Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009, which could possibly be referred to as the repeal of voluntary student unionism bill. Here we are talking about heartland Labor dogma. Here we see a Prime Minister doing his best imitation of Marty McFly, leaping into his ideological DeLorean and taking us screaming back to the days of compulsory funding for all sorts of non-core activities, many of which were merely fronts for pro-Labor activism. If Labor really cared about our university students they would concentrate on ensuring that taxpayer dollars spent on tertiary education went to the highest quality of core university responsibility—that is, providing a first-class education. However, instead of education, Labor is revisiting the old chestnut of non-core services, many of which are provided in the general community anyway, such as dentists, child care and sporting and other clubs. Why should university students be able to pay less for playing sport than other members of society?

The member for Wills mentioned a second-hand bookshop. In a captive market for these items, such as on a university campus, surely there could be some enterprising students who could run the bookshop. Maybe they could even—shock, horror!—make a profit. If not, perhaps some students who proclaim so loudly their desire to serve their fellow students could actually organise volunteers to man such a facility for just a few weeks at the beginning of each semester instead of demanding more money to do so. As for campus magazines, once again, where is the spirit of volunteering? Where are the groups of committed student activists who claim to care so much about the various causes they espouse? Can they not use their own time to write student papers, perhaps even getting advertising and then charging for these magazines so that people who are interested can buy the magazines and those who are not interested are not forced to pay for something they do not want? Oh, dear, we are back to that troublesome word again—choice.

Using Labor’s logic, female taxpayers should have to support Woman’s Day and the Australian Women’s Weekly. The member for Wills also seems to have difficulty with the definition of ‘compulsory’. Referring to the Howard government’s legislation, he makes the logically incomprehensible statement that it was compulsory to be voluntary. That just shows what a bind Labor is in with the concept of choice: ‘voluntary’ is the antonym of ‘compulsory’. Our argument is that students should have a choice as to whether they pay for these services, many of which they do not want and will never use. The excuse often floated is that many taxpayers pay for things they will not use or benefit from—people with no children helping to fund child care, for example. That is precisely the reason why many students also work, plus all students who contribute to the federal government coffers by way of GST should not have to pay twice for services, many of which they do not want and will not use.

The member for Wills also sententiously states that the Labor Party supports student organisations and their criticism of government, saying that student unions have been critical of HECS. It would be interesting to see how many issues of the Left were supported by student unions and how many of the Right, like voluntary student unionism, for example. I suggest that any research would illustrate that Labor’s policy comes, as usual, from self-interest rather than some phoney concern about the rights of students to self-expression.

The member for Wills then digs himself even further into an ideological hole of his party’s making by accusing the Liberal Party of paternalism. He claims that we are saying: ‘We know what’s best for you. You cannot manage your own affairs.’ That is like Courtney Love accusing Olivia Newton-John of being a bit trashy. It is of course the Labor Party which is telling students that they must contribute. It is Labor which is denying the right of students who want the choice of whether or not to contribute. On the other hand, it is the coalition which is saying to students, ‘You should have the choice.’ The justice and appropriateness of that policy was borne out by those darn pesky students who, when given choice, actually exercised it, and they left student guilds in droves.

In the face of this mass exodus, it would have been intelligent for those organisations to take a good hard look at themselves, to wonder, ‘If so many students leave or refuse to join, maybe, just maybe, we’re not giving them what they want.’ But, no, such introspection is not in the nature of these people. Clearly these organisations are just as paternalistic—or perhaps I should say dictatorial—as their parent body, the ALP. Instead of serving their clientele like any organisation worth its salt, they demand that the clientele pay them for services they clearly do not want. That is another classic characteristic of the Labor Party. Not only is the concept of choice beyond them; so is the concept of supply and demand.

The other big mistake the member for Wills makes is confusing paternalism, which is at least well intentioned, with coercion and dictatorship. When it involves money, it is verging on extortion. If the member for Wills and his colleagues had the slightest intention of even giving honesty a passing nod, they would admit that, as so many on this side of the House have stated, the Labor Party want to force all university students to pay for cosy little greenhouses where the next generation of Labor MPs will be nurtured and trained.

This legislation bears all the hallmarks of discredited and toxic socialist dogma, now resurfacing, masquerading as economically conservative Labor. We have already seen what a total fraud that claim was, and this was yet another wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing exercise by the Fabians opposite. The attack on students comes after the initial classic class-envy spite of banning Australian full-fee-paying students from Australian universities while still permitting overseas full-fee-paying students—once again, an example of this coercive, dictatorial, antichoice government actively attacking just one section of our society, those who wish to get an education and are prepared to pay for it.

In truth, as columnist Paul Sheehan said recently, this government is merely a pale version of Labor in the 1970s, ‘Whitlam-lite’. Government members clearly long for the heady days when student unions, just like trade unions, could force unwilling and in many cases Liberal-voting students and workers to fund left-wing campaigns. Those campaigns had nothing to do with freedom of expression or fair political discourse and everything to do with getting as many groups as possible, via forced funding, to push Labor ideology. The government longs for the return of the glory days when millions of taxpayers’ dollars went via left-wing militant student unions straight to the Labor cause, the halcyon era of bussing students to protests against coalition governments, the happier times of student unions’ hard-Left political campaigns when anti-logging, anti-US, anti-Liberal, anti-family, anti-Israel, pro-drugs posters and propaganda adorned every campus.

The member for Werriwa speaks about supporting various amenities and services essential to students. He lists many services which have been cut but omits to mention that many of these services are available elsewhere—health, employment, child care et cetera. I reiterate: why should students have to pay twice for services which all Australians, including the Prime Minister’s frequently evoked working families, should have access to, paid for via the taxation system? The answer is that these services are a smokescreen for the real reason for Labor’s bill: the revitalisation of the militant activism seen in the seventies and eighties. The member for Werriwa invites members on his side of the House to relate their own experiences of university.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, your side of the House.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am quite happy to relate my experiences. There were services that I was quite happy to pay for, such as the gym and the tennis court. Incidentally, for example, you had to pay for those services anyway at Melbourne university. You had to pay $4 an hour for the use of the tennis court—that was nearly 20 years ago. But I was not happy about paying fees for student newspapers and the various societies and so on that I had no interest whatsoever in joining. My wife was a student at Deakin University. However, she was a student at Deakin University in Perth, and it is an awfully long way to fly from Perth to Geelong to get access to student services and the various guild organisations and so on, yet she had to pay for it.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Have a look at the legislation.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just relating what has happened in the past; these are experiences that we had. I also found it interesting that a member of parliament would admit that virtually all members in this House are university educated, thereby acknowledging that the good old days, when the Labor Party genuinely represented blue-collar workers, are long gone. The corollary of Labor’s relentless drive for more and more young people to consider a university education as their right, no matter what their abilities were, is the implication that blue-collar workers were somehow failures because they were not good enough or chose not to attend university. That is a large part of the reason we are seeing a trade shortage in this country. Young people were brainwashed into thinking that they should all go on to university no matter whether it was suitable for their abilities or whether there was a need for those graduates. The universities were happy to go along with the sentiment because it meant more students and more funding.

If Labor really cared about universities, students and the standard of education, they would be more interested in quality rather than quantity. Members on this side have no hesitation in supporting extra funding for universities when it ensures a better quality of education—better libraries, better staff and better laboratories and other resources. Despite the member for Werriwa’s assertions, university sporting activity is not, as he puts it, essential for university life unless you are doing a sports related degree. Many students that are active in sports never join a university sporting club. That is their choice—and there is that word again: ‘choice’, which presents so many problems for Labor. Getting a Labor member to freely and willingly enunciate the word ‘choice’ in this context is as hard as getting the Fonz from Happy Days to say the word ‘wrong’. The member for Werriwa also said that food and beverage services were essential to university life. I would have thought that anyone with the slightest degree of business acumen having a captive clientele of the order quoted by the member in his speech, many of whom have time between lectures and tutorials to meet and have something to eat or drink, ought to be able to make a profit from a business selling food and drinks. He reaches the apogee of his argument with a startling claim that money creates diversity. It certainly did not create a diversity of opinion, because, as I have already said, in the heyday of forced funding for student organisations, all the political produce of student union magazines et cetera was of the Left, if not the extreme Left.

However, if the government genuinely believes in supporting these services—counselling, employment et cetera—let them specify funding for these purposes as the Howard government did. That would prove the government is genuine in its intentions and not just interested in taxing students to fund left-wing activism. Sadly, I think anyone holding their breath waiting for that burst of honesty would expire long before it eventuated.

The member for Kingston goes even further with the essential services line of argument, stating that, at some regional and rural campuses, students have no alternative place to go for basic services such as health services. If that is truly the case, surely a competent and caring government would ensure the broader community, not just students, had all the services they needed.

In summary, this bill is all about using the mainly peripheral activities adjunct to the universities core raison d’etre as a backdoor way of re-establishing the slush funds to fund left-wing organisations. In doing this, Labor shows that it has no interest in ordinary students, many of whom struggle to meet the cost of educating themselves, especially in this economic climate. Labor claims this bill is to help students. It is funny how help from the Labor Party usually ends up costing everyone so much more money. That has been the track record of Labor over the past several decades. The only difference now is the amount of money Labor policies are costing taxpayers, or, in this case, students.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009. Thankfully, this bill is about breathing life back into Australia’s higher education sector. It comes as no surprise to members on this side of the House that the coalition’s approach to voluntary student unionism ripped the heart out of Australia’s universities.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Jensen interjecting

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is ironic when we hear from people with PhDs obtained at these universities. These were the very beneficiaries of Labor’s commitment to education, yet one of the first things they did when they were in power was to attack universities.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No gratitude.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No gratitude at all. The government’s review of the impacts of VSU found that universities had been left $170 million out of pocket and, as a result, vital student services such as health, counselling, child care and welfare support services were reduced or cut.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Jensen interjecting

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those opposite talk about newspapers and the like. But the reality for those who really know what goes on at universities is that health, counselling, child care and welfare services are about saving lives. So many people have troubled times when they go from school to university and they need someone to reach out to them via a counselling service. Ripping $170 million out of the universities has impacted on so many lives and, unfortunately, in terms of the economic analysis, so many people have not gone on to productive careers because it was not possible to offer them a helping hand because of the Howard government’s cruel approach to university students. The Howard approach was to treat universities like sausage factories. But university students are human and need to be treated accordingly. Thousands of employment opportunities for students were also abolished. This also impacted on academic services as universities have been forced to direct funds out of research and teaching to fund services and amenities. That is really the biggest crime. Universities understand that they serve human beings—not widgets or economic units, but people who need to be supported. Because they have to support people, they have to take funds away from research and teaching—those core services that those opposite talk about.

Universities are already under significant financial pressure after nearly 12 long years of neglect where we saw funding ripped out of the higher education sector. The OECD’s Education at a glance 2007 report found that public investment by the Howard-Costello government in tertiary education between 1995 and 2004 declined by four per cent, while in all other OECD countries it increased by an average of 49 per cent. That is shameful, especially when, as the member for Tangney pointed out, so many of the people opposite benefited from the university system. The Howard government has many shameful things on its copybook, but to decrease university funding by four per cent is surely one of the most significant.

Unlike the Howard government, the Rudd Labor government has a long-term, enduring commitment to the importance of higher education and our universities. We have a plan for the future. We believe that education is the way to go. It is not a temporary thing. Education and technology are the way forward for this government. So blinded were the Liberal Party by their ideological opposition to student unions—and we certainly saw how deep that feeling was in the previous presentation by the member for Tangney—that they refused to explore credible alternatives and even ignored the calls from the National Party to allow universities to implement a compulsory student services fee. Barnaby Joyce lives in my home town.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek to make an intervention.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member for Moreton accept the question?

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. The Liberal Party even ignored the calls of the Nationals to allow universities to implement a compulsory student services fee. Senator Barnaby Joyce understands. He understands how important regional universities are, and I thought the member opposite would as well.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He must have cared.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He cares. He has a heart. He is a decent guy. He lives in rural Queensland and understands what it is like and how important it is to support people, especially from the bush, which is my experience as well. But the Liberal Party rejected the advice not only of Barnaby Joyce but also of experts like the University of Sydney’s vice-chancellor, Professor Gavin Brown. Following the passing of the VSU legislation back in 2005, Professor Brown said:

I’m afraid that it’s a temporary victory for the redneck Philistines …

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hayes interjecting

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you want me to repeat that, Member for Werriwa? He said:

I’m afraid that it’s a temporary victory for the redneck Philistines …

He went on:

It will be seriously damaging to Australia’s international reputation. The fact that no compromise was reached on providing an amenities fee and the emphasis was placed on the idea that the only valid thing that you learn in a university is inside the classroom.

