Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate condemns the Abbott Government’s vicious cuts to higher education and the devastating impact they will have on regional students, families and universities.

Since the government unveiled its grand plan for higher education in the budget, the Minister for Education has spent a lot of time touring regional Australia. He is desperately trying to spruik the benefits of what he sees as a deregulated system, as well he might, because regional universities and their students are likely to be the biggest losers if the proposed changes are ever implemented—the biggest losers, that is, amongst a litany of losers. All universities will be losers because of the $5.8 billion that the government is taking out of the higher education system. That includes a 20 per cent cut in course funding. So nearly all students in some way will lose because most will have to pay higher fees and take on much bigger HECS debts.

To recap, this is a budget that has shaved $3.2 billion from the HECS-HELP arrangements. These are arrangements that Australia has developed. They have been highly successful. They are internationally renowned as income-contingent contribution schemes. There have been proposals for the repayment threshold to be lowered and for real rates of interest to be charged on student debts. For some courses, the new HECS loan repayment will be at real rates of interest, which will mean debts in excess of $100,000 to get a university degree.

The government will be seeking to have the opportunity for universities to actually charge tuition fees for Australian students studying award courses within Australian universities. What we are seeing here is a tactic that clearly is not working for the government—a tactic being pursued where we have seen that not one of Australia's 39 vice-chancellors has given unqualified support to the higher education changes. It is a fact that all the vice-chancellors in Australia understand the enormous risks in what the government wants to do. They will all feel the force of the questions posed by those amongst them who are publicly questioning the government's direction. Take for instance the Australian Catholic University's Professor Greg Craven. He asked:

Is it really worth a couple of Australian universities getting very slightly better … at the cost of the remainder becoming very much worse?

In other words, the minister is willing to inflict substantial damage on a system built on equality of opportunity to pursue his illusionary goal of transforming some of the elite so-called sandstone universities into Australia's equivalent of Harvard or Stanford. He says that Australia will never have a world-class university unless universities can set their own fees, unless the higher education market is opened up so that non-university providers can compete for the diminished pool of public funds and unless students take on much bigger shares of the cost of their education.

Minister Pyne praises the American model of higher education without acknowledging what it actually means for the overwhelming number of Americans who can never attend a university such as Harvard or Stanford because their families are simply not wealthy enough and there are not enough scholarships. The minister should heed the warnings of someone who understands the American system much better than he does, such as the Nobel Laureate for Economics Joseph Stiglitz. He was recently visiting Australia and published an article in The Guardian today. In this article, Professor Stiglitz points out that, in the United States, total student debt is now more than $1.2 trillion. That is more than the entire United States credit card debt. It is not only a burden for individual graduates—it is a lifetime burden, in many cases—but it is now also an increasing burden for the entire United States economy. Professor Stiglitz says the failed US model of higher education funding is one of the reasons that, among the advanced countries, the United States now has the least equality of opportunity.

During his time in Australia, Professor Stiglitz repeatedly pointed out—and he advised the Prime Minister accordingly—that the Prime Minister and the education minister clearly do not understand the consequences of following through with an American model that they profess to admire so much. They simply have not grasped that none of the great US universities is a for-profit institution. It is not price competition that has made Harvard, Yale or Stanford great universities in the world. It is a competition of a very different type that has led to the success of elite US universities. They are either publicly funded or they are all supported by very large endowments that dwarf the operating budget of the entire higher education system in this country. It is their reputation for excellence in research that has made them the envy of the world. Of course, much of their research is actually funded by the US government. As for the so-called under-regulated US universities, they are indeed run on a for-profit basis. Professor Stiglitz says they:

… excel in two dimensions: the ability to exploit young people from poor backgrounds, charging them high fees without delivering anything of value, and the ability to lobby for government money without regulation and to continue their exploitative practices.

It is part of the US higher education experience with which many people would be familiar. It is not the Harvards or the Stanfords that Mr Pyne's reforms will impose on Australia.

I repeat: the United States has some of the best universities in the world, but it has many of the worst. The consequence of the policies being pursued in this country by this government will lead us not to the very best in the world but to some of the very worst. The open higher education market that Minister Pyne pines after will, of course, be an under-regulated system because the legislation before this chamber removes the national regulator from its critical role as the quality assurance regulator. TEQSA, under this government, has had its budget cut by $31 million; almost half of its funding has been taken away, and its functions have been reduced. So it has been deprived both of its resources and its powers to oversee at a time when the government is proposing that we have a very significant increase in the numbers of entrants into the so-called higher education market. So Minister Pyne's arrangements leave us with a shrunken regulator, the reductions to which will actually provide it with less opportunity to give proper supervision for accrediting courses and will mean that the minister, under these legislative changes, will have greater powers for personal direction.

All of this produces a very grave set of circumstances, particularly for regional universities. It is these universities and these students in the regions that will be amongst the biggest losers, as I have said, in this so-called brave new world of Minister Pyne's. They are already struggling to compete with the older, established universities that have benefited from in excess of 150 years of public investment. They are already losing students to these universities, which are able to lure students who can afford to move to the cities to study. Students who cannot easily afford to move have been attracted to regional universities, which do a very good job. As a result, regional universities have a much higher proportion of students from working class backgrounds. Poorer students tend to go to the regional universities. Almost one-third of the students from Central Queensland University, for example, are from low-income families, compared to only seven per cent at the University of Melbourne.

Regional universities do have a very special role in promoting equality of opportunity. They do create opportunities, and often for students who are the first in their families to receive a university education. So the proposals to increase the pressures on these universities is clearly something the Labor Party will reject. These are universities that do provide this nation with a capacity to increase its knowledge base, a capacity to be more responsive to local needs, and a capacity to ensure that we have high-skill, high-wage jobs in the regions themselves. Under the minister's deregulation system, they will not have a special role. The minister of course claims that they will be able to have access to Commonwealth supported places. That is, of course, one of the great Orwellian expressions of this package, because these are not Commonwealth supported scholarships that he is talking about; the Commonwealth supported places that they are proposing will have to be produced on the basis of 20 per cent less funding from the government. If the minister really does believe that the change will brighten the future for regional universities, then he clearly does not have an understanding of what actually happens within the higher education system itself.

We know that the smaller universities, the regional universities, with a higher proportion of students from low-income backgrounds, will have to raise their fees. They will be appealing to people who have less capacity to pay. They will, of course, therefore be under greater pressure. When they do raise their fees, they will have to make decisions about what they cut. They will not be able to meet the funding requirements that this government is imposing upon them, and it is simply not good enough to say that it is a matter of choice for them, because the universities will have to decide what they cut as well as how much they increase fees to compensate for the loss of government revenue.

They know that the real prospects for some regional universities may well be that they become teaching-only institutions. That would create a downward spiral in terms of their standing within the education system and would create a two-tiered system, because we know that the government is also considering cutting the amount of money that is available to teaching-only institutions. It is clear that, under these circumstances, regional universities would have extreme difficulty competing with metropolitan universities.

We also know that, for the private sector, the opportunities for competition come particularly at the regional level. That is something that the minister must surely have been advised by now but which he cannot publicly admit.

We already know what the consequences are for the TAFE system, because we have seen these experiences operating in Victoria where the older TAFE colleges have been under intense pressure as a result of deregulation brought about by the Liberal government in Victoria, which has seen profound challenges to the TAFE system. The TAFE colleges in Victoria are under enormous pressure, and many are actually facing financial ruin.

Senator McKenzie interjecting—

We do understand that the government in Victoria is now seeking to offer courses at less than $2 and $3 an hour, for TAFE provision in the state of Victoria, under their competition models. The minister, of course, pretends that it would be otherwise—and, I am sure, the National Party, which of course has demonstrated what incredible doormats they are when it comes to defending regional interests in this parliament. We understand that they are only too happy. They understand that not only were they duped in terms of changes in the budget on fuel and various other things but also they were duped on this question of education, because the big losers were the people that the National Party claims to represent here. They know that there is a great fantasy—the fantasy that regional universities will do better. We know that the complete opposite is the case.

