Higher Education Support Amendment (Demand Driven Funding System and Other Measures)
June 22, 2011
Mr Speaker, I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Demand Driven Funding System and Other Measures) in support of the statements made by my Coalition colleagues.
Mr Speaker, our university system plays an important role in fostering the expansion of our younger – and some older – minds.
An ancillary benefit to the expansion of human knowledge, research and enquiry that our tertiary sector provides is, our universities and their faculties are equipping our people with the necessary skills to participate and excel in our multi-billion dollar economy.
The nature and increasing competitiveness of the globalised economy means that Australia cannot merely just compete, but must excel at all levels and in all sectors. A mostly glowing report on Australia recently published in The Economist highlighted our tertiary education sector as one of the areas that was letting us down.
I quote “However, the most useful policy to pursue would be education, especially tertiary education. Australia’s universities, like its wine, are decent and dependable, but seldom excellent. Yet educated workers are essential for an economy competitive in services as well as minerals.”
I totally disagree – our wines are first class!
However Mr Speaker, it is hard to ignore this objective critique by The Economist of our higher education system, especially when it is backed up by authorities such as Professor Simon Marginson, from the Centre for the Study of Higher Education, at the University of Melbourne.
In reference to the critique in The Economist Professor Marginson states, and I quote:
“It’s absolutely spot on… Australia spends less in public funding on universities than almost every other country in the OECD. Australia spends 0.7% of GDP and the OECD average is 1.1% of GDP…There’s been no increase in Australian Research Council funding for about 10 years. There was a major report in 2001 which led to a doubling of research funding over the next four years but there has been nothing since then.
“The University of Toronto is in the top 20 in the world. ANU is number 56 and the University of Melbourne is 62 and they are the best two we have. Sydney is in the top 100. It really is just about investment. That’s what the article is saying — the government has to get serious about those things. Universities are a long term thing.” Un-quote.
Mr Speaker, Australia as a whole should be doing as Dr Glenn Withers AO, Chief Executive of Universities Australia stated, and I quote. “A wave of investment can lift all. We can then ensure a new national balance by better combining the luck of natural bounty with the even greater skills and smarts of our people.” Un-quote.
Mr Speaker, the Bradley Review of Australian higher education handed down its final report in December 2008 and it is this document that forms the foundation for national debate on higher education as well as framing the policies advanced in this Bill.
The Bill before us aspires to remove the restriction on the number of undergraduate Commonwealth Supported Places that Australian Universities are able to offer; abolish the student learning entitlement; require Universities to enter into a mission based compact with the Commonwealth Government; and require Universities to institute policies which promote and protect free intellectual inquiry in learning, teaching and research.
The Bradley Review in its final report outlined a broad vision for the restructure of the Higher education sector. Indeed amongst the recommendation was the aspirational goal of 40% of Australians between the ages of 25-34 holding at least a bachelors degree by 2025.
The Coalition supports the aspiration in principle.
Mr Speaker, investment in our tertiary education sector through research grants, through capital funding for new buildings and expanding the number of tertiary institutions is vital if we are to expand the educational horizons of Australians.
If the Australian Government is to meet the aspirational goal of having 40% of Australians between the ages of 25-34 holding a bachelors degree by 2025, the Commonwealth government will have to accommodate an additional 220,000 students every year.
The Bill before us attempts to accomplish this by moving away from restricted supply, to a demand-driven funding system. This will be achieved by removing the capping system of Commonwealth Supported Places instituted by the Howard Government under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA) from 1st January 2012.
Mr Speaker, as I outlined earlier the Coalition agrees with this aspiration. But the question is how and where does the Government intend to place the extra 220,000 students that they are hoping to encourage into taking up a bachelor’s degree?
The removal of restrictions on placements is great in theory, but as with most policies of this Government, it is ill-thought-out. The expansion of tertiary places will require a corresponding investment from this cash-strapped Government to actual build the infrastructure to support these places.
Mr Speaker, when we have a Government stripping regional Australia of over 800 Medicare Access points, including in the shires of Cootamundra, Weddin and Yass in the electorate of Hume in order to save a measly $9 million dollars, you just know that they aren’t able to stump the money for university infrastructure to backup the expansion of placements.
Mr Speaker, the move to a demand-driven system away from restricted supply must fall within a broader strategy of investment in our university sector. In regional Australia, and in particular in my electorate of Hume, we have seen this Government strip away financial support for university students as well as denying opportunities to invest in university infrastructure.