It was very short sighted and very cold hearted. I would have expected more from educated people, but obviously that was not the case. The Liberal Party ignored Barnaby Joyce and ignored Sydney university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Gavin Brown. They thought they knew better than university leaders and staff about how to run their institutions.

We saw it today in the comments of the member for Tangney, and I have heard it in parliament: all of those slights from their younger days, those grudges that they bear from when they were juveniles—all of those things were carried on into the cabinet room. All of those slights from campuses from their youth were carried into the cabinet room in the Howard-Costello government. You see it when you see the member for Higgins, Peter Costello, and Mrs Mirabella—so many things are all about slights from when they were upset at university. I say: let it go; move on.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Grow up.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Grow up, yes. Have a slightly different approach. But, no, they carried it on into the cabinet room, and so we have that shameful legacy where, compared to other OECD countries that went ahead by, say, 50 per cent, we declined by four per cent.

The Rudd government is about restoring fairness and balance to ensure that student amenities and services are sustainable into the future. This bill gives universities the option—there is that word: ‘option’—to collect a compulsory student services fee of up to $250 per year from 1 July this year, just in time for next semester. Importantly, this fee will be channelled directly into student services, and universities will be able to decide whether to charge the fee at all—as I said, up to $250—and, if they do charge it, how much it will be. So we do understand the word ‘choice’ well and truly but we also understand that university students are humans and need to be cared for.

Guidelines will be developed to give universities a clear outline of the range of services and amenities the fee can and cannot be used for. So ignore the rants of those opposite, who are revisiting the slights and grudges from their university days—this is all about fairness and making sure the fees are used for proper purposes. I understand consultation is underway on these guidelines. We expect to see the money go towards services like child care, health care, sports and student advocacy services. So ignore the list put forward by those opposite; this is fair dinkum and will look after university students.

This bill will also introduce national student representation and advocacy protocols to ensure that university students have representation on university boards, giving students a voice on campus. If you talk to anyone at Griffith University, in my electorate, they will tell you the previous government’s stance had a negative impact on student services. Even the student union was forced to shut down, putting an end to some crucial student services. As I said earlier, unfortunately such an event can seriously damage people’s lives.

Thinking back to my university days, I do say, without any grudge or anything like, that I was not involved in student unions at all. But I think of the people that, but for a helping hand, would have dropped out of university altogether—people that but for a bit of child care would not have been able to access university at all. Over the last couple of weeks, in the light of this pending legislation, I have spoken to a number of students at Griffith University. Even when they were busy with orientation week, they were only too keen to talk about this bill because they know that any fee imposed by the university will go directly to student services. One student told me:

It is going to mean that all students will again have access to counselling services, health services, and academic advocacy.

And under the guidelines, students will have say in the running of their university at the highest levels.

This bill will inject a bit of heart back into campus life by reinvigorating sports and special interest clubs and other services. It is basically about ensuring that there is learning with soul. The previous speaker, the member for Tangney, Dr Jensen, seems to think that learning is just about the empirical acquisition of content. Those days are long gone—the days of just flipping back the head and pouring in the content, and saying that is all you need to get by in the world, are long gone. The information age is now here. We need to be able to process things, and we realise that sports and special interest clubs and all those other activities make for much better students. The days of the sage on the stage are gone. It is now, like teaching, about the guide on the side.

This bill before the House requires higher education providers funded through the Commonwealth Grant Scheme to ensure that students have access to student support services. So you could not put all the money into, say, a rugby union club or something like that; you actually have to provide a range of services to ensure that everyone is supported.

I also welcome the measures in this bill to ensure that the fee is not an added burden to struggling students. Eligible students will be able to take out a loan, similar to HECS, that will enable them to pay their fee. Obviously, the fee will be payable later, once their income improves, as so often happens when people go to university—it does tend to give people the ability to access a higher income bracket.

Part-time students will also be taken into account. Under the guidelines, part-time students will be charged less than the maximum fee, and some will have no charge at all. I would imagine that for some of the external students that will be the case. I should declare an interest here in that my wife is in her last year of law as an external and part-time student at Queensland University of Technology. I should have declared that upfront, I guess. Either way, I am very supportive of this legislation.

I understand that there are some, certainly in the student community, who do not think that this bill goes far enough. I have certainly had representations along those lines in my office, both here and in Brisbane. I am sorry that this legislation is not all things to all people but, like so much of the Rudd government legislation, it is about balance. It is about doing the right thing for the majority of people and it is about restoring common sense to our interactions with people rather than treating them as mere economic units.

As I said, this is a balanced approach and is not a return to compulsory student unionism. This bill makes no change to proposed section 19-37 (1) of the act, which prohibits universities from requiring a student to join a student organisation. The Rudd government believes that students should not be forced to pay over-the-top, upfront fees but is committed to ensuring that university students have access to vital services on campus. I remind those opposite, again, that this will mean that lives can be saved. The pressures of moving from school to university, from the bush to the city, can sometimes be too much, especially for country kids, I would suggest. So they do need a helping hand. They are vital services. I strongly support the approach taken by the Deputy Prime Minister in this bill and I believe that a reasonable contribution will be good for students and for universities.

We should not forget that last year the Rudd government announced funding of $500 million for the Better Universities Renewal Fund to support IT, science labs and other laboratories, libraries and other student amenities, as well as $24 million to increase childcare assistance for parents who are studying at university or TAFE. Obviously, this measure is crucial to so many women in giving them an opportunity to change their economic circumstances or to have a career path. I shudder to think of the number of fine minds that might have been denied a chance to have a career but for the support that is given through child care at universities.

This bill also amends the Higher Education Support Act to improve the privacy standards for tertiary admission centres. Relevant student information that is shared between the government, higher education providers and tertiary admission centres will be subject to strict privacy requirements. This is a simple amendment to ensure that the privacy rights of students are protected. It is important that this information is handled delicately. Anyone who can recall their first round of university offers when they left high school will recall that it is an incredibly exciting time—and obviously a sad time for some people—so it is important that we do the right thing with this information to ensure it is not handled incorrectly. Any fair-minded, intelligent person, whether or not they went to university, would understand that the legislation before the House gets the balance right. It ensures that students will have access to the services they need on campus, without imposing a hefty financial burden on those who cannot afford it. As I said, there is a HECS style support available.

This legislation is about hope and about ensuring that we protect the jobs of the next generation and beyond. As I said, those opposite whom I have heard in this debate really need to get rid of some of that baggage that they acquired at university. I do not know what went on in those Liberal clubs at universities, but there are obviously too many slights, too many grudges. People need to move on—

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And grow up!

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right. I take that injection from the member for Werriwa. They need to forget the slights, forgo the grudges and move on and join me in commending the bill to the House.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am disappointed that my good friend the member for Moreton did not take my interjection. He was asking many questions during his contribution today on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009, but the question I want to ask him is a question that the government has not asked: what do the students think about this?

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I told you. You should have listened to my speech!

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was not here all the time. What do the students think about this? I can tell you, Member for Moreton, that the overwhelming majority of students do not want to pay this fee, this compulsory tax. As evidence of that, I have three independent former students with me in the parliament this morning, Dillon, Christina and Amelia, who are young Australian scientists and part of Science Meets Parliament, which we all know about. When I talked to them, they were certainly unhappy at having to pay a compulsory fee.

What is happening with this fee is worse than that. Why doesn’t it surprise me that it just means more debt for students? The Labor Party went to the last election saying: ‘We are economic conservatives. We are more conservative than the Howard government.’ Within a year and a bit, the Labor Party has already spent the surplus of the Howard government and gone into massive debt for our kids to pay off, for these young people in the parliament today to pay in future years. We will all benefit; our kids will pay the debt. To think that we are now heading towards $200,000 million worth of debt in the country is extraordinary.

Think about the Queensland Labor government and what they have done to our state, my state. Think about what they have done.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hayes interjecting

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Think about this, Member for Werriwa. They have now racked up $74 billion of debt. I remind you that the Howard government took 10 years, with the resources of the Commonwealth of Australia, to pay off $96 billion. How on earth is the Queensland government ever going to pay off $74 billion, with its resources? The answer is: it will not. Queensland will be in debt forever, and that is the legacy of the Australian Labor Party in our state. That is an awful legacy to leave our kids. ‘We’ll have a party today and let somebody else pay it off tomorrow.’ We need to take tough decisions in this country—it is a difficult time—but the answer is not more debt; the answer is to pay off your debt, to clear your debt. Most prudent households are doing exactly that at this time.

I will get back to the bill. Since the introduction of voluntary student unionism under the Howard government, students have saved, on average, $246 a year. In times of economic uncertainty, when students face increasing conflict balancing paid work and study, the imposition of an additional tax serves only to increase their financial strain. This bill does not consider the individual wishes of the student—and that is the point I was making earlier. If you do a poll on any campus, you will find that 85 per cent of students do not want to pay this fee. This bill does not prevent the use of students’ money on extremist political causes. This is a broken promise to the tertiary students of Australia. We in the Liberal Party are opposed to this bill.

The Prime Minister calls the level of student debt a national disgrace, yet he intends to increase the debt. How hypocritical is that? He intends to increase it, regardless of the students’ financial capacity and regardless of the services they individually use. They in fact may never use any of the services, but they are forced to pay. The government has broken its promise to students. In May 2007 Stephen Smith, the then shadow minister for education, stated explicitly that he was not contemplating a compulsory amenities fee for students, including any HECS arrangements. I know that will make my Labor colleagues uncomfortable today, but it is the truth of the matter. There was a commitment that there would not be a compulsory amenities fee and there would not be any HECS arrangements. Yet that is what this bill proposes.

Labor have broken their promise to one million university students. They decry student debt on the one hand and increase it on the other. The bill takes away from students the freedom of choice given by the voluntary student unionism legislation of the Howard government. As a nation we are entering a time of financial uncertainty and instability. Any measure to increase student debt during such times, through a compulsory levy measure, is a disgrace. Universities are vibrant places, where the use of services and participation in campus life greatly enhance the experience of students. The experience, however, is in no way dependent on the payment of an additional compulsory fee. Since the introduction of voluntary student unionism, students have been able to use their financial resources in areas most applicable to them. They have the choice. This user-pays system provides the best option for students and gives them that freedom of choice.

This bill takes away that sort of freedom. According to its provisions, there is no necessary correlation between what the students pay and what services they use. Section 19-37 5A of the bill defines a student services and amenities fee as an amount paid ‘regardless of whether the person chooses to use any of those amenities and services’. Pay up whether you use it or not. That is hardly the real world. What would happen if we ran our households like that, if you had to pay for something that you were not going to use? It is an extraordinary measure. Coercing students into a payment irrespective of the services they use is fundamentally inequitable. I am pleased to see that the member for Leichhardt has joined us. I am hoping that he will support the students of James Cook University in our respective electorates in relation to their absolute abhorrence of this particular bill. I will be interested to see whether the member for Leichhardt is able to agree with me. If he is not, I am sure that the students of James Cook University will note that and mark him down accordingly.

Coercing students into the payment irrespective of the services they use is inequitable. Where voluntary student unionism gives students a choice as to which services and activities they contribute to and are involved in, this bill takes it away. The bill would have an inequitable and unfair effect on students and would take away the freedom of choice brought about by voluntary student unionism. A mandated fee does not consider the difference between individual students such as the amount of time they spend on campus. An undergraduate student engaged in full-time study may spend a great deal of time on the university campus every week using and participating in a number of services and activities. In contrast, a mature-age part-time student who works during the day and therefore attends classes mainly at night will in all likelihood use far fewer university facilities and services. To an even greater extent a distance education student may only have the opportunity to use university campus services, which would be funded by the compulsory levy, on one or two occasions through a semester. Charging all three student segments the same flat services fee, surely, the Labor Party would have to agree, causes great inequality.

