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representatives vote 2014-09-04#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2014-12-03 16:18:12
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Title
Bills — Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014; Second Reading- Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014 - Second Reading - End debate on bill's main idea
Description
<p class="speaker">Catherine King</p><p>With this Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill, the Abbott government is launching an unprecedented attack both on our universities and on the aspirations of thousands of students. Cutting $3.9 billion out of our higher education sector and telling universities that they can make up that difference only by charging students more is a direct attack on the equal opportunity that this country has fought so hard for.</p><p>The harsh reality of the first anniversary of the Abbott government is that it has shown that it was never the Prime Minister's intention to keep his promise made before the election that there would be no cuts to education, just as it was never his intention to keep his promises of no cuts to health, no new taxes and no changes to superannuation. The Prime Minister is not only letting down everyone who voted for this government, believing in those promises, but also risking the future of young Australians.</p>- The majority agreed to end debate on the bill's main idea (in parliamentary jargon, they agreed to [put the question](http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/odgers/chap1023)). This means that the [House](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_House_of_Representatives) will now vote on whether they agree with the main idea without further delay (see that [division](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/divisions/representatives/2014-09-04/2)).
- The [main idea](http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd1415a/15bd033#_Toc400524800) of the bill was to introduce broad ranging changes to the higher education sector, including deregulating undergraduate tuition fees.
- ### Background to the bill
- As part of its [2014-15 Budget](http://www.budget.gov.au/2014-15/content/bp2/html/bp2_expense-09.htm), Prime Minister [Tony Abbott](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/warringah/tony_abbott)'s Government has announced a series of changes to government funding arrangements and this bill is part of those changes (read more in the [bills digest](http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd1415a/15bd033)).
<p>Among those young Australians who will be hit the hardest are those attending our regional universities. Over the last 40 years, the reforms of successive Labor governments have opened up our universities, providing those who previously could only dream of going into higher education with the opportunity to do so. Labor successfully ended the cycle of young academic talent being overlooked due to the size of their parents' bank balance. This bill aims to absolutely smash that legacy. Just as the Abbott government did with health and with pensions and with superannuation, they are pursuing a cruel and flawed ideology that directly attacks Australia's sense of social equity, the very framework that has made our country the envy of the developed world.</p><p>According to Universities Australia, cuts to course funding will result in degrees in engineering and science increasing by 58 per cent; agriculture, by 43 per cent; nursing, by 24 per cent; education, by 20 per cent; and environmental studies, by 110 per cent. The Grattan Institute's Andrew Norton has predicted 30 per cent of female graduates in nursing, education, IT, commerce and engineering will never clear their debts under this plan. Australian Catholic University Vice-Chancellor Greg Craven has also warned against the government's plan, saying that it would disproportionately affect nursing and teaching graduates.</p><p>These increases are only the starting point, as it is anticipated many universities will go further, with independent modelling forecasting that the cost of degrees in science, in medicine and in law will well and truly exceed $100,000. In fact, I met recently with the Go8 deans of medicine and they are already being told that their courses will be the fee leaders at universities. They are already being told that courses in medicine will be the fee leaders—that is, the most expensive, costing the most that can possibly be charged.</p><p>To the health sector, this will be devastating. Most Australian universities now require students who wish to undertake a medical degree to first complete a three- or four-year bachelor law or science degree. That means students who graduate with medical degrees will be at university for at least seven years before they are able to seek full-time employment. Starting their working lives with such a massive debt will require graduates to put remuneration before job satisfaction as they seek the jobs that pay the highest amount immediately rather than pursue that which they are most passionate about.</p><p>Now, what do you think that is going to mean for the health workforce when, already, for the first time in five years, we are starting to see a substantial drop in the number of medical students who want to become GP specialists? Where do you think a cohort of students, potentially with debts of $100,000 or more, are going to seek their careers? In general practice? Possibly not. They are going to seek careers where they are able to earn the most as quickly as possible so they can pay off their massive university debt. Many students will be forced to go into workplaces where they can earn the most to pay down a debt many could still be wearing decades after they finish university. As I said, this will have very serious consequences for the medical profession.</p><p>The government has already attacked general practice in its budget, and these changes, frankly, represent another attack on our health workforce. Do you think our new medical graduates with $100,000-plus in debt are going to want to practise as a GP in Dubbo or Wagga or any place they are not going to be able to get the money that they need to pay that debt down?</p><p>These changes also represent an attack on our medical research workforce. Again, the potential for those students, knowing that they will have such substantial debts, to take the decision to go into medical research—and it is often low paid—is going to be well and truly lost. This comes at the same time as the government is trying to justify the GP tax on the grounds that the funds are needed to pay for the Medical Research Fund, which it insists is critical to tackling our future health needs. Well, this bill runs completely counter to that aim. The government hits patients with the GP tax—which drives them away from seeing doctors, making them sicker and adding to the future health burden—so it can pay for medical research but then imposes such a crippling debt burden on our brightest and best students that few will ever be able to afford to participate in that research.</p><p>The bill not also risks our reputation but is a massive barrier to our economic future, because it is absolutely vital that we have a productive, innovative and highly skilled workforce. The Australian experience has proven that economic and social prosperity is only achieved through policies of inclusion, not exclusion. Let us be absolutely clear about this: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, inclusive about $100,000 university degrees. There is nothing inclusive about saddling young Australians with a lifetime of debt. These are truly regressive reforms, and no amount of spin or denial from the other side can prove otherwise. The removal of price controls will see the cost of university degrees skyrocket. The prospect of degrees exceeding $100,000 will become reality if the government proceeds with this bill. The $1.9 billion cut in Commonwealth funding for course delivery will force universities to pass this on through higher fees. I note the capacity and the concern which regional universities have expressed about that.