Although providing greater access is an aspiration we can all agree on in principle, this Government has already betrayed this aspiration by scrapping eligibility criteria under the Independent Youth Allowance scheme that has greatly affected Inner Regional Students and families in the Hume electorate.
Regrettably I was absent due to illness earlier this year when hundreds of signatures on the Coalition’s petition to reinstate the eligibility criteria for Inner Regional Students were tabled in the House on my behalf by the Member for Forest.
So whilst the Government is claiming under this Bill to expand the number of opportunities for Australians to obtain a bachelor’s degree by moving to a demand-driven system; it is at the same time stripping regional students of the financial support they require so that they can survive whilst trying to obtain their degree!
These policies are self-defeating. The new demand driven funding system is estimated to cost $3.97 billion over the 2010 to 2015 period – reinstating the criteria for Inner regional students to obtain Independent Youth Allowance is only $90 million per annum.
A lack of access to financial support under Independent Youth Allowance is only one of the hurdles this Government is shoving in front of regional students; access to physical tertiary institutions in regional Australia is another.
The Goulburn Mulwarree Council in conjunction with the Goulburn Chamber of Commerce has been seeking funding under the Regional Development Australia fund to have the University of Canberra construct a campus in the city of Goulburn.
The aspirations of this proposal are worthy of consideration and I congratulate them on their persistent efforts as well as The Goulburn Post which has been following the funding merry-go-round.
Mr Speaker, under this grant the Government requires a 50-50 funding commitment from the local community, which effectually falls to local council authorities such as Goulburn’s to find the money for.
How does the Government expect local government authorities to continue to absorb the cost burdens of raising capital for projects costing up to $25 million such as these? It is another hurdle that some of the local government representatives here in Canberra would agree is often insurmountable.
Constructing tertiary institutions in regional centres has been a boon for local economies – Bathurst, Armidale and Wagga Wagga are examples of the benefits to regional students and the economies of regional centres.
Mr Speaker, the demand-driven system will require a corresponding investment in tertiary facilities. It’s simple mathematics – if you expand the number of students you will then be required to build the universities to host them.
Cities such as Goulburn, with it’s proximity to inner regional Australia as well as Canberra and South-Western Sydney should be carefully considered for investment by the Commonwealth to become a home of a university campus.
Mr Speaker, despite this Bill moving the sector to a demand-driven scheme, it fails to remove a cap on numbers in one crucial faculty; medicine.
Mr Speaker, this Bill fails to remove the restriction on the number of places for medical students. I am aware that the placements for Medical students are dependent upon the State government’s availability to provide clinical placements for them.
In rural centres in the Hume electorate we are facing a critical shortage of doctors. The township of Grenfell, with a population of nearly 3,700 people has been left in the absolutely unjustifiable position of having neither a doctor nor a Visiting Medical Officer (VMO) for the hospital in the town for nearly 6 months.
The situation is being exacerbated by the shortage of doctors willing to come to regional Australia and the visa requirements for overseas doctors.
However, Mr Speaker we should not have to be reliant on overseas doctors; Government at all levels should be assisting our future regional doctors by investing in tertiary education in regional Australia and where available, uncap the number of placements in regional areas where the need for doctors is dire.
Mr Speaker, one final point I would like to raise with respect to this Bill is in relation to the requirement under this legislation to have institutional policies in place to promote and protect free intellectual inquiry in learning, teaching and research.
Interestingly, the Bill does not prescribe what is to be included in these policies. That is why the Coalition has attempted to amend this bill to ensure this new policy to protect free intellectual inquiry applies to both students and academics.
The university sector has long been the bastion of social engineers on the left of the political spectrum.
For decades students have had well-founded fears that academics are more often inclined to allocate grades not on the basis of quality work and the pursuit of open and free enquiry, but rather on a student’s capacity to illustrate their adherence to the left-leaning political agendas of their lecturers.
The Coalition’s amendment to require that both students and teachers are subject to university policies on academic freedom provides not only protection for students who are fearful of expressing their god-given right to freedom of thought and philosophical enquiry.
The Coalition’s attempt to extend the protection of a students’ right to freely explore their philosophical underpinnings safe from fear of persecution is more than helping students get fairer grades; it strengthens the foundation for why we have tertiary institutions in the first place.
Universities are there for all Australians to deepen their understanding of the world we live in.
That is achieved through investigation, observation, testing, theorising, arguing and debating ideas about who, what, where, when and why.
Academic freedom is essential to this process, and which is why it must be protected at all costs.