Students are being kept in the dark by the Rudd government. Students have not been told which services would receive the collected tax. The services which will be eligible for funding will be outlined in guidelines after the bill passes. We do not know until the bill passes what services they are. This gives students no opportunity to examine the types of services they will be forced to financially support before the bill passes. The notion that this government could impose a tax on students without first informing them of how it will be spent is outrageous. It ignores students, and this is the point that I started with when I began this contribution. The government has not asked students what they think about it. If part of the collected levy is to be used for associations or activities that are not located on campus or are not substantially used by students, the students deserve to know. The government intends to take away the choice a student currently has in deciding which services and activities to financially support on a user-pays basis. By not informing them what they would be mandated to support, the government is betraying students, leaving them uninformed about where their money will be spent. Students have not been told what will be covered under the student services and amenities fee guidelines. Students have not been told what the government will be making them pay for and whether they will in any way benefit.

The introduction of a mandatory amenities fee does not guarantee that every service and activity offered at universities will be funded. Where does that leave the student who pays the $250 a year and then has to pay for all the activities they personally wish to be involved in but which are not given the extra funding? It leaves them out of pocket twice over. The issue is not that the students should not pay to be involved in a specific group such as a sporting group; the issue is that the student is already $250 worse off when they decide the sporting group is of interest to them.

How can the government claim to be concerned with student poverty and levels of student debt when, through this bill, they are introducing an additional financial burden on students? The proposed service levy ignores the personal choices of individual students. Since the introduction of VSU, there have been claims of student services collapsing and of student unions and student associations on the brink of ruin. Well, it has not happened at James Cook University. The student services have continued. In fact, the students have been much happier with the flexible arrangement that was given to them under the former government. Now the iron and taxing fist of the Labor Party will again descend on students at my university in Townsville.

Some services that once were funded by compulsory student union fees are now frequently supported by the university itself, by government funding or by private sector support. Other services which have always received such support have similarly not collapsed. Indeed, the Australian Liberal Students Federation have indicated to me that they are aware of several student unions which have gone so far as to deliberately run a budget deficit in order to claim voluntary student unionism is irresponsible. Such practices show one of the ways in which a number of student unions do not operate in the best interests of their students, preferring their own political agenda to providing real support for the students they purport to represent.

I speak about James Cook University because it is in my patch. It is interesting that, under the previous arrangement, when there was a compulsory student services fee, the refectory there ran at an enormous loss, despite getting all of the support from the compulsory fee—an enormous loss! And, when the compulsory fee was wiped out, guess what? The refectory ran on a commercial basis, its prices came down, and it made a profit! How could the government be now trying to reimpose a fee that results in that kind of operation of the student refectory? Higher costs, more debt, bigger taxes—what surprises me about the Labor Party?

The ALSF have provided information detailing specifically how the Melbourne University Student Union diverted $18,000 earmarked for its clubs and societies to pay an additional $15,000 to the National Union of Students, an organisation which, in the past, has made large donations to political causes. That cannot be denied. That a student would have no say in the direction of their frequently limited financial resources is abhorrent. In 2004, the NUS spent $250,000 campaigning against the re-election of the Howard government. How would you be if you were a student and your fees were compulsorily used to campaign against one political party or another? I think that that is wrong. The Howard government made that decision, and that is why we went for VSU and that is why we will be voting against this particular bill when it comes time to vote.

During a time when compulsory student unionism remained, students’ money was being used for this political purpose without their consent. There was no mechanism for any university student who disagreed with such political views to challenge the donation of money from their university to the NUS. The government claim that they can redress this with clause 19-38(1) of the bill, prohibiting the collected money being spent to support a political party or the election of someone to local, state or federal government. This clause, however, merely applies to student unions or organisations directly supporting political parties or election campaigns, as so flagrantly happened in 2004. There are many other ways in which student unions could spend the money collected from students on political purposes: campaigns against specific pieces of legislation or individuals, or donations to an external group, such as a trade union, to then be used for political purposes could still occur. Under this bill, the freedom of students to choose the political causes, if any, they support and donate to is being revoked. The notion that students could be forced to pay a contribution which may end up funding a political purpose that they are actively opposed to is disgraceful.

I was recently speaking to a student from the Australian National University who told me about an event in 2004 at which the student association at that university provided an effigy of John Howard for students to hit. This was an organised student association event. This was at a time before voluntary student unionism and thus a time before students could choose not to fund such a partisan political stunt. It was at a time when students had to pay hundreds of dollars a year in compulsory union fees which funded such events, regardless of their personal opinion. That is horrifying. I guess a similar situation would occur if the trade union levy on Labor members of parliament were used to support the Liberal Party, with no right to say, ‘I don’t want that money being used to support the Liberal Party.’ It would be the same thing in reverse. That is why we should not be allowing this bill to go through the parliament. For a student who wanted to stand up and protest about their money being spent on effigies, there was no recourse. This is the state that the Rudd government’s student services and amenity fees seeks to return to. The government will not even provide a detailed list of where the money collected from students would be spent. If students wish to hold such events they should be free to do so. They should not, however, be forced to make yearly payments to fund things that they may be individually opposed to.

It was a landmark occasion when the Howard government passed legislation ensuring VSU in 2005. I certainly voted for it; I was proud to stand up and vote for it. The students at James Cook University supported me overwhelmingly in voting for that legislation—and, by the way, in elections I always win the university booth as well, even though universities are traditionally perhaps not supportive of my side of politics. I am pleased that the students of James Cook University have the good sense to support a coalition candidate. The effects of this legislation have seen students save money. Students at James Cook have saved a minimum of $235 per annum. At the time, Labor strongly opposed voluntary student unionism. With organisations such as the NUS spending a quarter of a million dollars on campaigning against the Howard government, it is not hard to see why. The Labor Party significantly profited from the regime of compulsory student unionism on university campuses. It now seeks to return to receiving such support. Despite claiming the money will not be used to support political parties, this provision would apply only to direct payment to a party. There is no protection from the countless other ways that students’ funds could be used in this manner.

It is important to remember that services for students at university campuses have not collapsed; far from it, in fact. The allocation and source of their funding and their organisational structure may have altered but they remain in force and they remain viable and active. Medical and counselling services are still available at most universities. For example, the ANU provides a bulk-billing medical centre for students. A free counselling service is also available to students. Contrary to exaggerated claims that voluntary student unionism would strip such facilities of all funds, they remain available and accessible to students. When the government says its compulsory tax on students is necessary to reintroduce services, it ignores the fact they never disappeared in the first place.

Many university students suffer financial strain during the course of their studies. During this economic crisis I fear for the students being forced to pay this additional money and I fear for their future lives when they have to pay it back, with further debt around their neck. Now is not the time to be going into further debt. Now is not the time to saddle students with a future liability. I appeal to the Labor Party to not take this bill forward but to listen to the students and hear their views. Accordingly, I will vote against this legislation.

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009. This debate highlights the stark differences between the Rudd government and the opposition: a government that is making practical changes and responding to the needs of the Australian community and an opposition that is ideologically focused, whether on Work Choices or still on student union ballots that went on in the seventies and eighties. We are a government committed to building an education revolution, from the early childhood sector through to primary schools, with our Building the Education Revolution that we announced recently with our Nation Building and Jobs Plan, through to high schools with our trade training centres, through to the VET sector and through to universities with our commitments there. This legislation is an important part of the overall education support and investment that we are making.

The bill establishes practical measures to support students at universities and introduces a VET FEE-HELP scheme to support more students studying diplomas and advanced diplomas. The legislation is about allowing universities to implement a student services fee of up to $250, and this can be indexed annually going forward. It allows universities to do that.

The government is very practical about this. It recognises that we are in some difficult economic times and that people may have some difficulty paying this fee. That is why students who have difficulty paying it will be able to access assistance through a new HECS-style loan component of the Higher Education Loan Program, Services and Amenities HELP. In implementing this charge, the university will have an ability to vary the charge depending on whether students are full-time, external or part-time. I studied at university as a full-time student, and as an external student and as a part-time student. Back when I studied in the 1980s, do you know what the university used to do? The university charged a different services rate depending on whether you were an external student, a part-time student or a full-time student. But that is not what the opposition are saying, because they are only interested in a scare campaign on these issues. Universities will take a practical approach to this, as the government has. They want to see this services fee reintroduced.

We have made very clear in our outline on this legislation that the fee will be used to provide important services including welfare programs, counselling, student advice and support, sport and recreation and other important services, in some instances, like child care. These are important services and, sadly, universities—as the member for Herbert and others opposite have pointed out—have continued to provide those services. But they have done that by taking money away from teaching and research to prop up services that are critically important to the universities. They recognise that. That is why, generally, universities did not support the coalition when they implemented their VSU legislation.

This legislation, as I said, is not about an ideological agenda of reintroducing compulsory student union fees, as the opposition continues to seek to assert. It is not about an ideological agenda of introducing student union fees or student association fees. They are expressly not part of the student services charge. The minister has made that clear and members on this side of the chamber continue to make that clear, but members opposite continue to run a scare campaign. Those opposite bring up historical anecdotes from the 1970s or 1980s or even, in recent contributions from the member for Herbert, from that very bipartisan group, the Liberal students association, about the National Union of Students getting moneys in this way. This bill expressly prevents that happening. We need to be honest and upfront about this bill. This bill expressly prevents that happening. It is about providing for a student services charge of up to $250 to provide welfare services and sport and recreation—those basic services that all universities see as core business for themselves in running a campus that has a community and environment that supports research and supports students getting a decent education.

As I have said, this legislation expressly prevents these charges being used for political purposes. That may not be in the opposition’s speaking notes, but they might want to have a look at the legislation and the actualities in relation to this legislation. The charge can only be used for services as outlined in the guidelines. We made clear that the sorts of things I have already mentioned—we are still doing consultation on the guidelines—cannot be used for student representation services. It expressly prevents that. The bill does provide a framework where we will have student representation at universities, but let us not confuse the two. The $250 services charge cannot be used for that. That is expressly outlined—

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The funds are administered by the universities.

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and the funds are administered by the university. So let us not get confused about that. Let us not get confused by the ideological agenda that the opposition is trying to run on this bill. In parliament this week one of the big debates that is going on is about our desire to kill and bury Work Choices—to make sure that Work Choices is dead and buried, as the Leader of the Opposition said it would be when he became leader. That reminds me that not only is the opposition still ideologically committed to Work Choices, they are still ideologically committed to attacking and having these sorts of debates about student associations and student unions.

We have moved on. The Australian community has moved on. People want to see fair workplace relations laws and, in the same way, they want to see universities able to responsibly implement a student services charge to provide welfare services, support and recreation services and, if necessary, childcare and those sorts of basic services that a decent community needs—a community that universities want to be able to support through this charge.

I was lucky enough to go to the University of Queensland and study agricultural science. As I mentioned earlier, I have had experience in paying the student services charge. We had a gym at university and there were a range of other activities. At one stage I had a dispute with a lecturer over a result that I got and knew that I could get some support and advice in relation to that. They are useful and worthwhile services that universities need to provide. Welfare and support services for students who may be struggling are very important. They are certainly services that I recognise were important when I was at university. Similarly, being able to go to a gym, play sport and have those sorts of recreation activities coordinated at university is very important. They save the taxpayer money in the long run. We know that diabetes, heart disease and obesity are real problems for our society, and enabling universities to not have to take money away from teaching and research to provide these services is worthwhile, and that is what this legislation seeks to achieve.

I represent the great seat of Leichhardt—I come from Cairns—and there is Cape York and the Torres Strait. Within my electorate we also have a fantastic university in James Cook University. There is a fantastic campus up there. In a recent ranking of the world’s top 500 universities, JCU was one of only 15 Australian universities listed. It has a particular reputation in the biological research area, whether that is about the Great Barrier Reef or tropical rainforests; it has a fantastic medical school that is producing some world-class graduates; and it has a great humanities area as well that is being developed through some investments by the government. There are 3½ thousand students at James Cook University and about 600 staff. Some of the courses offered at the university include dentistry, nursing, midwifery, nutrition, sport and exercise science, Indigenous studies, creative arts and education. The services that we are talking about are critically important to students studying in these fields.

One of the other issues that is critical, particularly in relation to this legislation, to a university like James Cook University is that we have a very high proportion of students studying who are the first children in their family to go to university, so they do not have a history of attendance at university. Some of them come from Cape York or the Torres Strait and may have come from difficult backgrounds. When the VSU debate was originally going on, when the coalition introduced their draconian, ideology driven legislation to seek to abolish the fee and ban student associations and student unionism effectively, we recognised that, particularly at James Cook University, where students had come from these difficult backgrounds, there was a need for the welfare and other support services.