In the deregulated environment the sandstone universities will have the most options, will decide what courses they will be able to operate, and will, of course, enjoy the maximum benefit of subsidising their research programs by being able to charge higher fees. This is the great irony here. The government says it is about increasing the universities' capacity in this country to compete internationally. But all the competitive indices are based on research. A university's ranking internationally is based on its research. This government, rather than funding research properly, is saying that you should slug students and transfer whatever surplus you get out of the teaching into research. Just imagine how students must feel in those circumstances—to know that their fees are going towards the funding of the research program. Just imagine how their parents must feel when they know that the cost of a $100,000 degree will mean that they may have to, if they want to help their kids, as we know many parents do—

Senator McKenzie interjecting—

I think we would all understand this, Senator McKenzie; I am sure even you would take this view. If you have to fund a $100,000 degree, then you will have to make a choice, and that choice may well be a second mortgage. Just when you think the circumstances are improving for you and your family, you have to take out a second mortgage to pay the kids' HECS debts. Or it could be that, on top of that, you have to choose which of your kids to help because you cannot afford to help them all. That is exactly what it was like under Menzies: middle-class families had to make a choice about which kid they helped. Degrees costing $100,000 mean you cannot necessarily expect all your kids to benefit. The government has not thought that through. Working-class people who have a view that they have got the right to get the very best opportunities in this country know that they cannot afford $100,000 degrees. The question will be: will that be a deterrent to them, particularly in regional and rural areas? Working people in regional areas will be saying they cannot afford that, so the universities become bastions of privilege.

We all understand the benefits of higher education—an improved income. We also know that people pay higher taxes. But we also say there is a benefit to the nation in ensuring that the country is highly educated in terms of quality jobs, productivity and social justice. But what we are seeing under this government is an end to those principles—the principle of the fair go is being ripped up. This is a government that simply wants to rip up the fundamental principles of equity when it comes to higher education.

We understand who the beneficiaries of this arrangement will be—the people with money, the people who are already privileged. And they will pass on their privilege to their kids. This is why Labor has remained so committed to ensuring we have an education system that is open and fair for everyone. That is why we had a target of ensuring 40 per cent of people under the age of 35 are able to go to university—and we are almost there. Under this government, you will not see that. We also said we wanted to see 20 per cent of our university system made up of people from a working-class background, from a poor background. This government has abandoned that target, let alone committed to seeing that opportunities are there. Under the illusion of competition, we have a government that has set out upon a magical mystery tour where it tries to copy the very worst aspects of the United Kingdom and the very worst experts of the United States. We have a situation where students in country areas will be profoundly disadvantaged in favour of wealthy students in the city.

What does the National Party say about all this? They just cop it sweet because they are the doormats of this government. This is a government that walks all over the National Party because the National Party has lost its way. The National Party has no understanding of what social injustice means. The government is now following in the footsteps of the United Kingdom and being chased by the National Party to go even harder in the process. The consequences will be that many graduates will now be faced with debts that they will never be able to repay—at the very time when they are trying to build a family, buy a house and get on with their life. Their parents will want to help them but they will not have the means to do so. The consequences are simple: Australia will become a much less fair place. Students, teachers, nurses and a whole lot of people on low incomes will have massive debts. (Time expired)

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me much pleasure to rise today to speak to this motion about the effect of the government's higher education reforms on communities that I represent as a National Party senator—on regional students; on the universities, which play a significant role in the communities we represent; on our industries; and on our communities more generally. Senator Carr, we do not support an American style of higher education. That is a system borne out of the cultural experiences of the American state. That is very different from how universities in this nation were set up and, indeed, it is very different from the whole culture of our education system in Australia, which is based on egalitarian principles. The government is opening up the higher education system to an additional 80,000 young Australians by 2018. The great proportion of those students will be from low-socioeconomic families—first-generation students seeking to take advantage of all that a higher education degree can bring you as an individual and to contribute significantly to our economy and our communities.

You would think the Labor Party would be celebrating the fact that we will be increasing the number of young Australians accessing higher education. Instead, they roll out Senator Carr, the man responsible for ripping out so much from our higher education system. And, I tell you, they do not want him back. Under Labor we saw the system opened up and increased without the subsequent changes that had to happen on the other side of the equation. The coalition government has committed to implementing the reforms from the Kemp-Norton review, which look at increasing the supply of university places throughout higher education. This includes not just bachelor degrees but sub-bachelor degrees, diplomas and associate diplomas—postsecondary qualifications.

The majority of young people in regional Australia do not go into higher education. I do not think it is because they are not as clever as their urban cousins and I do not think it is because they cannot get into university or do not want to. I think it is a combination of factors. Some of it, obviously, is the financial barriers that many families from regional areas face in ensuring that their young people can move away from home and access higher education in urban centres. These are things that we are addressing within our reforms.

It is quite disappointing that Senator Carr is not onboard to further develop and reform the higher education system. As a developed economy in the 21st century, with developing economies snapping at our heels, we need to be innovative and we need to be competitive in a global market. That only comes from an education system which is world class. We are not going to have world-class institutions operating on every street corner. That is just not possible, it is not sustainable and it should not be what we are aspiring to do.

But we need to create an environment where some institutions and some universities are able to go out and take it up to the best in the world and where others are able to meet our domestic requirements in terms of research, vocational supply of teachers, nurses et cetera and the professions more generally. That is the type of education system that we need in this country in order to be globally competitive going forward. That is the type of higher education system that our government seeks to create through these fundamental and historical reforms which, as a whole package, seek to strike a balance between equity of access and global competitiveness. To actually strike a balance is tricky. You cannot go to the lowest common denominator, as Senator Carr would seek to do. You have to have diversity within the system, which means that some will be better than others at different things. And that is okay.

Obviously, within a system like that we also need to ensure that student mobility is increased. One of the exciting things about our package is that not only will we be seeing regional students studying locally—and thanks to our Commonwealth Scholarships program, starting at the best universities in the nation and the best universities in the world—but we will see reverse migration where regional universities are able to compete against those urban universities, those 'sandstones', if you like, where they can actually say, 'Getting a quality education in this country is about a variety of criteria and you as a student have to make up your mind what matters to you.' That will mean different things for different students. We need to give people choice and we need to allow an environment where universities can decide what they are going to excel at.

It is our fourth largest export industry. We want to be the best. It is important. Our government has committed $274 million in regional loading over the next four years to support regional universities. I just want to briefly touch on some of the fabulous research that is occurring at our regional universities. A couple of weeks ago I was at Deakin University, in Geelong, where we celebrated the opening of the Carbon Nexus centre. We have world-class researchers who have created fibre that will change the way we communicate and the way we construct everything from racing cars and beyond. It is very exciting, particularly for that area in my home state, which is undergoing such challenges at the moment, to have such a fabulous research program going on at Deakin University.

Similarly, James Cook University, in North Queensland, is world renowned when it comes to marine biology. Thanks to the government's investment into that regional university it will now take on the world when it comes to tropical disease research.

La Trobe University, again in my home state of Victoria, is looking at the Murray-Darling Basin and how we can better use our water more efficiently. Those are fabulous things that regional universities can be good at. You can be a world-class regional university. Harvard University is not in a capital city. Oxford University is not in a capital city. This reform package as a whole, if taken with all the measures that the government has been able to put together, can actually result in regional universities taking on the world in their area of specialisation. I think it is very exciting.

I am quite disappointed, again, with Senator Carr's rhetoric. We heard it in estimates and I will not repeat it here because it was quite unparliamentary. But check it out in Hansard. Again, he talks about the biggest losers being the universities that my constituents attend and the universities whose research programs address the issues that my community needs addressed. He calls them the biggest losers. We have to stop the myth and stop the rhetoric. It is a bit like with agriculture: you have to stop talking it down. Let us start talking about the positives that are occurring in regional universities, the positives for regional students and regional communities rather than going on about being the biggest losers. It is absolutely incorrect.

Senator Carr talked about pressures being put on the university sector. I can tell you that the pressures under the previous government were horrendous. The ALP policy settings were the things that put pressure on our university system: extra students, no extra money. Anyway, we will not go into that at the moment, because there is too much good news in the coalition's higher education package for regional students, regional universities and regional communities.

If you had been listening to Senator Carr, you would have thought that all regional universities were against our changes and that there was a lack of understanding or collaboration. The minister has been touring throughout Australia over recent months, attending higher education universities in urban and rural areas. He has been getting firsthand experience of the type of education and research that you can undertake in a regional community. The Regional Universities Network fully supports the federal government's budget. The chair of the Regional Universities Network, Professor Peter Lee, is pleased that equal participation is such a high priority for the government. I quote Professor Lee:

We are particularly pleased that the Government has decided to keep the demand driven system for bachelor places and extended it to sub-bachelor places. This will assist in providing pathways and lift participation in higher education in regional Australia for less well prepared students.

I think that is exciting and that the government has actually listened to the concerns of regional universities in the construction of this package. Again, I turn to Professor Lee's comments:

We welcome the simplification of the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, and look forward to working with the Government on the detail of its implementation.

