040923 - Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023 - Second Reading
Tertiary education is vital for a robust society that wants to make the most of the capacity of its people, and it should be available for all people who seek it. For some, it's a rite of passage. For others a little bit like me, it's a complete privilege. I was the first person in my family to go to university. I so desperately wanted to go. I can't really explain why it meant so much to me. Was it because no-one in my family had been before and I saw it as something that would be a bit of a tick against my name? Was I flexing against my family? Absolutely not. I wanted to do it because I knew that it would open doors for me, as the member for Hunter has just explained, that might not otherwise be opened. I knew that if I wanted to get the job that I so desperately dreamed of, that was the way to do it.
Our local university is the University of Newcastle. The main campus is located in the outer suburb of Newcastle called Callaghan, around 12 kilometres from the city proper. The beautiful campus is called the 'bushland campus' for good reason. It sits on an impressive 140 hectares, or 346 acres, of natural bushland. Although I have to tell you that sometimes the Hexham grey mozzies are huge! More recently the University of Newcastle opened a city campus, offering an alternative location for more students to attend studies in the arts, legal and business areas. They also have other campuses located at Ourimbah on the Central Coast, in Sydney and one overseas in Singapore. The university is certainly blossoming from what it was when it was first dreamt up by the people who worked at the BHP steelworks who didn't want to have to have their children travel to Sydney to achieve tertiary studies. They fought so hard to get that university started so that steelworkers' kids could be just as well educated as their Sydney cousins. As you can see, I have a love for the University of Newcastle and I am a proud alumni.
I'm a big believer and advocate that tertiary education should be accessible for all Australians at all times, provided that uni is what they want to do and it's the best thing for them at that point in their lives. You don't have to go to uni. I tell you what: there are a lot of electricians and plumbers that are charging a hell of a lot more per hour than people with degrees at moment. So there are many, many ways to deem yourself doing well in life. But I am really proud to say that my own daughter is following in my footsteps. She attends Newcastle uni, where I had such rich and rewarding experiences. I think she can probably drink a little better than I did at uni as well.
This in fact highlights one of the major precursors for students' willingness and ability to attend university or higher education in some form—not the drinking or the social aspect but the idea that, if your parents went to uni, it's much easier for you to get there. Statistics show that, if you have a parent who has attended university, you're more likely to be in a position due to their tertiary education and subsequent financial standing, due in large part to their employability following graduation, to attend university yourself. I know that there are plenty of people with degrees—multiple degrees, in fact—that have found it hard to get jobs, but the statistics really don't lie.
My electorate of Paterson encompasses quite a large area. Many of our constituents are classed as rural, regional or, for some, even remote. We aren't really all that far from the city of Newcastle, however. The distance to travel from place to place can be a challenge regionally, especially for those who have to rely on public transport alone. It is really hard to get there if you haven't got a car, and not everyone is fortunate enough to have that car. This is just one constraint for young Australians when it comes to being able to attend uni.
Our population in Paterson, according to the 2021 census data, sits at around 175,574. A total of 4,921 people currently attend university. A further 4,600, attend vocational tertiary education, such as TAFE and other training providers. I am so delighted to be part of a government that is providing free TAFE places so that people can get the training they need.
This number needs to increase substantially if we are to prepare our country for a greater, more sustainable, economically-secure future. But how do we do that? Well, we do that by supporting the proposed changes that the Australian Universities Accord will develop.
Higher education is transformative for individuals and for the nation. It brings numerous benefits, not only in the economic space but in preparing and establishing our future generations, through high-quality education—pivoting, when required, to adapt to new and emerging technologies; embracing change; and creating a substantial landscape where generations of Australians can thrive.
One immediate example that springs to my mind that is happening right now at the University of Newcastle is aeronautical engineering. We know that we have a military base, Williamtown, where the F-35s are located, and, of the 72 planes that Australia will eventually have, 54 of them will be located at the Williamtown RAAF base. We need people to maintain those planes. We need people to understand the incredible systems that wrap around them. We need people to be able to build those systems and repair them. There is so much componentry and expertise that goes into that, that the University of Newcastle, in the last couple of years, has started an aeronautical engineering course. I was fortunate to meet a couple of the students at that course last week at the Hunter Defence Conference, and they are loving their course. It is really an adaptive situation, where the region calls out for a skill set and the university steps in. In a couple of years, we'll have graduates who will be able to work on those planes and all of the other platforms and systems that wrap around them.
So when I say 'pivoting, when required, to adapt to new and emerging technologies', there's a prime example. But there are many others—indeed, there have been in the medical space over the years. The University of Newcastle, actually, is one of those beacons when it comes to medical study. We had the first experience based learning modules for medicine in Australia. We had the UMAT exam that—I won't say 'made it easier', but opened the doors to medicine to people who had different skill sets; who would have a great bedside manner; who'd have not only the smarts but also the personality. The University of Newcastle realised that they were the sorts of doctors that we would require in the future, and, again, they stepped into that void.