There is a need to create a community at James Cook University. People can obviously study, learn and research, but they also need to feel that they are in an environment where they are part of a community. The other services—whether it is sport, recreation, child care, having a place to gather, talk and feel as though you are part of a community, having proper representation and involvement of students within the life of the university—are critical, and they are all things that this bill seeks to reintroduce to allow James Cook University to provide them. Creating a community through the provision of these services would allow them—as they have been doing, as the member for Herbert pointed out—to continue to provide many of these services but not have to take money away from their teaching or research funds in order to do so.

There were significant impacts at James Cook University from the former government’s legislation. With the changes, as I have said, they had been able to meet some services but there were significant cuts to services at James Cook University, including the childcare centre and some other services. Fifteen jobs were lost when the VSU legislation came in, some welfare services ceased and James Cook University diverted money from teaching and research to maintain some of these services because they recognised that many students at JCU needed particular support. The students travel long distances and they want to become part of a community that these important services provide. Also, if they are struggling and have difficulties, they need to be able to get proper support, whether it is welfare, counselling or advice on academic issues. That can be provided now if we pass this legislation through the House and the Senate.

I have spoken to my local student association about some of these issues and, if we pass this legislation, the university will be able to reimplement a student services charge of up to $250. I expect universities will have different charges for full-time, part-time and external students, given that that is what happened in the past. They will be able to use this fee to reintroduce many of these services. I understand that at JCU they plan to provide greater support in welfare services. They will be able to boost and reinvigorate their sports and recreation program, which, as I said, is particularly important in creating a community. That boost will ensure we are tackling some of the issues in the broader community, whether it is heart disease, diabetes or obesity. I think sport and recreation is one of the critically important programs at universities and schools to help with lifestyle choices that are good for people in their broader lives, as well as giving them the fundamentally good education that James Cook University provides. JCU will also see whether they should provide some childcare services. That will be up to the university in consultation with their students and their students’ association to make those decisions. That is right and proper.

Some members opposite would suggest that we have not said what this fee is going to be used for and that it is going to be taken away for some sort of political lobbying. We think it is appropriate that the decision should be left to individual universities to decide the best way to utilise these funds if they implement this fee. It is the universities who can make the best decision about what level of fee they can introduce, up to the $250, which can be indexed annually. As I said, this is not about compulsory student unionism as contended by the opposition; it is not about the reintroduction of that.

The bill also makes some technical changes in relation to tertiary admission centres. To get to university—and I am sure this varies in different states—you apply through a tertiary admissions centre. Admissions centres need to communicate with universities about students who are applying and they need to swap information with each other. This legislation will streamline those processes and make the privacy obligations of admissions centres more effectively fit with those of universities. It will also be useful in streamlining the operations of the university system and enabling young people to get into university.

The bill also introduces VET FEE-HELP, which is a HECS style system for people who are undertaking diploma and advanced diploma VET courses. Students undertaking VET public courses in diploma and advanced diploma areas decreased from 197,000 in 2002 to 165,000 in 2007. Under the former government, students undertaking diploma and advanced diploma courses decreased in number between 2002 and 2007 from 197,000 to 165,000. What was one of the main things we heard? I heard it, I am sure opposition members heard it and I am sure the member for Melbourne Ports heard it. What were people talking about? It was the skills crisis—the shortage of skilled people in trades and other areas such as nursing. These were the areas of diploma and advanced diploma courses that people could undertake to help find jobs.

What did we have under the former government? We had a decline in people undertaking these courses. One of the reasons we have had a decline is fees came in and it became less affordable for people to do courses. The Rudd government is very committed to ensuring that people have the opportunity to get a decent education, and if they cannot afford it then VET FEE-HELP will enable them to study further and provide them with an opportunity to do these courses. This will mean a reverse in the huge skills shortages left to us by the former government. The Rudd government in partnership with the states through COAG is determined to tackle these skills shortages in this country. This is a good example of a practical measure that we are providing through this legislation—which clearly the opposition is going to vote against—to provide for and support people wanting to do more diploma and advanced diploma courses in the VET area. Allowing students to access a HECS style loan scheme for VET courses will enable many more students to study at this level, improving their skills and improving their employment options.

In some occupations, such as enrolled nursing in health and community services regulated by state and territory nursing boards, the diploma course is the minimum qualification. We have heard about skills shortages. I know many of the aged-care centres in my electorate are looking for more enrolled nurses. What we are going to do is provide some help for people who want to study in those areas through a VET FEE-HELP scheme. Wouldn’t you think that was a good idea? We certainly do. Does the opposition? I do not think so.

In the business and construction area, diplomas and advanced diplomas allow people to go beyond the trades and technical area. They can move into roles in project management, financial estimating and other managerial roles. So in the construction area, the diplomas and advanced diplomas allow people to move from the trades area into more managerial areas and to advance their technical expertise and knowledge as part of the construction industry. I think that is a great idea. I think it is a great role for this legislation to provide support for those people, particularly as I am sure many would be mature-age students who want to go back and gain greater qualifications through a diploma and advanced diploma. VET FEE-HELP will enable them to access a loan scheme to pay for those fees while they are doing that study. Many people start and then do not finish because of this issue about paying the upfront fees. This is a fantastic component of this legislation.

This bill is not about any ideological agenda by the Labor Party, the Rudd government, to reintroduce student unionism, as the opposition contend. It is about practical measures to support student services at universities and it is about practical measures to support students who want to do advanced diplomas and diplomas to advance themselves in their own careers or, if they are just studying, to get a job. It is about streamlining some approaches to the process of people applying to go to university. It is a practical bill. That is what this government is about—practical measures to support education. This is particularly aimed at the VET and higher education level but we have measures that go from early childhood through primary school through high school right the way through to the higher education and VET sectors that this legislation specifically deals with.

The opposition opposes our move to tackle the skills crisis, to invest again in education, to gain a real community at universities and to help people out there who are struggling and want to do a diploma or an advanced diploma course. I say to the opposition: get out of the way. We are going to get on with building the education revolution in this country. We are committed to it. You need to sort yourselves out and get back in the business of developing policy rather than opposing everything. I think the Australian people are tired of it. I know the government is tired of it. We are basically looking for an opposition that will support good legislation. This is very good legislation and I commend it to the House.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the former speaker: spoken like a true union hack. I rise to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009. The last time I spoke on this matter was when the then Howard government introduced an amendment to abolish compulsory student fees, which was passed by the parliament in December 2005. It should be of no surprise to members of this House that I as a former meatworker and a person experienced on the issue of compulsory unionism again rise to speak against the proposal of the Rudd Labor government to reintroduce such fees that place an added drain on the limited resource of funds that are available to the majority of students that attend university throughout Australia.

This bill proposes to amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to allow higher education providers to charge students an annual capped compulsory student services and amenities fee from 1 July 2009; to introduce a new Higher Education Loan Program category for student amenities fees called Services and Amenities HELP, or SA-HELP; to broaden the application of the Higher Education Loan Program category for vocational education and training students, called VET FEE-HELP; and to provide that officers of tertiary admissions centres have the same status and duty of care as those of higher education providers in relation to processing student information.

Whilst I acknowledge that this bill does contain certain other measures, its primary purpose is, from 1 July this year, to allow higher education providers to impose a new tax on the one million university students attending universities across the nation, whether they are full time, part time, studying on campus or externally. Whether or not they have a need for the services and activities which the $250 fee is intended to prop up, they will all be hit with what amounts to a new, compulsory annual $250 tax, equating to $250 million around the nation taken from students, who can least afford it. The services which may be funded by the compulsory levied fee will be outlined in the Student Services and Amenities Fee Guidelines, which will be tabled in the form of a disallowable instrument after the bill has been passed.

The bill will also require higher education providers to comply with the new Student Services, Amenities, Representation and Advocacy Guidelines. These guidelines will impose obligations on the provider to comply with requirements relating to so-called student representation and advocacy, effectively funding student elections, union offices and salaries. As is the case with the fee guidelines, these guidelines will be tabled in the form of a disallowable instrument after the bill has been passed.

The bill also makes a number of technical changes that will allow students to defer payment of the compulsory fee by accessing a HECS-style loan under a new component of the Higher Education Loan Program called SA-HELP. The bill will include tertiary admissions centres in the regime that governs higher education providers’ access and use of student records and information. The bill will also expand the VET FEE-HELP program to increase the number of students who can access the program. Currently only full-fee-paying students are covered. The bill will make changes to expand the types of courses included in the program—that is, diploma courses that do not provide for the transfer of credits to an approved course.

The Rudd Labor government has yet again broken another election promise because it did not include the introduction of a higher education amenities fee in the policies that it took to the last election. Research that I have conducted supports voluntary student unionism and further can provide evidence that voluntary student unionism, commonly referred to as VSU, is working. The RMIT Student Union asserts on its website that voluntary student unionism has led to its advocacy service being scaled back, yet it still finds the money to produce an expensive radio program on 3CR every Saturday morning called Blazing Textbooks—

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the member for Hume allow a question?

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. This radio program is promoted as promoting an ‘anti-capitalist perspective on current issues on education from around Australia and the world’. This shows that if student unions were actually focused on providing services that were relevant to students, membership would be much higher and their finances would be in better shape. Furthermore, the Melbourne University Student Union recently stripped its clubs and societies budget by $18,000, or 24 per cent, in order to fund a $15,000 increase in its donation to the extreme National Union of Students. Despite their rhetoric, it is student unions themselves that are doing more damage to campus life than any voluntary system could. Compulsory fees guarantee revenue streams to service providers regardless of the quality of their product. There is no fiscal incentive to provide students—

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the member for Hume allow a question?

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can stand up all day—you will get no satisfaction out of me, mate.

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Turnour interjecting

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member cannot ask the question before he is given permission.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You blokes do not like the truth—it always eats you up, doesn’t it?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the member for Hume accept a question?

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. You can stand up and I will keep saying no. Don’t waste your time bobbing up and down!

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member cannot knock back a question and then debate it. The member for Hume has the call.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. There is no fiscal incentive to provide students with services—

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Turnour interjecting

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The one thing I’ve got over you, mate, is that I work for a living—not like you. There is no fiscal incentive to provide students with services that are attractive, because ultimately wages will be paid regardless of how good or bad the services may be. In 2004, before voluntary student unionism was introduced, Monash University students were compelled to pay an amenities fee of $428 per annum. This amount was used to fund various items as follows—and I want the parliament to listen very carefully to this: $238 for administrative costs, $30 for building services, $13.28 for clubs and societies, $22 for sport, $5.40 for childcare services, 59c for unspecified student services, 49c for student theatre and 28c for food services and subsidies. These figures undoubtedly show the way in which students failed to obtain value for money under the compulsory fee system.

This regressive tax will see those students with low incomes stripped of their power to choose what their already scarce funds are spent on. It removes the choice of students to allocate $250 to areas they place higher priority on, such as textbooks or sporting equipment. Of most concern, however, is that students will be charged the fee regardless of their capacity to pay. This effectively renders the bill a legislative instrument to introduce a poll tax on university students. It is akin to taxing every member of society a flat, across-the-board rate without taking into consideration one’s income.

Enabling students to defer their amenities fee onto their HELP loans does not change the fact that such charges are inequitable. No matter how the fees are collected, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to utilise amenities and services subsidised by the fee. It is well documented that some students work multiple jobs to cover spiralling rents and other cost-of-living pressures. As a result these students are less likely to have time to enjoy subsidised membership of ski clubs, rowing clubs or cheap drinks at the union bar than students who are living at home having their parents pay for their textbooks or who are independently wealthy. Unfortunately, these are students who can typically afford such items at the market rate.

The bill precludes students from having a choice about whether or not to pay the fee on the basis of their ability to utilise the services it provides. Students who attend university only to attend classes are unlikely to ever obtain any value out of such fees. Mature age students who work full time and attend night classes will be forced to subsidise the activities of a few. Even more outrageous is the idea that students studying by correspondence, who may never set foot on a university campus, will be charged a compulsory fee for services they will never use. The government’s plan does not allow any exceptions to paying the fee. It is ‘no ticket, no start’ for university students. There is no legitimate case for why students should be forced to pay for services they may not be able to afford or make use of.