Prior to that, regional universities were calling on us as a government to make the tough decisions, to go ahead with the reforms that the sector needs in order for us to become globally competitive and to ensure that access and equity of participation are balanced against our desire to be the very, very best in the world.

The Regional Universities Network called for the government to turn to lower socioeconomic background and regional students, who have been largely ignored by previous governments. The fact that we are debating this as a result of a motion by Senator Moore and Senator Carr is fabulous. If only they had paid a little more attention to regional students and regional higher education providers when they were in government we would not have seen the youth allowance debacle and the lack of access that that precipitated and the changing of rules every five minutes. That was absolutely deplorable. So to have you in here championing the interests of regional Australia is something I wish we could have more of, Senator Carr.

We have listened to the regional universities when they called for us to be focusing on levers and initiatives that would actually increase participation for low socioeconomic students and regional students. To ensure that, we have extended the Higher Education Loan Program to encompass such things as sub-bachelor and associate diplomas. That is a positive thing for regional students because they are more likely to access those sorts of programs. I find it quite interesting that the Labor Party is making a very loud ruckus on the back of those parents who are unable to pay those fees up-front now. Is that the issue? Why should regional Australians, who typically earn less than anybody in urban Australia—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why are you taxing families?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Polley, I love that you are looking incredulous. We earn less—our median income is lower in every single place right across regional Australia. Yet you expect taxpayers in regional Australia who earn less per capita than anyone you would represent, Senator Polley—

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, please address your remarks through the chair.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The taxpayers from those communities, Mr Acting Deputy President, are expected to subsidise the philosophy degrees of middle-class Australians attending G8 universities. What about the taxpayers I represent?

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've got your degree.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The taxpayer dollars that the mums and dads in Burke or the mums and dads in Metung who are running a mechanics workshop contribute to the federal government are going to fund the majority of the degree of somebody who went to Melbourne Grammar and is attending Melbourne university studying philosophy. That is just not fair, I am sorry. They are happy to do it, but it is just not fair. I think and I am sure they would agree that part of our taxes should be going to subsidise the higher education of our young people, because that ensures that our community builds capacity. There is a public contribution from individuals completing higher education. However, there is also a significant private benefit. I do not know why my mechanic in Metung has to subsidise the son of a Toorak doctor doing their arts agree at a G8 university. It is not fair. That is why I think it is fair that he subsidises 50 per cent of the cost—not the majority of it, half of it.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're going to come out with a debt.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you go back to your membership, Senator Polley, in whatever union you represent here today I am sure your hardworking union members would back me up on this. They know that their taxpayer contribution should actually be a fair contribution. That is why I am so proud of our government for ensuring that we are providing a significant amount of support, a historic amount of support, to those young people who are going into the trades. I just paused there, Mr Acting Deputy President, because I was hoping I would get a clap for that one from the other side. We are actually supporting those going into trades with a historic amount of investment—yet nothing, no claps. There was silence.

One of the great things about our package as a whole is that it does address the parameters that affect potential first-generation graduates in families, those going into trades, those doing diplomas and associate diplomas. That is the important thing, that we have a suite of arrangements that does not just benefit the middle-class and entrench privilege, as Senator Carr said. It ensures that, no matter what you choose as a young person and no matter how you want to contribute and what future you see for yourself, you will have the opportunity to do that through post-secondary education in this country. It is not a bottomless pit.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They'll all come out with a debt. It's out of reach for most young people.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Polley, Universities Australia sees that there are issues and we are talking about that. The minister has set up working groups to work through the level of detail on what we do with the cluster arrangements, how we structure Commonwealth scholarships to ensure they meet our targeted goal of opening up equitable access to higher education so the very brightest students from regional Australia will not be held back by financial barriers anymore. We need to ensure that student mobility increases so that the communities I represent within regional Australia can benefit from an influx of young people from urban centres and right around the country who want to study at providers where the research specialisation is in their area and they are connected in a way you can only be on a regional university campus and in a regional town, so they can experience a world-class education in the regions with a low cost of living. What we are trying to do is ensure that the options available to young people right across Australia are transparent, open and flexible, because that is exactly what our higher education system needs.

Australian universities are dropping in the world rankings—not that that would worry everybody who just wants a lowest-common-denominator approach to education: 'That doesn't matter; let's just make sure that everyone is on a C. We don't want anyone at an A; everyone is a special snowflake and everybody gets a prize.' That is actually not how the real world works. There are winners and there are losers globally, and I want to make sure—and I know that the minister wants to make sure and that our government wants to make sure—that there are more winners in Australia than not: that we are able to compete against the best in the world when it comes to research that is going to drive future innovation and competition, that is going to create the industries we will need to underpin our economic advancement going forward in the 21st century and that is local research.

We do not want to have to import our brains; we do not have to—we are such a creative, innovative people. We need to be able to have institutions available to our great thinkers in order to grow and compete. I just do not know why those opposite do not want to get onboard. I look at Senator Carr's decisions on terminating programs that he had in place: there were things like our fundamental research infrastructure. Senator Carr actually halted funding on that. We have stepped into that gap and funded that program so that our physicists can use the research infrastructure they need to do the world-class research they are currently doing. I commend the minister. (Time expired)

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The anger at the coalition's brutal higher education changes is growing. We can see very clearly why this is the case from the speech that we have just heard from Senator McKenzie.

The policies that came down in the budget with regard to higher education—the savage cuts, the increase in debt and public money going to private higher education institutions—you would expect from the Liberals. But the Nationals try to walk both sides of the road on this one. They are out there in their communities, saying that they are fighting for strong, well-represented and well-funded regional universities. But when you look at the policies that they have signed off on it is going to be very much the opposite.

We have just heard from Senator McKenzie about how she is out there for the mums and dads so that they can send their children to university. In fact, what she is signing off on—and again, we have the Nationals tailing behind the Liberals when it comes to higher education policies—is effectively working to end public higher education in this country. Entry into our universities will no longer be on one's academic ability but on one's ability to pay.

The budget uses the euphemism 'expanding opportunities'. In fact, what will happen under what Senator McKenzie and her colleagues in the National Party are backing when they just sign off with the Liberal Party on this policy is a range of budget measures that will suck money and resources out of our regional universities and make it harder for people in our regional areas to go to university because of these extreme changes.

Together, these changes are higher fees, sweeping cuts and more money for private for-profit education providers. We know that this is going to lead to much higher university fees—some as high as $100,000 to get a degree—and the burden for those costs is being shifted by the government onto students. This is a very savage way to run education policy and it will have an enormous impact on people deciding to go to university.

In many cases, universities—particularly regional universities—will have no choice but to increase fees, in many cases by at least 50 per cent. It is expected that most will increase fees by between 100 and 200 per cent or even more. Then there are these contingent HELP loans. They will accrue real interest from the moment students are granted the loan, and that will continue. This form of compound interest just becomes an enormous burden and that is why the Greens have identified this as a very sexist policy. I will detail the impact that it will have on women, particularly women who choose to take time out to have children.

Already, I find that people are telling me they are thinking about what they should do for their future. Do they take on higher education? Is that the path that they should take? Their thoughts are about whether they should take out a mortgage—should they get a mortgage on a house or get an education? These are issues that people are weighing up.

The University of Western Sydney is one of many campuses where students and staff, with community support, are coming together to raise their voices in opposition to what the government is doing. One open letter has come out of the University of Western Sydney, signed by 204 staff, with 113 community supporters. It is a very informative letter and very worrying. It has been circulated to many of us. For example, the University of Western Sydney has identified:

Many of our students already have families to support, and such levels of debt will represent an unmanageable burden.

Again, that is a message that I get from many of the regional university vice-chancellors and managers who I have met with: that so many of their students are mature-age students, usually with families and often with jobs, and that they are seriously considering whether they can continue with their education or whether they should even start it.

The University of Western Sydney letter goes on to say:

Many of our students come from families with no previous tertiary background and are usually unfamiliar with the nature of university education.

The concern that they then go on to raise is:

Many will opt for alternative sub-university providers who promise cheap qualifications but without the intellectual rigour and cultural capital that comes with the university environment.

Why is that? Because—and again, this is something that the Nationals have signed off on—under the coalition plan, if it is successful, public money will go for private higher education providers in the university sector for the first time.

It is also worth remembering that another very concerning aspect of this is that the standards regulator, TEQSA, will have reduced funding. So at a time when we actually need more oversight because there will be public money going to these private institutions—many of them with little or no experience in the education sector—we have a regulator that will have fewer resources and less ability to follow through on this.