So what are our immediate priority actions? We're extending visible, local access to tertiary education, by providing further universities in regional areas—well, in 'regional university centres'. I should clarify that, because there is an important difference. And we're establishing a similar concept for suburban and metropolitan locations. We might not be building brand-new universities, but, as Newcastle has done, we might be opening newer, more bespoke campuses, in locations where we need to get people along to learn in those environments.
We'll also do away with the 50 per cent pass rule, given its poor impact on students. Rather than saying to them, 'Look, you need to pass 50 per cent of your courses to get your Commonwealth support,' we need to actually monitor those students much better, with reports that check their progress as they go, rather than just getting to the end of a year and saying: 'You've failed. You haven't passed the 50 per cent rule.' We need to find out what they're doing and where they're tripping up and why they aren't passing or doing the best that they could in those learning environments.
We need to ensure that First Nations students are eligible for a funded place at university, by extending demand-driven funding to metropolitan First Nations students. We need to provide funding certainty, through the extension of the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee into 2024 and 2025, to minimise the rise of unnecessary structural adjustment to the sector. Interim funding arrangements must prioritise the delivery of supports for students in need, to accelerate reform towards high equity and high participation. Through National Cabinet, we must immediately engage with state and territory governments and universities to improve university governance as well.
These measures will ensure that Australia's higher education system is robust and is sustainable well into the future. Basically, what I've just said, in a whole range of words, is that we need education in university settings to service the needs of those students, who are paying for it. When they're being supported in Commonwealth places, we need to ensure that that money is being well spent and we need to give them the support they need to see that they do well, not just say, 'Well, if you don't do well then too bad.' We need to ask, 'Why aren't you doing well, and how can we help you to do well?' These measures will ensure that Australia's higher education system is one that does have the governance it requires, and that that governance goes to the administration of universities. I do understand the arguments where people say we can't be handing money over constantly. Indeed we can't; the governance must be right, and it must be well-targeted money. We must meet Australia's growing skills needs and pivot when necessary to meet new and emerging technologies. Our goal must be growth in skills through greater equity, and our government must provide pathways to access tertiary education. We do have a big ambition. Is it achievable? Absolutely. Talking about these ideas will certainly encourage more conversations and better development of initiatives, which will ensure the future for all Australians.
How do we do it? We ensure that we prepare our tertiary students through better access to work-integrated learning, and I am a big fan of work-integrated learning, which is going to ensure that our graduates are job ready. There's no point in people going along to universities and learning skills that they'll never need on the job. I understand that from a research perspective it is important that we extend the thinking of our students and we get them to push those boundaries, and in research settings I think that is absolutely vital. But I do think in courses that are skills reliant and where we have industries that are reliant on getting those students to qualify, they need to be work integrated. They need to be job ready and thinking in the way that a potential employer will need them to be thinking. That doesn't stifle their thinking; it just supports them and gets them better prepared to contribute.
Preparing the next generation is an imperative. Removing constraints such as availability and access to study through the creation of regional university centres will ensure that all Australians, regardless of where they live, will have access to centres of excellence and tertiary learning opportunities. If you live in one of the remote parts of my electorate of Paterson and don't have access to transport, be it public or private, getting to university and staying at university can be seriously compromised. If you cannot afford to live away from home and you still have to get to uni, it can be really difficult. We have also got to open up the opportunities for kids to get jobs like the ones I had when I was at uni. I washed dishes and did waitering to put myself through uni. I was fortunate to live with my parents still, which made it a bit easier. But these things can be tough, especially for families who are doing it tough.
Making tertiary education more available and accessible to those who live in rural and remote areas will increase the likelihood of those in rural and remote areas continuing their higher education and being supported where they choose to study. Australia is an enormous place, and, let's face it, we don't all live in big cities. Making learning hubs available to students in regional and remote areas will increase participation. Currently, living in a remote area is a huge barrier to accessing higher education. These learning hubs will not be restricted to regional areas as students in some outer metropolitan areas have identified the significant constraints that they face as well. This is not a city versus the bush argument; this is a true access argument where we need people who are skilled, thinking, studying and ready to contribute. Establishing university centres for suburban and metropolitan locations will further enhance availability and, let's face it, access for students as well because that is where a lot of them live.
The Australian universities accord aims to create a larger and fairer higher education system delivering equal access for all irrespective of their location, their financial circumstances, their cultural background, their gender or any other factor. At the end of the day people are people. We need them to be educated, and we need them to be thinking and contributing not only to society but also to our economy and to our tax base. When people go to uni, they earn more money and pay more tax. That is one of the big reasons we should be supportive of this bill. We should also support it because it will make our country a smarter and better place to live.