Much of the controversy surrounding the 2005 legislation, and VSU in general, relates to its impact on university sport. Proponents of compulsory fees suggest they are essential to ensure the success of Australia’s Olympic team, among other things. The reality is that consumers of services provided by sporting facilities at universities are largely made up of outsiders—that is, people who are not students at the university. It is an outrage that student unions, the Rudd Labor government and the Australian Olympic Committee suggest that struggling students should be subsidising elite athletes, many of whom are already recipients of Commonwealth scholarships and corporate sponsorship deals. In addition, most of Australia’s top sporting athletes do not come from university campuses but rather from elite government funded institutions such as the Australian Institute of Sport and state based subsidiaries such as the New South Wales Institute of Sport. These hand picked athletes already benefit from taxpayer largesse and do not require subsidies levied compulsorily from their fellow struggling students.

The legislation fails to ensure that student money will not be spent on political campaigns or mediums that carry political agendas. Notwithstanding the Student Services and Amenities Fee Guidelines, clause 19-38(1) of the bill prevents a higher education provider from spending money as a student services and amenities fee to support a political party or the election of a person as an elected representative in federal, state or local government. Clause 19-67 of the bill, which is entitled ‘Special requirements for student services, amenities, representation and advocacy in 2010 and later years’, enables the minister to set a minimum guideline that higher education providers must meet in order to obtain Commonwealth funding. These guidelines were released on 19 February 2009 and part 2 of those guidelines is of particular concern.

The National Student Representation and Advocacy Protocols detail requirements for higher education providers to meet the cost of student union elections, as well as independent advocacy services in relation to matters arising under the academic and procedural rules and regulations of the higher education provider. The practical effect of such protocols is that money will inevitably be transferred from higher education providers to student organisations, which will pave the way for inappropriate, profligate spending on political activity.

The legitimacy of the student organisations that will be consulted is extremely questionable. At even the most politically active campuses, prior to the introduction of VSU, turnout in student elections almost never exceeded 10 per cent. At Melbourne and Sydney universities, historically the most political campuses, participation in student elections can be five per cent or less. The idea that an organisation with such a tiny mandate has the broad support of the student body is patently false.

There appears to be no legislative mechanism for the government to control the spending of students’ money by student unions. Clause 19-38(3) requires money spent by higher education providers to comply with the Student Services and Amenities Fee Guidelines, yet this does not apply to money spent by student unions. The absence of control over the spending of student unions reveals Labor’s true intention with this bill, which is to return to the bad old days of compulsory student unionism. The ability and inclination of the federal government body to monitor each and every item of expenditure by student organisations or universities to ensure compliance with the Student Services and Amenities Fee Guidelines is extremely low, particularly under a Labor administration.

The Student Services and Amenities Fee Guidelines also carry significant flaws. Allowing items to be funded by compulsory fees will lead to the duplication of services already provided by universities, governments or the private sector, such as health care, child care, academic support and services to assist in securing housing for university students.

Student unions have a history of financial impropriety, corruption and, typically, a lack of popular support from the students. In February of this year, Darren Ray, a former president of the Melbourne University Student Union, was jailed for 20 months in relation to defrauding the Commonwealth of $180,000 through refunds from false GST claims. Ray also presided over a $46 million property deal that sent the union bankrupt. Most recently, the Melbourne University Student Union spent money to help fund the legal defence of a man charged with assaulting police and damaging a police station in the Palm Island riots. In 2006 the Monash Student Association funded the legal defence of G20 rioter Akin Sari, who was later convicted and imprisoned. In 2004 the National Union of Students spent a quarter of a million dollars campaigning against the Howard government in the federal election. Fortunately, this episode was not repeated under voluntary unionism arrangements in 2007. In 2001 student money funded the purchase of an axe used to break into a vice-chancellor’s office and gain significant media attention.

In conclusion, this bill is a tax on students. It is a disgraceful return effectively to compulsory unionism; it represents a shameful broken promise; it is poorly drafted and will cause the government far more headaches than it realises; and it treats adult students with utter contempt. This bill and these guidelines not only will return students to the bad old days of effective compulsory student unionism but go even further by imposing those draconian obligations on tertiary education providers. It is regressive, it is a huge cost impost on students, and I will be opposing this bill, as will many of my parliamentary colleagues.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009, as will many of my colleagues within the parliament, who are totally committed to this legislation and can see the vast benefits that it will provide. I need to put on the record my very strong support for this legislation, as will many of my colleagues.

This legislation amends the previous government’s voluntary student unionism legislation, delivers a balanced, measured and practical solution to rebuilding student services and amenities of a non-academic nature and restores independent democratic representation and advocacy within the higher education system. It will amend the previous government’s voluntary student unionism legislation and deliver balanced and measured practical solutions. It is important to note that the previous government’s legislation stripped approximately $170 million from university funding, resulting in the decline and in some instances complete closure of vital health, counselling, employment, childcare and welfare support services—things that are vitally important to students when they are at university. Going from school to university is a very big life change, and the services that were provided were quite often the services that ensured that students going to university succeeded.

I must say that I found listening to the contribution to the debate by the member for Hume most interesting. As I entered the chamber he was throwing abuse across the chamber at one of my colleagues, suggesting that unlike the member for Leichhardt he had worked for a living. Well, I have known the member for Leichhardt a long time and I know that he has worked for a living. He has a background in agricultural science, and he is very committed to seeing students get a fair deal. The member for Leichhardt understands what it is like to attend university while at the same time struggling with work. He has been faced with all of those competing needs.

It is very wrong for the member for Hume to stereotype members and to be so judgmental about a person’s background without knowing anything at all about where they come from or what they have done in the past. I feel quite sure that the member for Hume would like to throw those sorts of comments across the chamber at me. I have had a long and varied career, starting with washing dishes in kitchens and serving tables when I was studying to working in a professional field prior to entering parliament. I have always worked, and that is pretty indicative of most people on this side of the parliament. We have worked hard, we have studied, but we do not come from the elitist background that members on the other side of parliament try to portray. We do understand that many on their side enjoyed growing up with a silver spoon in their mouths—

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jill, don’t be like that. Did you hear me defending Alby?

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I notice the member opposite nodding in agreement with what I am saying! The member for Hume also pointed out that this legislation was like a poll tax, because everybody had to pay it and it was regressive. I did not notice the member for Hume arguing that way when the GST was introduced. That was a tax that everyone had to pay from the cradle to the coffin regardless. He seemed to be quite supportive of that. In talking about a regressive tax, he is saying people would have to pay it whether or not they used the services provided by the university. To be honest, I do not mind paying taxes that are used for things I do not personally use. I have not been in hospital in recent times; I do not mind my taxes being spent on hospitals. I am not undertaking any form of education at the moment, nor are any of my children, but I welcome my taxes being spent on education. I have no children in child care—I thought a 35-year-old was a bit too old to send off to child care! I hope my taxes are being spent on that. In all probability, I will never receive the age pension. I strongly support my taxes being spent on providing the age pension. I think the member for Hume has a very narrow approach to looking at tax and regressive tax.

When we come to unions, I think we are getting close to why not just the member for Hume but every member on the other side of this parliament chose to oppose this legislation. They feel that, somewhere in there, there may be some mention of unions. We all know that they are the slaves of Work Choices and that Work Choices was driven by hatred of unions. The member for Hume talked about national unions of students campaigning against the Howard government. When we look at some of these issues, we are getting a bit closer to the reasons that we have had speaker after speaker on the other side of this House stand up and speak against legislation that is going to provide vital services for students attending university—services that can provide a whole-of-life experience to students whilst they are at university and, in addition to that, services that can support them and ensure that they complete their degrees.

When I attended university at one time, I utilised the childcare service at that university. It was the fact that I could access that childcare service that enabled me to study. It was the kind of service that has been jeopardised since the Howard government ripped $170 million from universities through the introduction of voluntary student unionism. As well as much needed services being substantially reduced or having ceased to exist on many campuses, students have been hit with increased prices for child care. As I mentioned, I was able to study at one particular stage in my life because I could access affordable child care that recognised the fact that at that time my income was low. Voluntary student unionism has also led to increasing prices for parking, books, computer labs, sports and food services—all things that made attending university more affordable for students from my electorate and from electorates around Australia.

Indirect costs have resulted, with funds being redirected by many universities from research and teaching budgets to prevent cuts to services and amenities. I know that the University of Newcastle has done everything in its power to maintain the services that have been provided on that campus. This is because at the University of Newcastle, as at many universities throughout the country, it was recognised how vital these services were to maintaining a university campus that had a multitude and variety of services and support for the students attending that university. This legislation brings back a balanced and practical approach to ensure that student services and amenities, as well as access to independent and democratic—and I emphasise independent and democratic—representation and advocacy, are secured now and into the future.

These amendments will ensure that national access to service benchmarks will be introduced for the first time. They will ensure the provision of information on, and access to, welfare services and counselling in line with current requirements for overseas students. I believe that is a very important step. Counselling and welfare services have been of vital importance to students at universities over a very long period of time, but these national access to service benchmarks will allow for that to be evaluated. I think that members on the other side of this parliament will be very surprised at the information that comes out.

National student representation and advocacy protocols will be introduced for the first time to make sure that students have an independent voice on campus. I know that members on the other side of this parliament tend to become a little bit worried when people show their independence and have a different approach to theirs on any issue. What I would say to those members is: ‘Embrace the difference. Embrace the fact that students, whilst they are at university, are learning—they are opening their minds. They do not need to be locked into any particular philosophy.’ I suggest that members opposite support independent voices on university campuses.

As well as the benchmarks and protocols, universities will be provided with an option to set a compulsory fee capped at a maximum of $250 per year and indexed annually. This legislation is to take effect from July. The first fee will only be for half a year and it will not be for the full amount. It is also important to note that allowance will be made for students that are attending part time. The university has the ability to do that.

Guidelines will be developed outlining the range of services and amenities for which fees can and cannot be used, including things like child care, health care, sports, fitness clubs and all the things that I think are so important. Each university will decide whether to implement the fee or not. Eligible students will have the option of taking out HECS-style loans under a new component of the Higher Education Loan Program—SAHELP—to ensure that the fee is not a financial barrier.

This legislation also maintains a commitment not to return to compulsory student unionism. As I said at the commencement of my contribution to the debate, I think that has been a big concern on the other side of this House. Members on the other side tend to cringe as soon as they hear the word ‘union’. I need to assure them that this is absolutely not a return to compulsory student unionism. Rather, it is about providing financial support to universities to ensure that students can access all those things that make universities a very special place, as well as providing students with support services.

It maintains the commitment not to, as I have said, return to compulsory student unionism. It is expected that providers will consider the views of students—and that means consultation—in determining whether to charge a fee and, if so, at what level it should be put. At the same time, when they consult with the student bodies—the students—they will determine what types of services and amenities will be supported by fees. I have mentioned child care, counselling, student welfare services, health services and the sporting facilities that have been so important. I note that the member for Hume questioned whether or not the sporting support that students obtain at university would lead to Australia being in a better position when it comes to the Olympics. I have a quote here from the Australian Olympic Committee. In its submission to the 2008 review, it said:

For a number of our Olympic Sports, the university sporting clubs system is a key component in the elite athlete pathway. The best example of this is rowing where approximately 80% of national representative rowers are members of or connected with a university club. Given the importance that the university sports system has on elite level sport, these trends will have a direct and real impact on Australia’s ability to maintain its hard won international standing in sport.

It continues:

… the introduction of the VSU legislation has had a direct negative impact on the number of students (particularly women)—

I have a longstanding interest in women in sport and the fact that women in sport find it a lot more difficult to receive the rewards for their sporting activities than men do. The pathway for women in sport is a lot harder. Women’s sport does not obtain the same level of support within the general community and does not get the same access to sponsorship and the media as men’s sport. I think it shows that the VSU legislation has impacted on the number of women that are involved in sport and that is really disturbing to me on a personal level—

participating in sport and, for the longer term, the maintenance and upgrading of sporting infrastructure and facilities and the retention of world class coaches.

I implore those on the other side of the parliament to move away from their very fixed approach and stereotyping of what they think this is—namely, they are linking it to unionism. They are fearful that students will join together and not support them. The National Union of Students, as the member for Hume pointed out, campaigned about the Howard government. That is not what this legislation is about. This is about supporting our universities and ensuring that they have the finances they need to provide those really vital services—such as counselling, child care, affordable parking and affordable food—to the students while, at the same time, providing students with the opportunity to have the diverse experience that university provides.