The issue of private institutions being given access to federal funding has had limited coverage in the current debate. Understandably, much of the public debate about the government's cruel policy has concentrated on the issues of fees and debt, but we also need to examine the plan to put public money into private, for-profit institutions. This was one of the concerns raised by the people who signed the UWS letter. It said:

We at UWS will continue to strive to provide an excellent education; but we enter the market as a relatively new institution. With the system no longer geared to promoting high-performing research across all institutions, some of our best researchers may be drawn to the expanding elite. The great gains from public investment in UWS by successive governments risks being squandered as we are forced to compete on price with bottom-end private institutions that have no pretence to provide a true university education.

Education standards will be driven down and people will be conned—many people.

I can very much relate to this. I was the first in my family to have had the opportunity to go to university. I went to university not having very much knowledge about how such institutions worked, but I did have confidence that the university I went to, the University of New South Wales, had standards. This was in the 1970s. I can understand that many people would make the assumption—like the assumption I made then—that the institution they intended to go to was good. If I had been going to university or into higher education now, I could have ended up in one of these bottom-end private institutions who are out to make profits—and who put that pursuit of profit before teaching standards.

As I said in my opening remarks, anger is growing about what the government is trying to do. Awareness is building that this is wrong. Polling commissioned by the Greens into the coalition government's elitist changes to higher education has shown that those changes are opposed by the majority of the community. Two-thirds of the people polled oppose plans to remove the fee cap, to allow universities to set their own fees and to increase interest rates on HECS-HELP debts. Further, almost two-thirds of those polled opposed plans to give private, for-profit education providers access to federal government funding.

What we are seeing here is the Americanisation of our universities. There are many excellent aspects of US universities, but the changes that have been put forward by the coalition would mimic the worst aspects of the US system. As we know—we hear this statement so often—US students are collectively more than $1 trillion in debt. The average US graduate comes out of university with a debt of $31,000. It is interesting to compare that with the situation in Australia. The Grattan Institute has produced an interesting study. It was undertaken by the higher education policy adviser to the coalition government. It establishes that student fees will be significantly higher under the coalition, with a teaching degree coming in at $49,000; a nursing degree, $38,000; and an engineering degree, $61,000.

From the many meetings I have had since the May budget, I am picking up that, in regional areas, people are thinking twice about whether they will go to university. If they are thinking about universities, very often they are looking to go to city universities. That is really worrying their parents and their communities. When I speak to people on shire councils, they tell me how worried they are that the coming generation of young people will go to universities in the bigger cities, the capital cities. They tell me that their experience is that, very often, young people who go away to study do not come back to regional areas. They say that the best way for their region to have a future is for those students to study locally. That is another reason these developments are so serious.

In trying to advance their policy, the coalition's spokespeople have just created confusion. The Prime Minister and the education minister, Mr Pyne, have often contradicted each other—about when the changes would be implemented, for instance. Mr Abbott would not rule out the possibility that fees could double, and many experts in the area have been quite emphatic that it is very likely that they will. In the meantime, Mr Pyne, when interviewed, has not been able to decide whether fees would go up or down. He has contradicted not only the Prime Minister but what he himself has said at different times.

I think it is important to look at the impact on different cohorts of students. I am very concerned about the impact that the fee increases and the changes to the debt arrangements will have on women, on people from disadvantaged backgrounds and on people who remain on low incomes after they graduate. This is because, if these changes go through, people with HECS-HELP debts will be facing the effects of compound interest. That means that people with less money will be paying off their debt for much longer and will have to pay back a greater amount of money. If women take time off to have children—and many women obviously do take time off to have children; it is very common—that will impact enormously on the amount they have to pay back. Again this demonstrates very clearly how wrong these policies are.

These policy changes will also hit our postgraduate research students. I have received some very useful information from the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, CAPA, about the changes to the research training scheme that will come in if these budget measures are passed. It will be possible for the new fees to be imposed on all enrolled higher-degree-by-research students, not just on those who enrol after 1 January 2016. CAPA have had that confirmed. This is again something that Mr Pyne and Mr Abbott, when talking about this issue, have tried to gloss over—when these cost increases will actually hit. CAPA, in their letter, said that they have great concern regarding Australia's over 60,000 higher-degree-by-research students, and we believe that the changes will have a significant impact on Australia's future research workforce.

Here we have changes that will go to the heart not just of our higher education system but also of the type of society we are and, indeed, of our economic viability into the future, because our investment in higher education is an investment in our future and an investment in the economic development of the country. That money needs to be put into higher education so we have the very best higher education we can have in our country, because we cannot be an educated, innovative nation under what this government proposes to bring forward. We need to put the money into research. We need to put money into our universities.

CAPA have taken this issue up very strongly. They believe that the budget proposals will impact on decision making around undertaking research studies in Australia. They have recognised that a number of future students will, again, be assessing whether they can undertake research and whether they can undertake it in Australia. They have identified how we could, in fact, have another brain drain. That is a term that we have not heard for many years, but, from the work that they have undertaken, that is something that clearly is on the books, because students are often looking at whether they will undertake their research studies in Europe or in North America or whether it is possible to do it in Australia. They said that from some of the work they have undertaken there is an unwillingness to accept existing offers to commence research studies in 2015 because of the cost burden that now hangs over them. They have gone on to say that some students are indicating an unwillingness to sign up until their prospective university has indicated whether they will charge fees to domestic research training scheme students.

About 1,500 people have signed the CAPA online petition against changes to the Research Training Scheme. I do congratulate them for the work that they, along with the National Union of Students and the National Tertiary Education Union, have undertaken in this area. They have been providing the real facts on what will happen if these changes come in. As the government attempts to muddy the waters, these people are really getting into the details of how serious this will be. CAPA makes the point, and this is a quote from their letter: 'It seems especially contradictory to be promising funding for medical research while simultaneously proposing to charge higher-degree-by-research students in the medical sciences, our future medical researchers, higher fees than their peers in other research fields.'

That is taking up another aspect of the dishonest way the government is trying to sell their budget measures, and particularly higher education, by making out that they now have this huge bucket of money for medical research and trying to sidestep the damage that their policy will, in fact, do to research. We do know, and I would really like to put this on the record, that research students make an enormous contribution to our research output and our national knowledge base, and that is what we stand to lose if these changes go through. I would just like to emphasise that, because I think it is something that should really be very troubling to senators, particularly to Liberal and National senators. They need to realise what they are signing off on. I made the point earlier that we could face another generation of brain drain to our overseas competitors. Clearly, it is deeply wrong for us to head in that direction.

What we have here is a very sexist, a very cruel and a very brutal set of changes to how higher education would operate in this country. But the good news is that more people are becoming aware of it, people are working together across universities, between students, between staff and between supporters in a whole range of organisations. They realise that this is not about some individuals who may want to go to university; this is about how Australia develops into the future and that we should not be bringing forward a system that benefits just private education providers and the rich and wealthy. If these changes go through, they will bring a great divide to Australia. Our education system should operate to reduce the divisions and to bring benefits to our society, not to further inequality. Right now students and families have every reason to be concerned and to be upset. It is our responsibility to study these changes closely to ensure that where they are damaging to the very fabric of Australian society they are not allowed to go through. The students and staff who wish to benefit Australia and themselves through attending our regional universities and our city universities should not be allowed to suffer because of a government that is unwilling to bring forward a fair higher education policy.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak on this issue of the vicious cuts to higher education and the devastating impact that this will have on regional students, families and universities. I regularly get accused of class warfare in this place. If you want to see an example of class warfare, have a look at the Abbott government's budget that drags billions of dollars out of the pockets of our pensioners, of our seniors and of our sick. It is just absolutely unbelievable that this type of class warfare can take place in this country in this day and age. To understand the scope of the class warfare being carried out by the coalition against the poor of this country you have to look at all aspects of the budget, not just at education. But on higher education in particular, the coalition have form. The coalition have done this before. There is a book called The Australian Moment, by George Megalogenis, one of the most praiseworthy and praised academic writers in this country. He looks at issues that are important for this country and in The Australian Moment he says, 'On 20 August 1996, Costello'—the then Treasurer of the coalition government; one of the worst Treasurers this country has ever seen—'announced $7.2 billion in savings, $800 million short of their original two-year target of $8 billion. The spending cuts were valued at $5.2 billion.'

It all sounds a bit 'here we go again'. He went on: 'The revenue measures were another $2 billion. The single largest cut was to tertiary education funding.' The cuts were to our universities. Mr Megalogenis continued: 'The savings were expected to secure a small surplus of $1 billion in 1998-99, but this time Treasury was being too pessimistic. The budget was balanced a year ahead of schedule and it went back to surplus, as Keating had said it would, jumping to $3.9 billion in 1998-99—almost four times above Costello's original estimate—and then to $13 billion in 1999-2000. Costello subsequently reversed many of the spending cuts, though not those to universities or to the public broadcaster, the ABC.'

