binned it the second they came into power.

No-one should ever have to experience sexual violence. It is so deeply harmful and traumatic, and it can totally upend and ruin lives. Yet every week at least 275 students experience sexual violence in university settings, and these numbers are from during COVID lockdowns. We need another survey to know the true extent of the rape epidemic now that students are back on campus. The government and universities have failed miserably in their duty to keep students safe. It was pretty outrageous and shameful that the minister could not even commit to ensuring another student safety survey would be conducted. What more will it take? The government must commit to funding the national student survey with universities and establishing an independent mechanism to hold universities to account.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in an epidemic of sexual violence on university campuses. We know this because the last national student survey found that 275 students every week are assaulted on campus. That is a horrific number of young people who are not safe on campus. So when my fantastic colleague and acting Greens leader, Senator Faruqi, asked the minister representing today: 'Are you going to fund that student survey again so that we know what the rates of sexual violence are on campus when it's not COVID times and people are actually back on campus?' I was flabbergasted that the minister didn't answer. It's a really simple question. It's not an expensive survey. It's a desperately important survey. The minister representing could not even commit to do a survey about sexual violence on campus, let alone actually deliver the things that students are calling for, which include a task force to hold universities to account on safety measures. You can't even commit to a survey? What is wrong with you people?

We had a statement this morning in the other place by the Minister for Education. He's announced a working group on these matters. Where is the time frame for that working group? Where is the work program and what are the time frames? There is nothing about that. As far as we know, there are no time frames. You are kicking the can down the road, and you won't even commit to the most basic gathering of information, which is a survey about the number of rapes and assaults that happen on campus, let alone a decent oversight body that holds universities to account, let alone thinking about maybe making funding contingent on them keeping people safe on campus. It is an absolute bare minimum from this government, and I was floored that the minister representing would not even commit to redoing that survey, which happens once every three years and has given us these horrific results.

We heard from Universities Australia today at the National Press Club. They said some nice words about wanting to take action. What is stopping you? You had a report six years ago telling you what to do. You've done next to nothing. They didn't commit to doing the survey either, or to having a decent oversight body. Wake up, folks. It's time for the federal government to take responsibility and fix this epidemic of rape on campus. It is not okay.

Question agreed to.