Being at university is the one time in a person’s life when they can experience different things and should push the boundaries in their thought processes. They should also be able to continue to be involved in sports at university. This is about funding universities. This is about creating diversity of experiences on university campuses. It is about ensuring that students have the ability to make a choice.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009 cuts to the very core of two different political philosophies, one being the belief that individuals should have the right to choose whether or not a fee be paid to any organisation, the other being the belief that compulsory membership by way of fees is all to the greater good. In answer to my colleague who has just spoken, I have no objections to unions of any sort. I have been a member of a union myself. I have no objection to student unionism. But I do take the most violent exception to compulsory unionism and to student unionism where the facilities of student unionism have been used for political purposes. So let me make myself clear: I think the right of association is part of our democratic heritage; and if students want to do that, so be it.

I make this preliminary comment: if student unionism in its old form had been delivering to students the sorts of things that my colleagues on the other side have been saying throughout this debate, why is it that, except in a few sandstone universities and some in Western Australia, union membership has fallen to what we are told—you cannot get an accurate figure on this—is about 15 per cent? That says to me that six out of every seven students have said that this organisation does nothing for them; that it does not provide any real material help to them in their obtaining of a degree and their journey through tertiary education. So in this bill the government has—I suggest by stealth—reversed the existing situation, where higher education students are currently not compulsorily required to expend money for services that they do not want or need.

Under this legislation, students at higher education institutions will be required to pay up to $250 a year as a student services and amenities fee, but we have not had from the government what that really means. What concerns me greatly is that this fee is the thin end of the wedge. It is a return to compulsory student unionism by stealth, as I said, because the bill leaves open the way for any student body to divert funds. It is a piece of political trickery. The services which can be provided, thanks to this per student tax, will not be detailed until after the bill has been passed and the guidelines for providing student representation and advocacy services have been outlined from that bill.

Let me paint a scenario for you. The government says that there will be a requirement for the universities to provide for an election of a representative advocacy body. What does that mean? Does that mean that that will be a controlling body for all students? Or does it mean it will be an advisory body that will advise the university senate or council on how things should be done? If it is the former, isn’t it just a short shift from having a student representative body and saying, ‘You can take over the running of the expenditure of these $250 fees’?

You might argue that in the first year or two there would not be much politics involved and it would be just the student representative body elected on each campus. That probably would not be the case at some of the long-established universities, where the unions even to this day have a bit of a foothold, but on a lot of country campuses you would get a student representative body. But I would bet within a year or two it would be politicised—I am not saying politicised necessarily by the left side of politics; I think the right side of politics would probably have a hand in that as well—and you would find that that student representative body would in a short time have a distinct political flavour about it. If the minister has not laid down very strict guidelines, the university council might say, ‘We will allow this representative body to run these facilities,’ and then you would virtually have a situation where the university union, that representative body, would again be running the facilities of the university.

Having allocated the subsidy, or the tax, the $250 per student, into various services—for example, into the cafeteria—if subsequently the cafeteria were to make a profit, would there be a requirement for that to be reinvested in student facilities or would the representative body be able to take that profit and apportion it wherever they saw fit and not necessarily on campus? These are things that we have yet to see, but given the way the previous system worked I would be most wary. It could leave open the door for funds to be allocated and then donated to any sort of body. If that is not a sly, convoluted way of cycling money back into radical political activity, nothing is.

We all know—and I am not going to bore you with the detail of it; there are pages of this stuff available—of the abuses of compulsory student unionism, and that is part of the reason why students will not have a bar of it. I do not know any other walk of life where you are forced to do something like this and have no say in it. Also, if you are having trouble raising the money you are going to be allowed to add it to HECS and have it deferred. Again, to me that is a fairly convoluted way of getting money out of parents and students into the system and removing, again by stealth, some of the legitimate objections that people might have to the collection of that money.

We know that under the old system most of the student bodies charged between about $350 and $600. That was a lot of money for parents, especially parents who had two kids at university, and I am not a bit surprised that student unionism dropped away so quickly when the compulsory nature of it was removed. It meant that these student organisations had to be more responsive to the needs of their members and it stopped the sticky fingers of unions dipping into the pockets of students. Of course, student unions were up to their arms in all sorts of activities and they have lobbied hard to have the laws the previous government introduced overturned.

I know of one young man in my electorate who has spent his entire holidays working, and who will work when he returns to university, to cover the fees for his three-year course. He is trying to pay his fees up-front while his parents cover the cost of college accommodation, which is around $15,000 a year. Next year it is likely that his sister will join him at university, so the family will then have a bill of about $30,000 for accommodation. Under the old system they could have been up for $1,000 or $1,200 for compulsory fees, and even under this system it will still be $500. I say ‘at least’ $1,000 for these two kids, because, from what we have heard of the government’s intentions, this study is going to be CPI-ed, which means that in subsequent years it will continue to increase. As I said, students will be allowed to defer the payment into some top-up of their HECS debt. I do not know if that is a healthy thing. And all that it is doing is just providing this stream that, at the flick of the pen of the minister, can be allowed to degenerate into a new, if not surreptitious, form of compulsory unionism. At a time when the government said there would be no extra taxes, surely it is expensive enough to have to pay for travel, textbooks and accommodation without having to be lumbered with some additional fee.

As a follow-up to this point, it is predicted that tens of thousands of jobs will be lost in the coming year because of the global financial crisis. So what sort of prospects will students have of getting jobs to defray the cost of these government imposed fees? They will just be another expense on top of another expense. At this point, when the government is expecting us to pass the bill, we do not even know what all this money will be spent on, or what oversight, if any, there will be. Sure, we know it will be for a facilities fee, and we know that there will be a student representative body, but we have not seen a clear delineation of what things will be in and what things will be out. You can see this debate through one of two prisms: either a glorious effort to resuscitate compulsory student unionism or a spirited defence of the right to choose. There must be room for those of us who see the need for better student amenities on campus while rejecting the compulsory nature of those facilities.

Quite frankly, I think there should be a requirement on universities to provide some of these services. For example, at a university you have a health service, and I think that, for young kids coming out of secondary school, that is important. They have not got their parents there. They need to get advice. That is important. They need counselling, perhaps (a) to do with their courses or (b) to do with just coping with the change of lifestyle—and a lot of kids drop out because of that. Over the years this has been duckshoved onto the unions. It was a very clever move on the part of the universities to cost-shift. I believe that those services are very much the responsibility of the university council or senate themselves to provide. It is part of their duty of care. The concept that it can only be provided by some sort of student representative body is nonsensical. The same goes for a cafeteria. A lot of new campuses are far away from any form of food outlet—I know that the one in Bundaberg must be a kilometre from the nearest service station. To have a cafeteria should be the responsibility of the university. I have got no objection to the government making direct grants to universities for their facilities and including some of those essential things—a medical centre or a cafeteria—as part of it, but the money should not be taken from students as a levy. It should be part of the responsibility of the university to deliver those things. Yet we have been slowly suborned over the years to believe that those sorts of things can only be provided by a student union.

The other sorts of things I would query—and I think that we as members of parliament have a right to know if the government proposes these sorts of thing—are how to provide for a differentiation between the various types of students. There are a lot of very focused students today doing external studies, and some universities specialise in this. When I was studying I think that student fees—and I am not sure whether they were compulsory then—were organised along the lines of a student paying a full student fee if they were a full-time student, a 50 per cent fee if they were a part-time student, and a 25 per cent fee if they were an external student. In this bill we have not had any outline of whether that sort of thing would happen.

I stress again the importance of medical and nursing services. I think that the university should be providing them. You have smaller campuses like Cairns, Mackay—and I am talking in the Queensland context—Gladstone, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay and Ipswich, where you have a comparatively small number of students, and even with these fees there is not going to be sufficient money for the provision of some of those things I have just talked about, like medical centres.

The other thing I query is the idea that a student union—and this is clear from the minister’s statement—should be an advocacy body. What does that mean? Does that mean an advocacy body purely for the students in general advising the university senate and council, or does it mean it should advocate on behalf of individual students over their right to do a certain course or to query marks or query whether they were given reasonable time to put in assignments and the like? It is that level of advocacy.

I think that you could get around very easily. Why not have in all universities a student ombudsman, an independent person from outside either the university council or the student body—perhaps a retired lawyer, magistrate, judge or whoever might be available—who could rule on those things? You do not have to make it some confrontation between the student body acting as advocate against the university itself. So I think that the running of country campuses, especially regional campuses, could be done in a much simpler fashion.

The whole idea of compulsory student unionism is clearly at the back of this legislation. As I said, once you have got a representative student body, after you have gone through the first year or two it will eventually be politicised. There will be the Liberal club or the National club or the LNP club or the Labor club or whatever it might be, and then it will not be long before they want to start running some of the student facilities of the university. I do not know whether that is a healthy thing. I think that $250 is quite unnecessary. Some argue that there should be sporting facilities—in fact, the previous speaker talked about rowing and how rowing has provided about 80 per cent of our elite rowers. Much and all as I admire the university rowing clubs, and some of them may have had their genesis in student unionism, you really have to ask yourself whether it is the role of the average student, who has probably never held a pair of oars, to pay fees for those elite athletes. Is that really the role of your student fees? So, Mr Deputy Speaker, I have a definite worry about this bill and, in the absence of any clear explanation of some of the things I have raised today, I fear that I will have to oppose it.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In listening to the debate, it seems that members opposite are insisting on debating this measure in terms of the student union issue. Speakers on this side have tried again and again to reassure them by pointing to the bill itself and saying that this is not about compulsory student unionism—that is definitely not what this is about. There is no change to the Higher Education Support Act, which currently prohibits a university from requiring a student to be a member of a student organisation. There is nothing in this bill that changes that part of the Higher Education Support Act. It is not a return to compulsory student unionism, as much as the opposition wants to create that bogeyman.

This legislation is a very sensible, a very practical and a very considered response to the situation that we have in our universities at the moment. They are $170 million short and there is an expectation and a requirement amongst their student bodies that certain services—like child care, health services, cafeterias, accommodation, welfare support and sporting facilities—are provided by universities or available at universities in a situation where there is currently no funding mechanism for universities to meet the costs of providing those services. So we have a situation where the VSU bill amounted to $170 million being taken away from universities and still an expectation to provide those services. The inevitable result of that is that those services are simply no longer able to be provided. This bill seeks to plug that hole of $170 million that hit universities as a result of the VSU legislation under the previous government and to do it in a reasonable and sensible way. It gives universities the ability to charge fees of up to $250 a year, starting in the second half of this year with fees of $125. Universities need to consult with their student populations as to the amount that will be charged and the kinds of services, activities and facilities that will be supported by that funding. That seems like a fairly moderate and practical solution to overcome the effects of the VSU bill in 2005, which saw a hole of $170 million open up in our universities.

We did not come at this with some knee-jerk, ideological reaction. It is a pretty simple bill. We could easily have whacked this into parliament straight after the 2007 election if it had simply been a matter of an ideological crusade. It is not that, and that is clearly evident by the process that has been gone through in the development of our solution to the $170 million funding hole, in order to come up with something that will work for universities and students. The process has taken close to a year. It has involved calling for submissions from interested parties and stakeholders. We have received something like 160 submissions. The minister travelled right around Australia and held face-to-face meetings in cities and regional centres to get the views of the community and stakeholders in universities on the effects of the VSU legislation, services and facilities that are actually required at universities and the best way forward to rectify the mess that was left with the VSU legislation.

That is one way of showing that this is certainly no empty ideological crusade on the part of the Labor government but rather a search for practical measures to improve the experience of students on campus. The other evidence that points towards the need for this measure is in the Bradley report. In chapter 3.4 of the Bradley report, the review last year into higher education in Australia, there are some pretty damning findings involving student experiences at universities in Australia and how these compare internationally. The overall satisfaction of students with their experience in Australian higher education institutions ranks far below comparable survey results in the United Kingdom and the United States. These statistics are telling us something about what is happening on our campuses, and I do not think we can ignore the effects of the $170 million in the last couple of years taken out of the facilities and student support services that assist students to feel at home and find their place on campus.