So, it is in the DNA of the coalition to attack the ABC and higher education. Mr Megalogenis said: 'These choices were ideological. Howard and Costello agreed with the Hawke and Keating governments on the broad outline of the economic reform program to float financial deregulation, tariff cuts and surplus budgeting but they rejected Labor's cultural agenda and used the budget to wind back Hawke's "clever country" spending and Keating's funding for the arts. The savings from universities, for example, were not banked but used to promote private sector schools.' So if ever there has been a position of class warfare it was when the Howard-Costello government—picked up now by the Abbott government—attacked the fundamental issues that allow working-class people to get ahead: access to university.

I am one of the few people here who have never been to university. I was a tradesperson. I left school at 15 and got an apprenticeship. My sister and my brother have university degrees. My two kids have university degrees. I know what it is like to try to assist two children from a working-class background to get through university. Most people know what that is like. My two kids—like many other kids—had to work hard. They had to take jobs to get themselves through university, because I could not afford to do it on one wage in my house. So I know what it is like, and I know how important it is to get to university.

Getting through university now is a bit like getting through high school in the days when I went to school. In those days you had to get through high school to get a job; now you have to get through university to get some jobs. Even some engineering and trades jobs require people with degree qualifications. So it is different now, and to make it hard for young Australians to access university is a class warfare attack of some significance.

This government came to power based on lies and deceit. There were going to be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, and no cuts to the pension. You cannot trust this mob one inch. And the impact of this budget on regional students, families and universities is absolutely huge.

You have to ask yourself: what do they have against working-class people getting access to an education? Why do they constantly rip billions of dollars out of higher education so that it is only the rich and privileged who can get their kids a university education? Why do they do that? They have done it now and they did it back in 1996. So these people on the government benches have form. In my view it is ideological. It is as George Megalogenis said: it is an ideological obsession of this government.

And this government are now trying to argue that universities will be better off with less funding. They argue that universities will be better because you can privatise and get more players coming in; there will be more competition. That really is a sort of social Darwinism from the coalition: the strong will survive and the weak can just die away. I have heard them say that this is not an Americanisation of the Australian university system. Rubbish! It is exactly all of the worst aspects of the United States university system being imposed on this country because of their ideological bent that it should be basically the rich and the well-off who can get their kids into university. What have they got against working-class kids getting into university? What is the problem here, other than their ideology? It is okay if you have gone to a private school. Megalogenis said that money was taken out of the universities, where working-class kids were getting access to a good education, and put into private schools. I just had a look at what the fees are in private schools. If you go to Canberra Grammar, it is $20,140 for a term. With what the government wants to do here—get the cleaners back on to $17 an hour—how many cleaners in Canberra will be sending their kids to Canberra Grammar? The answer is: none. If you go to SCEGGS in Darlinghurst in New South Wales, it is $32,179.

An opposition senator: How much?

$32,179. If you go to Brisbane Grammar School, it is $23,345. In South Australia, if you go to Pulteney Grammar, $21,530. In Victoria, Geelong Grammar, $34,000. In Western Australia, Christ Church Grammar, $24,200. I am sorry, I cannot give you Tasmania's, because the figures are not there; they must be a secret.

The kids that go to these private schools get money that is taken out of the public school system and put into the private school system. Their parents can afford to spend 30-odd thousand dollars to put them into a private school. Will they have a problem like my kids had when they went to university? They will not have to worry about going out and getting a job. There will not have to worry about whether their parents can buy them a book. They will not have to worry about whether their parents can buy them a beemer to head off to university every day. They will do it easily. But working class kids in the western suburbs of Sydney will not be able to do it.

When I get accused of class warfare, I say, 'Accuse me all you like, because if I am going to stand up for kids in the western suburbs of Sydney—I am a New South Wales senator after all—I am going to stand up for them.' The kids that go to SCEGGS, the kids that go to Sydney Grammar, the kids that go to Canberra Grammar and the kids that go to Brisbane Grammar do not really need me standing up for them here because they will do okay, thanks very much. Their parents will give them more than enough money to look after them and get them an education in university.

I have to say to you I am absolutely appalled the more I hear from the National Party. If anyone was here when Senator McKenzie gave her speech, and if you managed to go through the 20 minutes without falling asleep, you would have heard some interesting points. What she was saying was that you have to have these innovative universities that can match it with the best in the world. And for the rest, you have to have universities that can meet domestic demand. Now, 'meet domestic demand' is really code for 'going to second-class universities'. That is what that is about. And she says that, 'You want to bring everyone down to the same level.' Well, I have news for Senator McKenzie: I would like every university in the country to be at the same level as the best universities in the country. But I would like them to be supported financially to do that. The coalition certainly will not do it.

She went on to say, 'You have to balance equity of access against global competition.' Well, 'equity of access' simply means that if you have plenty of money, you will get in. If you do not have a lot of money, you will not get in. And 'global competition' means that if you have plenty of money, you will go to the best universities. If you are a working class kid in the western suburbs of Sydney, you will go to the 'domestic demand' university—the second-class university. And she says that they are putting in $224 million to support regional universities. This is the debating trick that this mob over there use all the time. They look at the budget and say, 'We are spending $224 million in unis.' But they do not tell you how much they have pulled out. They have pulled $5.8 billion out of higher education in this country. That is what has come out from this mean-spirited, class-warfare-ridden coalition—$5.8 billion.

Going back to what Senator McKenzie said, she actually should get her facts right if she is coming in here and making these claims. She says that the great universities—and quotes Harvard and Oxford—are not universities that are in capital cities. Well, I have news for her: Boston is the capital city of Massachusetts, and that is where Harvard is. It is 12 minutes from the CBD of Boston. Oxford is one hour and 16 minutes from London. That is about the same time it takes for you to drive from Penrith to the CBD.

On the other issue she raises, she said, 'We are going to help the tradespeople of this country; we are going to give them all this money in the Trade Support Loans.' What she does not say is that $914 million has been taken away from apprentices. The Labor government had the Tools For Your Trade program to help young working class kids get access to tools so that they could get their trade training. That was worth $914 million. If you go to the budget papers, you can see quite easily that $914 million was pulled out of that program. Guess how much they are going to spend on the trade support program in 2015-16: they are going to spend $2.7 million. So $914 million disappears and $2.7 million comes in.

Then we have the argument from the National Party that there are winners and losers. They say, 'You have to be in the real world.' That means that government should just step away and let the market rip. 'Government should just step away and let ordinary working people in this country just battle away without any government support.' This mob is all about small government. It is not about looking after people that need help. This budget epitomises that. This budget absolutely epitomises that.

The National Party should hang their heads in shame because this budget will affect regional and rural Australia more than the CBDs—it will affect it much more than the cities. In rural and regional Australia, you are going to get hammered with more costs. In rural and regional Australia, that is where people depend on support through family tax benefit A and B. More people who depend on that support live in rural and regional Australia than in many of the capital cities. The electorate of Page, on the North Coast of New South Wales, is one of the biggest recipients of family tax benefit A and family tax benefit B. What has happened to that benefit? It is being cut. There are more pensioners up in that area. What has happened to their pensions? They are being cut. There are more seniors in those areas. What is happening there? Their benefits are being cut. These are the big problems that we have.

The Liberal Party are not the Liberal Party that people think they are. They are not the Liberal Party who are supposed to be standing up for a fair go for everyone. They want to Americanise our system, and that is just unacceptable. The problem for them is that, if you lie to the public and you come to power based on a lie, you will pay a price.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ahem! Hold on!

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to tell you: we know well what the public do when they reckon you have told lies. We know that well and that is what you have to accept. You have not only lied once; you have lied twice; you have lied three times; you have lied scores of times to the Australian public. The Australian public do not trust the coalition. They do not trust you because you said there would be no cuts to health, there would be no cuts to education and there would be no cuts to pensions. This budget is an absolute shock for the Australian public who voted for the coalition. They are rolling up, one after the other, saying to me, 'I don't want to tell anyone I voted for that mob. I did, but I'm not doing it again because they lied.'

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they won't vote for you either!

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does not matter whether they vote for us or not; they will not be voting for you. The coalition will pay a huge price because ordinary working people will not be able to get access to a decent education—and we heard Senator McKenzie talk about innovation and new jobs. If the working class of this country cannot get access to universities because it is $100,000 to get a degree, or you can only get in if you are pretty rich or your parents can help you, they will not vote for you. If you are going to end up with a $100,000 debt when you come out of university, how many working-class kids are going to get into that? How many parents are going to get into that?

