Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my colleagues for going ahead of me on the list on this bill today. As the shadow minister, I have responsibility for its carriage in the House but, given I was doing an Indigenous literacy and launch with the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Minister for School Education on the lawns of Parliament House, they have very kindly filled in for me in the intervening period.

I now rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Student Contribution Amounts and Other Measures) Bill 2012. This bill seeks to reinstate the student contribution amount for mathematics, statistics and science units of study to its pre-2009 level for domestic students. The discount on students' contributions for these courses was introduced by the Rudd government in December 2008, taking effect from January 2009, while Julia Gillard, the current Prime Minister, was the minister for education.

This initiative was promised by the Labor Party during the 2007 election with the aim of encouraging more students to undertake these courses identified as being areas of domestic need for graduates. I think it was a well-meaning policy and the coalition had hoped—I think along with the government—that it had been more successful.

This bill reverses the policy that the Gillard government announced in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2011-12. Specifically, they announced that student contributions for mathematics, statistics and science units would return to the band 2 amount. As a result, maths and science undergraduates will now have to pay the full rate of student contribution, estimated to be $8,353 in 2013—up from around $4,690. The government has estimated that this measure will save them about $1 billion over four years from 2012 to 2016, so it is not an inconsiderable saving.

The student discount for maths and science has not been without sceptics since it was first announced. Shortly after the details were released by the Labor Party in 2007, the Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University, Steven Schwartz, predicted a HECS discount would have little effect because it was seen as too far away in the future and abstract—that is to say that many students do not fully repay their HECS debts until many years after completing their study—and he thought the policy would fail to boost enrolments, given that students would not immediately receive any short-term financial benefit for undertaking these courses of study.

He came to this conclusion because the university had trialled a similar incentive in 2005. The university dropped its fees altogether in some advanced science subjects, including biology, physics and chemistry, in an attempt to make these subjects more attractive. But it became apparent that this did not significantly increase enrolments.

Professor Bruce Chapman, well known for his involvement in designing the architecture for our student loan scheme, also suggests that HECS discounts do not necessarily correlate with an increase in enrolment figures. Another well-known higher education expert, the Grattan Institute's higher education program director, Dr Andrew Norton, has also been very critical of the scheme. He suggests the discount for science students should never have been offered in the first place.

I find it interesting to note that the reasoning of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research, Senator Chris Evans, for discontinuing the scheme is not very dissimilar to what was predicted all those years ago by some in the higher education sector. Specifically, the minister—in his press release of 29 November 2011—in respect of the government's decision, suggested:

The reduction in student contributions for mathematics, statistics and science units since 2009 has not been effective in substantially increasing the number of students undertaking maths and science at university…

Students are predominantly motivated not by price but by their interests, abilities and career preferences when selecting courses.

Others have called on the government not to abolish this incentive and instead have argued for the scheme to be retained. But the most outspoken critic of the Gillard government's decision to axe this particular discount has been the member for Griffith, Kevin Rudd. I suspect, given his heavy objection on this issue, he will not be rising to speak in support of this bill; although, there is still the opportunity for him to do so, as the debate has not yet concluded and the opposition would be more than happy to hear his views on this particular matter.

Shortly before this year's leadership challenge in February, he expressed deep concern about the decision taken by the Prime Minister. Of course I have to specify the dates of these leadership challenges, as they come thick and fast in the Labor Party. So, just to be clear, it was the one in February 2012, not the one in June 2010 or the one that might well be coming today or tomorrow. The member for Griffith was quoted as saying, 'I am disappointed, deeply disappointed, at the government's decision to axe a scheme which I introduced.'

There are others in the higher education sector who have expressed disappointment about the decision. For example, when it was announced, then Chief Executive Officer of Universities Australia, Dr Glenn Withers, suggested the removal of the subsidy was 'disappointing' for students in these fields. For the most part, though, those who expressed disappointment over the decision have mainly been from student unions and the Greens—and, surprisingly, the member for Lyne, Mr Oakeshott. The member for Lyne vowed last year to fight this savings measure, in his response to MYEFO, suggesting that 'any cut to higher education funding, at a time when Australia's long-term strategy has education and innovation at its heart, is a concern'. The opportunity is there for the member for Lyne to come into the House, indicate that he will be voting against this measure, call a division and see what the result is. But I fear that the member for Lyne has forgotten that particular 'fight them on the beaches' speech that he made last year and that he has yet again rolled over for the government.

Alternatively, some stakeholders in the maths and science community have conceded that, while perhaps the incentive has not had the desired effect of boosting student enrolments, governments should maintain the search for sound policy solutions to increase the number of maths and science graduates—and that is a goal that both sides of the House share. In a rare moment of bipartisanship, both sides of the House agree we need more maths and science graduates. For example, Geoff Prince, Director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, argued shortly after the announcement that the HECS discount for mathematics, statistics and science should be replaced with more direct measures to encourage enrolments.