In a paper written by Professor Geoff Scott that was part of the supporting evidence relied on by Denise Bradley in the review, he says:

There is a strong link between students’ retention and success and the extent to which they are engaged with their fellow learners and their teachers during their studies. Factors influencing the extent of engagement include ‘the social climate established on campus, the academic, social and financial support provided by the institution, student in-class and out-of-class involvement with campus life, and frequent feedback provided to students and staff about their performance.

In this country we are faced with the challenge of trying to increase the number of Australians with higher education qualifications. The challenge put forward by the Bradley review is for institutions to reach out and provide opportunities to students from a much greater mix of socioeconomic backgrounds. Part of that is providing students with the support and the facilities that they need to feel at home on campus. Students from outside the traditional demographics entering our universities need those extra support services to make the most of their opportunities and their experience at university. At the moment we have quite a high attrition rate amongst students in their first few years at university and we are not seeing a high enough proportion of students from either regional and rural areas or lower socioeconomic backgrounds attending our universities. That challenge is spelt out very clearly in the Bradley report, and I cannot say that cutting $170 million out of student support services and facilities that create that life and that spirit on campus and provide the assistance and support that students need is really helping in that challenge that the country faces to increase the number of people getting a higher education, particularly in those under-represented demographics.

This is a very practical way of solving this. The bill provides that universities can now charge $250 a year from 2010 onwards. Students are able to defer those fees into a HECS-style loan until they are in a position to pay back the HELP loan for their overall university education. So it is not a great impost on students. It does not necessarily have to be an upfront cost. What it really means is that universities can rebuild these important services—things like childcare services, computer labs, cafeterias and accommodation and welfare services.

I point out some of the impacts we have felt at CQ University in Rockhampton as a result of the introduction of the VSU legislation. This comes from the submission that CQU provided to the discussion paper process; it is not stuff that we have just plucked out of the air. We are not running this as a political debate. Our support for this measure comes out of what we have heard from universities themselves. In its submission, the Central Queensland University Student Association said there had been ‘loss of community involvement with university students through closure of entertainment venues and reduced sporting, social and cultural club subsidies’. The student association’s gross income has been reduced by 75 per cent, or $1.9 million, and they have slashed staff from 42 to 15 through redundancy and attrition. Losing that number of jobs has a big impact in a community such as Rockhampton.

The student association has outlined a range of negative changes, including loss of staff, loss of cultural and social services, loss of sports subsidies, increased costs for lockers and photocopying and the closure of a live entertainment venue. The student association also used to provide equipment such as barbecues and eskies for events that were happening on campus, funding assistance for venue hire and funding assistance for speakers and workshops. They say that with a user-pays system in place they have observed that students are opting out of services such as sports clubs, and we are seeing that in campuses right across Australia. Students have been paying for the effects of VSU through higher prices on campuses or by having to source services and facilities off campus. There are hidden costs in the VSU. We say that we expect universities to create a particular environment, to support student advocacy, to support students on campus and, through facilities and activities, to bring campuses back to life and to improve the statistics on student engagement and satisfaction with their experience in higher education. We say that universities should be allowed to charge student fees to enable that to happen. I see far more benefits than costs as a result of the measures in this bill.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors, Tourism and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to present, as yet another member of the coalition, our complete opposition to Labor’s ‘no ticket, no start’ policy on university campuses across Australia. Having had the privilege of attending both public and private tertiary institutions, I look upon these kinds of initiatives with great interest. I compare and contrast the various experiences I had at both Bond University as an undergraduate and the Queensland University of Technology as a postgraduate student with respect to the services offered and my observations of their worth to the beneficiaries of these amounts of money. It is not understating the fact to say that for the coalition this issue remains a shibboleth. We fundamentally believe in freedom of choice. This fundamental principle cannot be expressed any more clearly.

It is an indictment of the Labor Party that the legislation that is before this chamber, the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009, removes the right of freedom of choice from young Australians who are attending tertiary institutions. That is a given. You will not have members of the Labor Party—at least I hope you will not—even argue that point. It is a given that this bill removes the choice that young Australians have of whether or not to pay a subscription to a student union—or, in the case of this specific bill, a yet-to-be-identified beneficiary within the university institution itself—or whether or not to use the services that may or may not be supplied as a result of the payment of this money.

The only arguments that come forward from those opposite are that this legislation should be supported for either one of two reasons. The first is that the government knows best. That is a paraphrase but that is basically the argument. Labor members say: ‘Government knows best; all students should have to pay this fee because it goes towards the supply of student services across campuses. It doesn’t matter whether those services are utilised; it doesn’t matter whether the supply of those services is in response to student demand; we just know what students want and so we’re going to supply services and we are going to demand payment.’ So they completely remove the link between supply and demand. They completely remove the link between meeting the demands of students and just insert themselves and say: ‘This fee will be compulsory and these services will be supplied and no discussion will be entered into.’

The other argument that is put forward is that this is akin to some kind of local government rate—that it is all about supplying essential services that all students would want to use, and if they do not use them they must be thick. It is like a rate that a council would levy on ratepayers. Again, the difference is that, unlike councils and councillors, which are accountable to parliament through the minister, under this legislation that is not the case. We hear glib promises from members opposite who say: ‘Oh, no; don’t listen to the coalition; they’re still caught up in the arguments of the past about whether or not this is about compulsory unionism. This harmless piece of legislation is just about making sure that essential student services are supplied with money. It’s not about student unions.’ That is what we hear from Labor members opposite, but the reality is that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is a duck. What we have in this bill in this chamber is a very, very deliberate decision to again provide funding to student unions, albeit directly or indirectly, that will ensure that those who are the principal beneficiaries of a compulsory no ticket, no start student union system—that is, the Australian Labor Party—get what they require and pay back their debts to a student union movement, like the National Union of Students, that has provided so much funding and logistical support to the Labor Party for so many years.

It is no surprise that the minister with overarching responsibility for this fiendish piece of legislation in front of us is none other than the Deputy Prime Minister, a woman who sits on the management committee of the Socialist Forum and who has such incredibly strong links to the union movement and its socialist roots. She is putting forward this policy. Most concerning is the fact that this policy is a breach of Labor’s election commitment, because we know that the former Minister for Education, Stephen Smith, in response to a journalist’s question at a doorstop in May 2007, said:

No, well, firstly I am not considering a HECS style arrangement, I’m not considering a compulsory HECS style arrangement and the whole basis of the approach is one of a voluntary approach. So I am not contemplating a compulsory amenities fee.

So that was Labor’s policy: they were not even contemplating a compulsory amenities fee. They know in their hearts that there is absolutely nothing wrong with providing students with choice about student services. There is nothing wrong with expecting that the provision of student services should be responsive to demand. That was the fundamental principle that led to the introduction of voluntary student unionism under the Howard government. That was the delivery of an important commitment that the coalition has to every young Australian that says: ‘We believe you have a right to choose how you spend your money.’ Most importantly, it sends a message to the student unions and those who seek to supply services to students: ‘Provide what is in demand and it will be commercial.’

If students want to join a sports club, why should a sports club on a university campus sit distinct from and separate to every other sports club in the community? Why is that the case? No rationale has ever been put forward by members opposite about why, for example, a university cricket club should benefit from direct and compulsory student funds and yet the local community cricket club should not. There is no argument put forward about why, for example, a childcare centre on a university campus deserves direct funds from compulsory student contributions when there are so many other community based and private childcare centres that operate at a profitable level. There is no argument put forward by members opposite about why, for example, student unions should compulsorily acquire funds off students to pay for overtly political campaigns that other students have no interest in being a part of or for the provision of services to such small numbers of students that there is a massive cross-subsidy by those who never use that service. Why do we not impose that across the community as a whole? The reality is that we do not, and for some reason the Labor Party has this ideological commitment to student unions—because they know that they are the logistical support required for and major contributors to the Labor Party.

So commitments or apparent commitments that the Labor Party makes in this chamber in this debate that this money is not going to be used for student campaigns or student unions are nothing but hollow words. What we know from the legislation that is before the House is that the only person who will take the decision about whether or not money is being used effectively is the minister. The only person who will take the decision about whether students’ money is being misused is the minister. I cannot for the life of me imagine too many instances where that management committee member of the Socialist Forum, the Deputy Prime Minister, would actually take the decision to impose some kind of penalty on a student union that might be misusing compulsorily acquired funds. I cannot imagine too many instances where the matter will even come up, because, again, under the legislation that is before the House there is no framework to impose a penalty and no framework for the reporting of the money that might be used or, rather, misused.

You have to wonder what it is that the Labor Party find so offensive about the principle, ‘We believe that students should only pay for the services they choose to use.’ What is it about freedom of choice that is so offensive to members opposite? The only assurance the minister has made is that the legislation will prohibit money being spent for political purposes. That is the only assurance that has been given. The only political activities that are expressly prohibited by the legislation are providing support to political parties and support for election to a Commonwealth, state, territory or local government body. That is it. That is the sum total of the assurance that has been provided. So there are still a raft of opportunities for political activities, including, for example, funding campaigns against legislation, policies and, potentially, political parties and providing funding for the direct support of trade unions or any other organisation that is not registered as a political party. All of that still lies at the feet of student unions who can spend that money.

I have to say that the real thinking behind this bill is perhaps summarised by David Barrow, the President of the National Union of Students. He said, when speaking about the proposed legislation and why he had a problem with it:

Unis get the fee, students get the services but student unions get screwed …

That is the comment of David Barrow, the President of the National Union of Students. Well, doesn’t that just demonstrate what a self-serving attitude student unions under the Labor Party have? Their concern is not about where the fees are going or how the fees are being spent; rather, their concern is about what role the student unions play in it. I have to say, I think that David Barrow perhaps misspeaks as well when he says that student unions get screwed, because under the legislation that is before the House today we actually do not know if student unions are going to, to use his words, get screwed or not. What we actually know is that the only people who are going to be penalised very directly as a result of this legislation are all students attending a tertiary institution in this country, who will be required to comply with this legislation and will be forced to pay up to $250 for the privilege of going to university—apparently for services which they probably will not even use. There is no link back to the demand of students; there is just some notion that some central power somewhere knows what it is that students want. It is particularly concerning that Labor just will not stand by the principle of freedom of choice.

We also know that this fee of $250 is going to be indexed to the CPI every year. So the financial burden on some of the most cash-strapped members of our society is in fact going to increase every single year. And this is happening at a time when unemployment is skyrocketing under the Labor government. We know we have a government that are throwing money left, right and centre at a problem that they have made worse through their policies. We know unemployment is accelerating at a rate far beyond the very conservative forecasts that the Labor Party put forward because they did not want to be seen to be a complete failure when it came to employment. And now, to make matters worse, the Labor Party are going to impose a $250 fee on every student, regardless of their ability to pay. Members opposite will argue that it is okay because it can be effectively deferred through a HECS scheme. So what they are basically saying is, ‘If you can’t afford to pay now, don’t worry—you will pay later and you will pay with interest.’ So that is Labor’s policy for those who are among the most cash-strapped members of our society.

This issue is a very straightforward one. I fail to understand why the Labor Party holds universities to be distinct from any other kind of collection of individuals in society. Why, for example, isn’t a TAFE college embraced in the same way as a university college by this government? A collection of students at a university is deemed to be an appropriate body to force students to pay up to $250 a year, to fund services that they may not even want. Yet, if you are a student who goes to a TAFE college, apparently you do not need services or are able to utilise community services. Bizarrely, those same services are available to students at a university campus and yet they do not have recourse to them. So, it is crystal clear to me that Labor’s very muddled thinking on this is largely an outcome that is seeking a rationalisation. We know that Labor is absolutely determined to ensure that students pay their student union fees and to get their pound of flesh out of students so that that money can go straight back into Labor Party coffers through the student union movement.

The clearest evidence of why, apart from freedom of choice, voluntary student unionism is a superior model is that we have seen that it works. We have seen bloated, lazy student unions that are not responsive to students’ needs see their membership fall. At the University of Canberra, for example, student union membership fell to around five per cent of the student population, because there you had a university student guild that was so concerned about itself and student campaigns that it offered very little value to students, and so membership of the student union collapsed. And yet, at the University of Western Australia, where the student union actually provided value—where the student union ensured that they were providing students with a reason for joining—membership sat at 60 per cent. So we know the VSU model works. It works because it rewards those student unions that provide the services that students want and it penalises those that do not.