I just do not accept the proposition that you can have a fair country and reduce inequality with a budget like we have seen—a budget that hammers working people, hammers the seniors of this country, hammers the pensioners and screws the sick. Every time you go to a doctor, it will cost $7. This is a disgrace. Do not ever accuse me of being a working-class warrior again— (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am absolutely delighted to contribute to this motion of Senator Carr's, regarding the Abbott government's impact on regional students, families and universities. I do so with the advantage of having had 11 years as a member of the faculty at Curtin University's regional campus at Muresk in Northam, and also a history of having been a visiting academic at the University of California, Davis in 1979-80 and the University of Kentucky in 1980.

Senator Cameron will not be surprised or disappointed to learn that I will not be dignifying anything that he has contributed this afternoon with a response, simply because the font of human knowledge has not been advanced by one drop as a result of Senator Cameron's discourse this afternoon. What I do want to comment on, if I may, are some statements made by Senator Carr in moving his motion. I was absolutely blown away that an otherwise intelligent person could have come out with the statement that there had been no support from the university sector for Minister Pyne and Prime Minister Abbott's initiatives. Let me commence my contribution with a couple of comments from people who might know what they are talking about. Let me start with the Labor member for Fraser here in the ACT, Dr Andrew Leigh, who said that Australian universities should:

… be free to set student fees according to the market value of their degrees. A deregulated or market-based HECS will make the student contribution … fairer, because the fees students pay will more closely approximate the value they receive …

You, with your distinguished career academically and in the world of finance, Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, could relate to this.

I go to that luminary of Labor, Professor Gareth Evans, who said, along with the vice-chancellor of the ANU: 'The education reform package announced in the budget will allow the ANU to offer an education that is like no other in Australia, amongst the best in the world.' He went on to say that they were 'delighted to see that this government has heeded and included in the package the recommendation of ANU chancellor Gareth Evans' in the sense that the universities be required to put a proportion of their fee income 'towards equity scholarships'. So that is coming into my discourse. The Group of Eight universities are themselves fairly substantial in this country. I quote their president:

In particular we support: expanding the demand-driven system to non-university providers, with adequate quality controls; extending funding to sub-Bachelor Degree programs (e.g. Diploma and Associate Degrees);

That was the Group of Eight recently—in only May of this year—so where Senator Carr has been hiding I can only guess.

I now go to the Regional Universities Network, since that is the topic of our motion. What did they do in May of this year? They welcomed:

… the announcement in the Budget of an ambitious program of reform for higher education which recognises the importance of the sector to Australia—

one which I had the pleasure and pride to represent and to contribute to in those times. They went on to say:

The Treasurer and the Minister are to be congratulated for highlighting the important role Universities—

these are the regional universities—

play in Australia’s future.

I quote the Australian Council for Private Education and Training—again, from only a month ago:

The changes the government has announced tonight offer all students funding support …

Isn't it a shame that Senator Cameron is not here, so we could listen to him rant about people not having the opportunity to participate in higher education? If he had only done some research himself—if he had only looked at what the Australian Council for Private Education and Training has said:

They will support genuine student choice and competition among all of Australia's 173 higher education providers.

It gets better. I now go to Monash University's President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ed Byrne, from 14 May:

The approach in the budget lays out a series of steps for an ambitious deregulation of the sector. The future of universities will be more in their own hands than ever before.

I now come back to Western Australia and the Chancellor of UWA. Dr Michael Chaney said this as a result of the left-wing students all out there protesting:

I'm a bit bewildered to see left-wing students campaigning for lower fees on the basis that people who don't go to university should be funding their education … What they're saying is people who don't go to universities should through their taxation be funding university students who, in due course, earn higher incomes.

What a tragedy that Senator Cameron is not here to hear that.

Now I go to another quote if I may, very briefly, before I get into the text of my own contribution. This is from the retired Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England—itself a regional university—Professor Jim Barber. This is what he said in response to the commentary about fees going through the roof:

I have no doubt the big end of town in Australia will begin jacking up their prices in response to fee deregulation, but they will be doing so just as a range of new online, low-cost yet high-quality competitors are entering our domestic market.

Isn't it amazing what competition does, Mr Acting Deputy President? You have lived a life in the competitive world of finance and you know that as well as I do. But one moment: I now come to the last of my contributions. This is from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong—itself a tremendously entrepreneurial university—Professor Paul Wellings. He commented that universities should anticipate changing behaviours from undergraduate students who—you would not believe this!—will want greater engagement in return for the changes to the funding model. Isn't that revolutionary? The students might actually get out there and make a cost-benefit analysis. They might get out there and say: 'Which course is most appropriate to me? Which one is best to invest my future funds in, because I want to make sure I get the best qualifications for the career I want to pursue?'

The only comment I will make to Senator Cameron, before he gets off his high horse, is that I too am the son of a man who started his working career in the Depression days on the wharf in Fremantle. My mother was a bank secretary because she had to leave school early to support the farm. So my own background matches that of many others in this place. I had to get to Queensland University on a cadetship fully paid for by the department of agriculture. Do you know what happened? I had to work to pay it off. That was in 1971. I should have worked for five years; I worked for 2½ of the five years under my bond. Then what did I have to do? Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to Senator Ruston: I paid the other half back. There is nothing new about this.

Those are the comments that Senator Carr does not know about—what the university sector is saying and thinking. Allow me to comment for one second on the American system because I have, as I told you, worked in it on three occasions with a great degree of pleasure and pride. Unlike Australia, where every person starting up their career from diploma, to advanced diploma, to sub-degree, to degree, to master's degree, can walk in without paying a single, solitary penny and start their course—borrow that money and not pay a penny—in the United States, it is a very different situation. You either borrow within the family or you might receive some sort of city or parish based support. You might get some financial aid.

My own daughter-in-law went through university at the University of Louisiana. It was a three-year degree; she came out with a $40,000 debt. The interest rate is interesting. The bond rate in the United States at the moment would be one per cent—you would probably know that better than me, Mr Acting Deputy President; would it be about one per cent, the bond rate? She is paying four per cent on her debt. And do you know when she started repaying it? She started repaying it the day the loan was given to her—not when she earned $50,000, and not at 2.9 per cent when our bond rate is 3.75 per cent. It was none of that—it was four per cent. The American government is making money. Yet we are invited here, by the likes of Senator Carr, Senator Cameron and others, to vilify what Australia is doing when it comes to financial support.

Let me turn, if I may, to regional universities in particular. Remember this: you can start your course without putting up a penny. But it gets better, because a student could start a part-time course. They could be working and they could say, 'I want to do economics. I want to follow Senator Whish-Wilson'—at least, as far as your stock-broking; not as far as you have got, Senator Whish-Wilson. We will stop at that. That loan is available to that student from the day they enrolled in their course of study, be it at university, an advanced diploma or whatever.

It gets even better again for students, in regional universities in particular, but also students anywhere. My own experience at the Muresk Institute of Agriculture was that there are a lot of students from farming backgrounds. There would occasionally be a tragedy in the family. The father might have become very ill or whatever. That student would have to terminate their studies for a period of time. Do you know what you can do under this new scheme? You can suspend your studies—suspend your loan—and you still have not paid anything off. You have paid nothing. You can go away for that one or two year period, sort out whatever the issue is and come back and recommence your studies and your loan. How much better is it than that?

Previous speakers have spoken about cutbacks in funding. Let me tell you what the figures are. In Labor's last budget for 2013-14, higher education funding was $8.97 billion. Our budget shows that growing to $9.47 billion. Last time I was at school, probably even a school similar to Senator Cameron's, 8.97 was a lesser figure than 9.47. When it comes to the Commonwealth Grants Scheme, our funding is going up from $6.2 billion in 2013-14 to $6.7 billion in 2017-18. Those are the figures.

Let us talk about this new opportunity. It is now being extended to colleges and institutions that run higher degrees, advanced degrees and associate degrees, and this government is putting in $370 million over three years. Why is this so important? My experience at places like Muresk and others is that quite often young people were not of themselves at that time qualified to get to university. They might not have studied the right English subjects. Because of their limited academic or educational opportunities, particularly young boys and men, they may not have had that confidence to go to university. What they can now do is enter into a diploma course or an advanced diploma course and build up that confidence, build up that love of learning that they did not know they had, with the loan, without paying a cent, until they actually start earning $50,000, which, with CPI linkage, we know is going to be more than $50,000. But what they do is they learn to love to learn.