Given that there is mixed evidence on the success of this policy, the coalition has decided not to oppose the measure in this bill today. But I want to take this opportunity to talk about the need to reverse the poor state of mathematics and science education in Australia.

I flagged some issues around the government's lack of attention to the areas of maths and science toward the end of last year, as it had come to my attention that the government were increasingly failing to commit to a number of small school based programs designed to engage students in these areas. To me, this seems completely illogical. If evidence suggests that it is too late to get students interested in maths and science at university, common sense would suggest that we should concentrate even more effort in schools.

The coalition spoke out strongly in favour of continuing a number of school based programs and of engaging young people specifically in the areas of maths and science. For example, the government axed, without any sound reason, the coalition's PrimaryConnections program run by the Academy of Science. This initiative seeks to improve the quality and quantity of science teaching and learning in primary schools. I am sure if many members of the Labor Party had known about the importance of the PrimaryConnections program run by the Academy of Science, they would have spoken up against the axing in their Labor caucus, including the Acting Deputy Speaker.

The Leader of the Opposition pledged last year that if a coalition government were re-elected, we would spend $2 million to bring back the program. We recognised—as does the Australian Academy of Science and the 2011 Nobel laureate for physics, Professor Brian Schmidt—that it was not worth discontinuing this program, due to the risk of further decline in science education in schools. Brian Schmidt went even further to donate $100,000 of his own prize money to sustain the program. There is a man who has seriously put his money where his mouth is. The government's initial decision to cut funding for the PrimaryConnections program was raised by the coalition in the parliament on many occasions, including through a private member's motion—moved by the member for Forrest, Nola Marino, who is in the chamber today, demonstrating her very keen interest in science and maths education programs.

I also express deep concern about the government's initial lack of commitment to continue funding to the mathematics and science Olympiad programs, which have been operating since 1990 and which would be very familiar to members of this House who are good local members close to their electorates. The mathematics and informatics programs are run by Australian Mathematics Trust, and the physics, chemistry and biology Olympiads are run by Australian Science Innovations. Together, these programs engage tens of thousands of students each year and they have an international component where our most gifted and talented students have the opportunity to compete with students from around the world.

So concerned were we about the need to support our upcoming generation of maths and science innovators that the member for Indi and shadow minister for innovation, Sophie Mirabella, and I wrote a joint letter to the invisible minister for schools, Peter Garrett, and the then minister for innovation, Senator Kim Carr, urging them to continue the funding needed to support this program. It is interesting to note that both ministers did not bother to reply with an immediate confirmation to continue funding for these programs. In fact, the invisible minister for school education did not even bother to respond to the issues I raised with him in my letter. Instead, he handballed the issue of maintaining efforts for maths and science initiatives in our schools to the minister for innovation to respond to.

After ongoing concerns raised by the maths and science community towards the end of last year, the government finally responded. Professor Ian Chubb, Chief Scientist, was commissioned by the Prime Minister to advise on replacement measures following the abolition of the HECS discount, for students studying maths and science at university, by the end of February 2012. After receiving this report, the government finally announced, in response, a $54 million package in this budget to increase participation in schools and universities in the areas of maths and science.

As part of this year's budget package, the government recommitted to the very same programs the coalition had been arguing should never have been on the chopping block to begin with. The coalition recognises that it is essential to have a number of policy solutions in place, in schools, not only to engage students in maths and science but also to support our teachers so they can engage young people in the maths and science discipline and possibly spark within them a desire to pursue these areas in their tertiary education and careers.

Rather than putting these programs, like the PrimaryConnections program and the maths and science Olympiad programs, at risk and creating uncertainty around them, which took months to resolve and money to evaluate, with the appointment of Professor Ian Chubb to evaluate it, why did the government not just get it right in the first place? It would save taxpayers millions of dollars. More importantly, it would save the uncertainty for thousands of volunteers who look after the maths and science Olympiads around our schools when putting them through the misery of not knowing whether their program would be continued to be funded.

The government, whenever it has a choice between a good decision and a bad decision, unfailingly chooses the bad decision. There are many better people on the Labor Party backbench, like the two parliamentary secretaries sitting in front of us at the dispatch box—the member for Cunningham and the member for Ballarat—who would make much better decisions as ministers in this government than the minister for school education, Mr Garrett, the invisible minister for school education, who we never see and never hear from. We never hear him talking about education. He spends most of his time trying to hang onto his marginal seat of Kingsford Smith. If he does not have the time to talk about education he should get out of the way and let the member for Cunningham or the member for Ballarat take the job that they would be so much better suited to—that of minister for school education.

Ms Bird interjecting—

Australia needs mathematicians and scientists. The member for Cunningham said she would be happy to have the job! I think she would be good at the job.

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