The impact of student unionism can be clearly seen in a breakdown of student fees. At Monash University, for example, in 2004, before VSU was introduced, students were required to pay an amenities fee of $428 per annum—$428 slugged to students per annum under the no ticket, no start policies of the Labor government. It is interesting to get a breakdown of how that money was spent, because it is, after all, about student services. We know that about $30 was spent on building services, about $13 for clubs and societies, around $22 for sports groups, $5.40 for childcare subsidies and $5.40 for child care, 28c for food services and subsidies, 49c for student theatre and 59c for unspecified student services.

So the question is: where did the great bulk of the funding go? Four hundred and thirty-eight dollars was slugged from students—where does the bulk of that money go? Well, $238 went on administrative costs. The bulk of the money that was slugged from, in many instances, the most cash-strapped in our society was spent on administrative costs. That notion of administrative costs means the costs of the student union, the contributions the student union made to the Labor Party, of which members opposite are beneficiaries, and the costs that are covered by campaigns the student union runs. That is where over half of the money charged to students through the student union went to. It is an indictment upon a ‘no ticket, no start’ failed culture within the Labor Party that seeks to reward student unions and ensure that they have rivers of gold flowing to them out of the pockets of students who are forced to pay these fees, under legislation and under penalties of law, because this government is so ideologically transfixed with propping up this sector.

Again, you have to ask: what is wrong with freedom of choice? You also have to question why it would be compulsory for students who, for example, study by correspondence—those students who have never set foot on campus and are forced to cross-subsidise those students who are on campus. What about mature age students, those who are working full time and attending night classes? I myself was one at the Queensland University of Technology. I was working full time during the day and studying at night—again, forced to pay this horrendous fee to subsidise other students. That was not the case under VSU; you chose where you spent your money.

I am very proud to stand up for freedom of choice. I am very proud to say to universities and student unions: ‘Supply the services that students want and they will join you voluntarily.’ It works in every other aspect of the community. It works for community groups across suburbs all around Australia. There is no reason why fat, bloated, lazy student unions, which channel funds to the Labor Party, should be some kind of protected species and there is no reason why Labor should breach their election commitment to not introduce this compulsory fee, purely and simply to provide a kind of logistical support to Labor’s youth wing, which they are seeking to do through this legislation.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009. It is a pleasure to follow the member for Moncrieff, whose contribution reminds me of a quote that I think was attributed to Winston Churchill, when he said of himself: ‘When my arguments are weak I just make sure I speak louder.’ That pretty much characterises the contribution that we have just heard from the member for Moncrieff. It also highlights exactly what we have witnessed over the last few years from the Howard government and why this bill is so important—because what it does is undo the appalling mess that has been left for universities in this country by the Howard government’s pursuit of its voluntary student unionism legislation. That was part of a long-running campaign which has obviously had the effect of disempowering students, removing services from campuses, really attacking the very vibrancy of student life and reducing the ability of students to represent themselves.

But all of this was done—and we have heard it perfectly through the previous contribution—in what has been a misguided, ideological pursuit on their part, which somehow equates students on a campus with the relationship that may exist with workers in a workplace. They try to equate a student union, in a sense, with a trade union and try to equate student services fees on a campus with some form of a closed shop, as we just heard from the member for Moncrieff, in an employment or an industrial setting. That of course is nonsense. Students have nothing like that relationship with the university at which they are enrolled. That is not an industrial setting, and what we have seen in the past with student service fees is simply not the same as some form of compulsory membership to a union. This constant returning to some misguided idea that these are a band of organisations which are secretly siphoning money off to the Labor Party is, frankly, laughable. That is not what is going on, nor has it ever been, and indeed this legislation makes it clear that that cannot occur as part of the future arrangements. In any event, that is not how things have been in the past, but it does highlight the obsession on the other side of politics with this particular issue and the ideological way in which they have driven down a path which has had very dramatic effects upon student life and the services that are provided to students on campuses.

The Howard government had a number of goes at abolishing student service fees which ultimately manifested in the higher education support amendment act that was passed in 2005 which prevented compulsory student membership of an association or an organisation, but also prevented compulsory fees being levied by universities for non-academic facilities, amenities or services. The effect of that particular policy was to strip $170 million out of the university funding which was going to the provision of student services on campus. It means that on-campus student organisations were emasculated.

The term ‘voluntary student unionism’ is a very politically loaded term. It has industrial connotations which are simply not real. It ignores the very important role that student organisations play on campus. Since the introduction of the Howard government’s voluntary student unionism legislation, we have seen a decline in and in some cases the complete closure of vital student amenities and services. We are not talking about chocolate clubs or beer societies but health services, employment services, childcare services and welfare support services. All of these were stripped away at a time when students needed them most. When the cost of living rose for students, all of these much needed services—which provided low-cost services to a group in society who often do not have enormous means, students who are starting out in life and mostly do not have full-time employment—were removed.

In my electorate is Deakin University. As it happens, it is also in your electorate, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke. The Deakin University Student Association is the principal student organisation that operates across Deakin University. I have spoken to them on numerous occasions about the effect of the Howard government’s VSU legislation on activities and services they are able to provide and about the effect on student life at Deakin University. I would like to take you through some of that. They describe a situation whereby their organisation has effectively been gutted by the introduction of voluntary student unionism legislation. Only 20 per cent of students are paying for services, which ultimately subsidises services that are needed by every student on campus. The services have suffered and, as a result, the students themselves have suffered. I think that particularly regional universities have suffered as a result of voluntary student unionism legislation in that the student life which exists as a campus in regional Australia often has a major impact on the region beyond the university. We talk about places being university towns and, in some ways, that is a fair description of Geelong. There is no doubt that the role of student life at Deakin University in Geelong goes far beyond simply the students; it is also of enormous benefit to the community beyond that. When services are removed for students on campus, it has a ripple effect well beyond campus life and the students themselves.

Unquestionably what that legislation did was require students to pay far more for these services. The ability to collectively pool the student service fee, which existed previously, and provide low-cost services which would save students lots of money throughout the year has been removed. That is really illustrative of the enormous lie that was put forward by the Howard government when they suggested that students would be better off by not paying the up-front fee. The truth is that a relatively small fee enabled an enormous array of services to be provided to students at a significantly reduced cost.

At Deakin University all the student services that had previously been funded through the student services fee have to a greater or lesser degree been cut back under the voluntary student unionism legislation. For example, there is now no longer a campus newspaper at Deakin University. There are neither staff to produce it nor money to print it. People may have a particular sense of what a student newspaper is like but, at the end of the day, it provides information to students about what is going on with student life and also it provides a focus for the student community. That has been removed by the introduction of the voluntary student unionism legislation. Not surprisingly, the Deakin University Student Association say that students talk to them about the fact that in the absence of the services provided by the student association—and the absence of student newspaper is a particular case in point—they feel less informed about and more disconnected from the university community of which they are a part.

Before the introduction of the voluntary student unionism legislation there were 30 affiliated clubs and societies at Deakin University’s two Geelong campuses—now there are only 19. That is not because of dwindling numbers. Indeed, there are more students than ever who want to study at Deakin University. The demand for undergraduate places has risen by 15 per cent this year. It is now one of the most popular universities in Victoria and yet, as a result of the introduction of the VSU legislation, there are far fewer opportunities for the students at Deakin University to connect socially and participate in the student life which used to exist at that campus. Being a regional campus, that is particularly detrimental for the many students at Deakin University in Geelong who are not from Geelong and for whom the university life is in a sense the main social safety net for them in maintaining a life which allows them to study at university. All of that has been swept away. There are significant consequences as a result of doing that.

The Deakin University Student Association used to fund the maintenance of a lot of sporting facilities around Deakin University. As a result of the severe drought that has afflicted Geelong over the past decade, the cricket ground at Waurn Ponds has now been forced to close because it is unsafe. The ability of the student association to provide the necessary maintenance facilities to keep that oval open during the prolonged drought that Geelong has been experiencing has been completely removed by the VSU legislation. That has had a flow-on effect for the soccer and baseball teams that would normally also train on that ground. There simply is not the ability for the student association to deal with that particular issue.

The Howard government did set up a transition fund to try and lessen the impact of the voluntary student unionism legislation on regional campuses and on recreational and sporting activities, but the example that I have just given at Deakin University shows how profoundly that fund failed in allowing that particular service and that particular facility to be maintained. Perhaps more critically, the student association has really struggled in a VSU environment to effectively maintain its presence, its staff levels and its services within the student body. The Deakin University Student Association, for example, no longer has a marketing department. The association has been forced to make some very tough decisions. This year the student association has really cut back its activities to simply advocating for students in circumstances of academic failure and, in needing to represent the students’ interests through the academic processes of the university, they are able to do little else than simply that.

Often there are services which students do not necessarily realise they need until the circumstance arises where they do need that service. Academic advocacy is an example in point. People do not necessarily know that they need it until they find themselves in a position of having failed a subject and needing to have their position represented within the university structure. Often there are very sound reasons why a person might be in a position where they are unable to complete their studies and it is very important that that information and advocacy of their situation is provided through the university body. The Deakin University Student Association is now making this particular work their priority, but it is very much being done at a cost of almost all the other services that they used to provide. Certainly, they believe that in the event that no further money is available and if there is not a remedy to be found in this legislation then they will not be able to do anything other than simply to provide that advocacy role.

The blame for all of that can be laid squarely at the feet of the Howard government and its voluntary student unionism legislation. It was an attempt to silence the voice of students. It was an attempt to remove the effectiveness of student associations which once catered for all students and which used to provide much-needed advocacy and amenities across a campus and build a social fabric, a life that students could engage in. All of that, as a result of the VSU legislation, was torn to shreds.

The Rudd government through this bill is committed to ensuring access for all university students to the amenities and to the services that they need. This government is proposing a very different alternative, one which will deliver a balanced and measured practical solution to this issue and one which will see the rebuilding of non-academic student services and amenities and one which will see the restoration of independent, democratic representation and advocacy for students within their tertiary institutions.

This legislation will require a higher education provider that receives funding for student places under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme to ensure that students get information on and access to basic support services of a non-academic nature and to ensure the provision of both student representation and advocacy. The legislation gives the power for a university in this situation to implement a fee of up to $250 per student, and the means by which they do that—whether or not they levy the extent of that fee or whether they levy a different fee for part-time students or external students—is a matter for the university. Issues have been raised about the impost that that creates for students. Students who find themselves in circumstances where a fee of that amount is unable to be paid by them can take out a HECS style loan in order to cover that fee. So in no sense will this fee be a barrier for any student to participate in the tertiary sector.

Importantly—and this deals with a number of the rather hysterical comments that were made by the member for Moncrieff—the legislation is very clear: fees collected through this process will not be able to be used in any way to support a political party or a candidate for election at any level of government. This is in no way the implementation of some form of compulsory student unionism. This is not setting up some mysterious and nefarious line of credit to the Labor Party. These arguments just highlight how obsessed the other side are with this particular area of public policy. There will be no change to section 19-37(1) of the Higher Education Support Act which prohibits a university from requiring a student to be a member of a student organisation. Guidelines will be put in place which will outline the range of services that the fee can be used for—and indeed not used for—such as child care, health care, sports and fitness clubs. It will be up to each university to precisely determine how they will introduce the fee and, importantly, they will be required to engage in a dialogue with the student body about how that fee will be implemented and the size of that fee.

Not surprisingly, the Deakin University Student Association support this bill and would support, in the case of the Deakin University, the introduction of a $250 fee. They say to me that the injection of funds that would come from such a fee would enable them to rebuild the services that they used to provide to students on campus at Deakin University, and in fact they propose to do that very rapidly. Indeed, the student association predicts that they would have significant improvements in place within a semester and certainly by the end of the year.

This legislation, in a sense, cuts a middle path through a debate which has been passionate, I suppose, but very puerile in its execution by the other side—puerile in the sense that what we have seen are people who have struggled to grow out of the old debates of student politics and have sought to bring them to this place, very much at the cost of student life, particularly students on campus in 2009. What occurred on campus in the 1970s to the people who are in this place on the other side ought not to be used as a penalty against people who are conducting their studies in 2009. This legislation will deal with that issue. It will allow student life to return to a state of normality. It will provide for the growing of a rich and vibrant student life at tertiary institutions which is such an important part of the university experience. Contrary to the point made by the member for Moncrieff, the bill absolutely meets the Rudd government’s promise to restore campus amenities and services, to restore student representation on campus and to restore student life, and for that reason I very much commend it to the House.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That further proceedings on the bill be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.