The opportunities that now exist with this new program, and we are seeing it already, are that colleges are talking with universities so that we can have that seamless movement. No longer these silos, these hierarchies, where that is a TAFE, that is a college of advanced education, this is a university. It is not like that any more. Break down those stupid silos and barriers and guess what we end up seeing? We see that happening. And in my own state of Western Australia it is already happening in country areas. In the City of Bunbury, Notre Dame University and UWA work very collaboratively in the health sector. In Bunbury! I asked those vice-chancellors, 'Why can't you do that in Perth?' 'That's the city, Senator; it's different'. In Geraldton we have a circumstance in which an eastern state based university, Charles Sturt University—which I wish to come to in a moment—is involved in a program with Western Australian institutions.

Further to that $370 million, we are putting $450 million over three years into Commonwealth funding for Australian higher education in the non-university institutions that do offer bachelor degrees. The third initiative is to open up Commonwealth funding for privately owned universities and privately owned non-university higher education providers—tremendous genuine competition. Eighty thousand new students by 2018, and who are a lot of them? They are the low-socioeconomic people that Senator Cameron seems to think do not have the capacity to realise an interest delayed loan, a nil upfront payment loan. Well I have a lot more confidence in young people in general, and particularly low-socioeconomic people.

I come to the point, from my own experience, that the big issue we have in Australia at the moment is non-completion of up to 50 per cent. All of us have been to university—Senator Mason, Senator Ruston; I do not know whether Senator Lundy, Senator Bilyk, Senator Moore or Senator Bullock may have this experience—and you may recall the tradition used to be that the vice-chancellor would line you up on day one, and in my case it was in Winthrop Hall in Perth, and he would say, 'Shake the hand of the person next to you because they're not going to be there next year.' There is a 50 per cent drop out. We will see far less dropping out when we see students have the opportunity to choose their own course, to choose a course that will be tailored by universities because in a deregulated environment they know they are going to have to sink or swim—and they cannot wait. They cannot wait to get out there and be part of it. So we are going to see higher completion rates, we are going to see greater choice for students and, in my view, we are going to see greater engagement of students. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

Let me turn for a moment to the current situation, as opposed to the new one. In fact, the comment was made earlier by one of the professors I have quoted. At the moment, and I do not know if people realise it, the Australian taxpayer pays 60 per cent of the education of a student. Now many Australian taxpayers are themselves not from university backgrounds, so therefore you have people who were not at uni paying for the course of somebody who does go to uni. And then you get the odd student who wants to spend a year or two in the library or at the local bar and never bothers graduating—and guess who helped to pay for their early efforts at university, where they did not see a lecture theatre or a tutorial or too many laboratories? What it will do is go from a 60 to 40 ratio to fifty-fifty. At the moment the HELP scheme, or the HEC Scheme, is at the interest rate of 2.9 per cent. The government borrows at the bond rate, which at the moment is about 3.75 per cent. Who picks up the difference, do you reckon, between the 2.9 and the 3.75? The taxpayer does. At the moment we have got a $6 billion or $7 billion unpaid HECS or HELP debt and, once again, you guessed it, it is the dear old taxpayer of Australia who picks up those figures. Surely we have got to see some more fairness and equity in that situation.

I come back to the comment I made earlier: remember, someone can do the course part time; be working and do the course part time. They could probably afford to borrow, but, no, they do not have to. They can take that low-interest loan—if they were to get a personal loan to buy a motor car, eight or nine per cent; if they were going to get a loan to travel overseas, 11 or 12 per cent possibly; even if they have a housing loan, 5½ to six per cent—and this particular loan has absolutely no repayment at the time. Put it in the bank and make some money out of it, but do not tell people that, Senator Bullock—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. Those are the sorts of advantages.

When it comes to regional universities, let me tell you our own recent experience of cross-fertilisation, happening now as a result of this new deregulated world. Muresk started the first ever agribusiness degree course in the 1970s. For various reasons I will not go into, it no is longer operating. It has burgeoned around Australia. Probably one of the most excellent courses of this type at the moment is run by Charles Sturt University at Wagga. As of February this year, the Wagga course—yep, you would not believe it; across state boundaries—run by Charles Sturt University is now being run at the Muresk Institute for Western Australian agribusiness and agriculture students. That is the sort of process we are going to see with deregulation. Why wouldn't we have the merging of international universities? Online opportunities are going to expand. People say to me, 'Fees are going to go up!' If you are a vendor of shoes in Manuka, and there are other shoe shops in Manuka, and if you wandered down there and said, 'I'm going to go into this market selling the same brands and I'm going to double the price of everyone else', how long do you reckon you will stay in the marketplace? Not very long at all.

Regional universities, contrary to what Senator Carr said, and my own experience bears this out, have tremendous opportunities. For example, in my own state it is in agriculture and mining. I was in Kalgoorlie the other day—Senator Bullock would know the excellence of the WA School of Mines. It is already attracting international students from everywhere: Africa, Asia, South America. That will only expand in a deregulated world because they can set those prices, along with those for Australian students. So the opportunities are boundless.

The cost of living in country towns is often less. Then there is the enjoyment of living. I asked veterinary students at Wagga, when I went to give the occasional address for their first graduating group, 'Wouldn't you prefer to be in Sydney?' They looked at me as if I were mad: 'Why would you want to be in Sydney when you can be in Wagga? The cost of living is cheaper and the quality of life is much better.' As we all know—and it does reflect a little on Senator Cameron's observations—a graduate is likely to earn $1 million more in their career than a nongraduate. Is having a loan to put yourself through university, which you start paying back only when you earn $50,000 a year—and you are going to earn $1 million more than you otherwise would—too big of an impost on a person? I do not think it is, particularly if that is available to every family across the horizon, including low-socioeconomic families. It is available to every student—students getting diplomas, advanced diplomas, pre-university degrees and degrees. What we want to see in the future is a better scheme—and it will come—for those going on to masters and higher degrees.

I am delighted that Senator Carr raised this issue. I have loved the contributions.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the motion moved by Senator Carr:

That the Senate condemns the Abbott Government’s vicious cuts to higher education and the devastating impact they will have on regional students, families and universities.

The Australian Labor Party is the party for universal education. Like most Australians, we oppose the idea of having to pay $100,000 for a degree and we certainly oppose cutting funding for university courses. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to receive higher education and we look forward to the prospect of our children and our grandchildren having the opportunity to achieve a higher education. We believe the system should be fair. The system should pursue excellence and help secure the future of the nation by ensuring as many people as possible have that opportunity. That is why the Australian Labor Party condemn the Abbott government's vicious cuts and will be doing all we can to stop this attack, including opposing the legislation when it comes before this place.

Labor's record speaks for itself. Back in 1973, under Gough Whitlam, the Labor government was the first government to put university education within the reach of ordinary Australians, people without wealth, by making it free. When the Hawke government sought to move higher education to a mass system so that many more Australians could obtain a degree, we kept it affordable and introduced HECS and set that at $1,800 for a full degree. Next time we were in government, the Rudd-Gillard government, Labor's support for higher education saw an additional 190,000 students in our universities. We had targets to increase the number of Australians from a disadvantaged background accessing higher education. The coalition has abandoned these targets and now it will be more difficult for people to go to university, particularly people from a disadvantaged background and particularly people from a lower socioeconomic background. We should not be surprised about this ideological attack on higher education and direct attack on aspiring students. The coalition has always had a different agenda.

I was very interested to hear Senator Cameron refer very heavily to what occurred in the 1996 post-election mini-budget by the newly elected Howard government. Immediately they increased the cost of HECS by an average of 40 per cent and allowed wealthy full-fee-paying students unprecedented access to universities. It was described at the time as wealthy kids being able to jump the queue.

Senator Cameron was also correct to reflect on the writings of George Megalogenis in The Australian Moment. He made an observation of the magnitude of the Howard government cuts at the time. When seeking to make savings, within those budget cuts the highest single cohort was higher education. I remember it well. There was much distress because people, like now, had heard nothing foreshadowed in the election campaign of 1996, which lead to the election of the Howard government, of the magnitude of cuts and nothing of the depth of the cuts to our higher education system. And, on a related note, none of the cuts to research and development were forthcoming in that mini-budget, if you like, and the subsequent 1997 budget.

These things did combine to do a great deal of damage to Australia's capacity to innovate. We have smarts in our universities—that is, the human beings with great brains who go on to run businesses that contribute to the research effort. We did endure a brain drain during that period. There was a great deal of commentary and report after report talked about taking the high road rather than the low road, which was the road we were perceived to be on as a nation. A great number of reports reflected on the fact that we had to as a nation come back from this bleak place where the early Howard government had left us and reinvest in our clever people and our clever institutions and allow those institutions to work their magic, working closely with industry and so forth.