</p><p>This is a tax on our future. It is a tax on our students who will pay the most, not only through increased fees but through a constantly growing debt burden. For it is not enough for the Abbott government to slug students with cuts to course funding and the removal of price controls; they want to then multiply this already crippling debt through changes to HECS and HELP loans. At Federation University—and I am aware that this is a breach of standing orders, but I have spoken to the Deputy Speaker about doing this briefly—</p> <p class="speaker">Russell Broadbent</p><p>Don't suck me into your sin!</p> <p class="speaker">Catherine King</p><p>I will not, sorry, Deputy Speaker. I have undertaken to hold this up briefly in this chamber.</p> <p class="speaker">Russell Broadbent</p><p>Federation University is also part of my electorate.</p> <p class="speaker">Catherine King</p><p>So the Deputy Speaker has a vested interest in this as well.</p> <p class="speaker">Russell Broadbent</p><p>I am at one here with the member.</p> <p class="speaker">Catherine King</p><p>At Federation University in my electorate, three-quarters of the students are the first in their families to attend university and almost a third of the student population are from low socio-economic backgrounds. These students cannot afford to even contemplate incurring $100,000 debts in their teens. The Abbott government is nothing short of ignorant if it thinks this will be anything other than a massive disincentive for families in regional and rural Australia. Many of the regional universities have said that they would not be able to charge those sorts of fees. That puts regional universities behind the eight ball from the start. They have had massive funding cuts and have no capacity to make up the shortfall. Over time that will compound and compound.</p><p>Regional universities are at the heart of not only our regional economies but at the heart of the capacity of regional students to gain teaching degrees, nursing qualifications, IT qualifications, engineering and health sciences, to provide the workforce in regional Australia. Over time, the capacity of universities to deliver that breadth of courses will decline. Also the quality of courses will decline. We will see the sandstone universities, potentially the Go8, those great institutions, able to charge those fees, and regional universities will decline further and further. That is the reality of this bill.</p><p>The government claims its new Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme is designed to support disadvantaged students, but again they fail to recognise the inequity inherent in this bill. No Commonwealth funding is allocated to those scholarships, with funding provided on the basis of additional fees from students. So the more universities charge, the more they will be able to provide scholarships. That is fine but it is not okay for regional universities, which are not going to be in a position to do that. This structure will further widen the gap by entrenching market position and power with our sandstone universities. Former Melbourne University Vice-Chancellor Professor Kwong Lee Dow confirmed this very point in a recent speech during a visit to Ballarat:</p><p class="italic">If high fees are commanded by preferred institutions and preferred courses, to show their status some others will move towards these higher charges to position themselves in the market.</p><p>That is exactly what this bill is designed to do:</p><p class="italic">In poorer communities, including regional and rural communities, families will not be able to meet these higher fees, so the institutions will have less funding and so become less competitive over time.</p><p>Professor Lee Dow then went on to say:</p><p class="italic">… whatever finally emerges from the political machinations with the Senate, students will be paying significantly more, and rural and regional students will be disproportionately affected.</p><p>Professor Lee Dow's observations are far from unique. Since the Minister introduced this bill, several professors from regional campuses throughout the country have joined the chorus to highlight the terrible impact of this bill on their universities. In my own electorate, the Vice-Chancellor of Federation University, Professor David Battersby, highlighted the sham of the government's so-called Scholarship Scheme in a piece published in the Ballarat<i> Courier</i>:</p><p class="italic">The shallow rhetoric about having more scholarships for regional students, including assistance to help them to attend metropolitan universities, and the availability of more sub-degree courses, ignores the real differences we have in this nation between metropolitan and regional higher education.</p><p class="italic">The differences are structural and not simply related to student choice and cannot be easily ameliorated by the application of market forces.</p><p>I make special mention of Federation University not only because of its status as a leading regional education institution but because of its fantastic record of providing our region with highly skilled nurses, teachers, accountants, scientists, engineers and research graduates. They are people who stay in our communities and fill important jobs, develop businesses and provide important services for our communities.</p><p>Flying in the face of this record is the Abbott government's determination to cut $42.5 million from teaching and research funding at Federation University. Federation University prides itself on its key focus on research and innovation and has formed a partnership with Monash University, University of Melbourne and Deakin University under the Collaborative Research Network to establish the Self-sustaining Regions Research and Innovation Initiative. The project comprises three major elements: regional science and technology innovation, regional landscape change and regional social and educational connectedness and health innovation. The focus of this initiative is to deliver world-class research with an integrated focus on drivers of change, impacts and solutions for people and communities in regional Australia.</p><p>Collaboration in research is critical, but with the government saying to universities, 'If you don't support these bills we'll find the money elsewhere, if you don't go out hard and campaign for these bills and if they don't get through, we'll cut your research funding,' what sort of blackmail is that? What sort of message is that sending to universities? Frankly, I think universities have been shocked by the minister's behaviour in making that statement. That will have a significant impact on my university, Federation University.</p><p>One of the components of this bill and one which I think the other place will seek to have discussed separately is the establishment which we signed off on in government—that is, the name change from the University of Ballarat to Federation University. I want to put on record my very strong support for the name change to Federation University, Ballarat, or Federation University, Churchill campus—I am sure we are going to see more Federation University campuses across the state of Victoria in the years ahead. I also want to put on record the damage that this bill does to regional universities. I know that many members of the National Party have concerns about it. I know that, deep in their hearts, they care very much about what happens in this place to regional communities. I hope very much that they are able to convince the Minister for Education to take into his heart the needs of regional Australians.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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