This is an area Labor is incredibly strong in. Each time we have been in government we have mapped out strong reform agendas and increased funding in a clever and efficient way. Most recently under the Rudd-Gillard government we were able to engineer, under the leadership of Senator Kim Carr, a funding regime for both our higher education system, investing in people, and our industry suite of policies, investing in our businesses' capacity to grow and improve exports. The two go together with our research and development investment and yet again under this coalition government we are seeing these things being specifically unpicked measure by measure in the most recent budget. Again, like in 1996-97, there is a budget that in no way reflected what the coalition government took to the election campaign preceding the budgets of their early period of government. It is a pattern of behaviour. Let's not be slow learners, Australia.

The Labor Party warned many people going into this election campaign that we could not trust the coalition. That is a truth that has come to pass, and I hope that, next time, as the cycle unfolds itself over the next couple decades or whatever, there are enough people who remember this pattern of behaviour and that they cannot be trusted—certainly not in the area of higher education, research and development, and industry program support.

The Howard government did a few more things. In 2005 they had their own effort to deregulate fees, allowing them to be charged at an additional 25 per cent, and then attempted to rebrand HECS as Commonwealth supported places in 2007, before the election, which meant that students could only undertake a maximum of seven years of full-time study under HECS. And now we see the Abbott government teaming up with the Group of Eight universities to push through what can only be described as an ideological, ill-thought-out and unfair attack on higher education. It is not a single-pronged attack—there are many spears to it—and it will see higher education become less accessible than it has been before.

I will go through the suite of measures that they are imposing. They are reducing funding to universities and driving that funding down in perpetuity. I will expand on these points shortly. They are deregulating university fees, which will drive up student costs, and at the same time they are increasing the interest on HECS and HELP debts and lowering that repayment threshold. It is the combination of these ideological measures that had University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Parker describing these changes as 'the worst piece of policy' he has seen in Australia—policy that he went on to explain in an address to students in June of this year at the ANU as being 'unfair, unethical, reckless, poor economic policy, contrary to international evidence and woefully explained'. In the same address, which I will reflect on extensively today, Professor Parker cited Simon Marginson, one of Australia's leading higher education scholars, when noting:

… no government anywhere in the world has introduced a full-blown capitalist market in higher education, despite three decades of talk, because they realise the public good component of education would be destroyed.

It does not seem that there was too much thought of the impact put into this raft of changes by those opposite—indeed, by the Abbott government.

The changes, as I mentioned earlier, certainly came as a surprise to the Australian public, considering that in the lead-up to last September's election Mr Abbott promised that he would—and this is a very important point to make—'ensure the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding'. Forgive me, but to me that is unequivocal. When you say that in an election campaign, people take that as being the party's policy, and yet we now find ourselves debating these significant measures, these substantive cuts to higher education. In vast contrast to this unequivocal statement—now demonstrated to be completely untrue—there will be around a 30 per cent cut to funding for universities. This will have the effect of slashing the government's contribution from 60 per cent to 40 per cent of course funding. At no point could any reasonable person consider this the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding.

I reflect again on Professor Parker's comments. He said:

On average universities will need to increase student contributions by about 30% from where they are now just to compensate for the Commonwealth reductions to course costs: that is, just to stand still. So expect about a 30% increase anyway.

Some universities like Sydney and Melbourne, the point has been made elsewhere, estimate that some course fees will have to rise by up to 60 per cent just to cover the cuts.

This immediate cut is not the only cut our universities are facing under the Abbott government. Commonwealth funding will be cut in perpetuity by the change in indexation. Linking indexation to CPI rather than the higher education grant index means that funding is on a downward trajectory and fees will inevitably go up again over and above what I have already described for students. Not just on the back of these cuts but also as the government pushes universities into a competitive, non-collaborative, user-pays environment through fee deregulation—and, make no mistake, when you hear the words 'fee deregulation', under a coalition government this is not some kind of red tape reduction. This is not about some kind of reform. With all due respect to you, Mr Acting Deputy President Back, it is certainly not about creating some student utopia of engagement and being able to demand the course one wants to study.

Fee deregulation means that universities will be able to charge essentially what they like for a university degree. The only upper limit is the international student fee level. This is an irrational concept in itself, being exposed to currency and world market considerations. In addition, as Professor Stephen Parker again points out:

… where a university models that it would gain more in domestic fees than it loses in international fees it will just put its international fees up to give it more headroom to gouge Australian students.

It is interesting to note, as Professor Parker has pointed out:

Fee deregulation is poor economic policy, particularly from a conservative government’s perspective.

He cites research from Penn State University that has found a significant negative correlation between the changes in student loan debt and the formation of small businesses. Professor Parker also suggests:

… if anyone had taken time to evaluate fee deregulation they would see alarming evidence elsewhere. In the UK, which in some ways now has a scheme more favourable to the student than Australia will have, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has recently found that an average school teacher who has no breaks in their career will still not have repaid their debt by their early 50s.

That is right: schoolteachers and, for that matter, nurses, with student debt until their early 50s. Is this the kind of Australia we want? Professor Parker goes on to say, as my colleagues have noted:

In the US, student debt has tripled in the last 8 years and now exceeds credit card debt.

That is an amazing piece of statistical information and it should put this government, which claims that it is so afraid of debt, on notice. This is the Australia that these policies will create.

The government did not stop at fee increases that will see students graduating with inordinate debt for their qualification. To compound the impact on students, their loans will be subject to a lower repayment threshold. This will subject the loan to a real interest rate, which will compound even when the student is not in graduate employment, further decreasing their ability to pay off their loan. They will essentially have to pay more off. This increase will hit all students, even those students who took out their loans under the condition that there was no interest on them and they were only indexed to reflect their present value. This is a fundamental breach of faith.

But what is possibly the most troubling about these ideological changes is that, with students paying up to six per cent compound interest on their debts, we will see people—for example, women and those who take career breaks or go overseas—unfairly disadvantaged.

It seems that those opposite just do not understand that not all students have the support of parents who can pay off or reduce their debts while they are studying. Not every student finds themselves in the high-paying job that the statistics that are used like to indicate. And not every person who undertakes study ends up in the field in which they studied. That is a good thing, to have an education system that is open and accessible and in which highly educated people move around in different careers, exploring their own abilities and their own aspirations.

This lack of understanding could come as a result of the free or low-fee education that the majority of the decision makers in cabinet perhaps received. I generally think one should avoid speculating on one's own education experience. I do not have a great depth of material to draw on myself and, in so doing, I think it is difficult to draw analogies about our individual experiences with respect to the policies that we are contemplating and debating. In this regard, our responsibility is to keep an eye on the future of Australia, to understand the current market conditions and to act out our responsibilities for the future of Australia. In this way whilst, again, I respect the commitment and perhaps the fees paid by many a senator past, it is not a relevant point to make in the context of a system that will sustain a nation of highly educated young Australians into the future.

Professor Stephen Parker notes that these changes are on the wrong track. I move to my conclusion by quoting him once again. He said the reforms:

… are on the wrong track because higher education is an investment in the economy, not a cost to it.

And they are on the wrong track because research should not be funded by students. If you want to engage in an arms race with the US and China over top-ranked universities—which this Government seems to want—then simply merge the Group of Eight into a single powerhouse institution that would shoot into the top 20. You could call it “The Australian National University”, save on 7 Vice-Chancellor salaries, and leave the rest of us alone.

That is what he purported. I should say that, importantly, that was said in a highly sarcastic tone, none of which is ever reflected in Hansard, which we subsequently read. It was a sarcastic comment but, nonetheless, a cutting one. He makes the point, I think very succinctly, that these policies are not the way to achieve excellence in the Australian university system; it is a race to the bottom. What we need to do is take care of our current conditions and remember that education is an investment, not a cost to the nation. We must ensure that our universities have the best capacity, the best ability to engage in and collaborate with the wider community, and that they respond to industry needs and work with the research community. We must allow that group of incredibly clever people to collaborate so that the new ideas that they are coming up with will filter through the whole community. We will be able to start new businesses, innovate existing businesses and keep our whole society up to date and at pace with the massive challenges that we are facing as we go forward.

Professor Parker speaks with authority on this issue. As the vice-chancellor of a leading university, the University of Canberra, he clearly thought deeply about this statement, given its provocative nature. I was proud of the points he made on behalf of the University of Canberra and I am pleased to be here today supporting Senator Carr's motion. (Time expired)