Mr HARTSUYKER (10:28 AM) —One of the things one notices about the contribution of the member for Rankin is that he is consistent. He is consistently negative, drowning in his own negativity like the rest of the ALP. They certainly have no vision for this country, they certainly have reform fatigue in opposition and they certainly cannot see the future of this nation. They come into this place on a regular basis and run down the clock. That is all they do. They have no vision, they have no strategy; they just rabbit on and run down the clock. They use up their 20 minutes every single time, without introducing anything new into the debate, without introducing anything that could benefit this country. They merely run down the clock. I think we see them right on their limit. The limit of their ability to contribute is to just take up time in this chamber.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. IR Causley)—Order! The member for Cowper will come to the subject of the bill.

Mr HARTSUYKER —The bill I wish to speak on today, the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2005 Measures No. 2) Bill 2005, is an important bill. It forms part of the progressive reform which this government is making to tertiary education. While the matters before us today are largely of a technical nature—they concern the way students’ contributions are fixed and the way those contributions can be varied and students kept informed and protected, and they clarify the financial arrangements relating to work experience—let us not lose sight of the bigger picture and what the Higher Education Support Act is trying to achieve. We need to encourage education. The government are very focused on encouraging education—in contrast to the negative carping we hear from the member for Jagajaga. We are keen to encourage higher education. Our society would be all the poorer without those academics and students who seek to pursue their own enthusiasms in the fields of science or history or literature, free from financial considerations. Indeed, whatever changes are made to higher education in the future, and whatever pressures come to bear on universities, I hope there will always be a place for those individuals trying to shed light on the way we were many years ago, the way we are now and the way we are likely to be in years to come.

But the days of the ivory tower are over. No longer can our universities be isolated from the pressures of a rapidly changing world. They must be responsive, not just to the wider changes in society but also to the needs of the community they serve. They must be responsible with the public money they receive and spend and the service they provide to their students. Indeed, only if universities respond—and are helped to respond—in this way are we able to preserve the opportunity for those whose interests are perhaps less worldly, but whose interests enrich our society nonetheless, to continue their work. The proposed measures in this bill will assist with our aim that universities serve local communities, responding to their needs and playing a part in building a future for those communities. I want to see universities financially viable. I want to see them capable of contributing on a national scale in scientific research, in the arts, and in business and commerce. That is their basic brief.

I said I wanted to see universities contributing on a national scale. It is now a fact of life that to contribute nationally you have to be able to compete internationally. You cannot help your nation become competitive with other nations unless your product is as good as or better than theirs. That is why I welcome the provisions of the Higher Education Support Act that will partially deregulate higher education, enabling individual universities to play to their strengths and determine the value of the courses they offer. I believe this offers opportunities for our institutions to develop world-beating courses and specialities that can benefit our country and help us further mark out our place in the world. The government will provide an extra $11 billion over 10 years, starting from last year, which is, I believe, ‘backing Australia’s future’—to use the title of the document which launched this strategy. I also welcome the extra funding for regional campuses, but I will come to that later.

It is only fair that with extra resources comes extra responsibility. The act tries to ensure that the universities deliver value for money. It may not be a phrase that has had too much currency in the academic world in the past, but it is one which will have a greater focus in the years to come. And why not? Students investing time, effort and money in a particular course want to be assured that that course is going to efficiently and effectively meet their needs and provide them with the skills they need in an ever more competitive jobs market. The taxpayer, too, has an interest in this process because it is the taxpayer who is providing a large proportion of the funding for universities, and it is the taxpayer who has the broader interest of ensuring that we produce a well-educated society and a well-educated young work force.

The act also enhances Commonwealth funding for student places. There will be nearly 36,000 new Commonwealth-supported student places over the next four years and more funding for each of those students. Furthermore, no eligible students will have to pay upfront fees when they enrol. The Higher Education Contribution Scheme will see the repayment threshold increased. Loans will be introduced to help students paying full fees in public and private higher education institutions and for those who need help to study overseas. All this, and the measures to encourage greater access for disadvantaged groups, will mean that far fewer students will be deterred from pursuing higher education—far from the rhetoric that we hear from the other side.

This is important: if Australian education is to assist our economy and if we are to compete on the global stage, we must ensure that everyone has the opportunity to obtain the kind of education that will allow them to contribute to the ongoing prosperity of this nation. I believe that it is particularly important that young people in regional and rural areas are given the opportunity to contribute to their communities.

We have heard a lot about the global economy in the context of the reforms and challenges that it offers to our universities. I would like to consider for a moment what it means for local communities and higher education in rural areas. The global economy clearly offers opportunities for anyone with a good business idea and a good product. The global economy gives them an opportunity to access a huge marketplace with a supply of customers around the world. Provided there is access to the latest telecommunications technology, people in regional and rural areas can compete on the world stage. However, our regional universities have to be up to the task. They have to offer the types of courses that people who are going to set up businesses in regional and rural areas will need. They have to offer the types of courses that are specific to the particular areas in which they operate. That is a very important factor on which my local university, the Coffs Harbour campus of Southern Cross University, is focused. Universities generally are focusing on the wider world, and regional universities are playing their part in that regard.

It is a role of higher education to provide the training and skills which will help people to fulfil their maximum potential, that will help them sustain a community in a metropolitan or regional area. If you decide to stay in a community in an inner regional area, you perhaps need a broader range of skills. In regional areas generally the tasks are not as specific; people in cities in many cases tend to be far more specialised than people in regional and rural areas, where the work demands may be more generalised. Universities have to adapt to the differences in professional and business operations in the regions as opposed to those in the metropolitan areas. There are certainly generalists in metropolitan areas but in regional areas, like the electorate of Cowper, many professionals operate at a more general level.

Universities also have to be focused on retraining. The old tradition of entering a career or profession and staying there for a lifetime is changing. People are changing careers several times during their working lives. Universities have to adapt to that. They have to offer training for young graduates and also for people seeking retraining to move from one career to another, to broaden their experience and to enable them to meet changing needs in those areas. If our universities are responsive, they will more effectively meet community needs.

The Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2005 Measures No. 2) Bill 2005 focuses on providing transparency for students and the university sector. It provides greater flexibility in the way in which our higher education bodies deliver their services. The bill will amend the Higher Education Support Act by making a range of technical adjustments aimed at ensuring that all guidelines may provide for amounts to be indexed using the indexation formula in the act, and clarifying provisions in relation to students’ tax file numbers. It will also ensure that the appropriate decision review provisions apply to students occupying work experience in industry units. It will clarify provisions in relation to working out an accumulated HELP debt. It will also clarify that students accessing FEE-HELP may be enrolled with Open Learning Australia, and allow universities to publish their schedules of student contribution and tuition fees and census dates twice a year instead of once, which will allow universities to notify students of new study units. The bill extends OS-HELP eligibility to students who have at least six months of study left to complete their courses. It will also amend the Higher Education Support Act to ensure that it provides for arrangements relating to crediting a person’s student learning entitlement for those enrolled in work experience in industry units.

There will be some positive outcomes from this legislation. For example, by publishing student contribution amounts and tuition fees twice a year, providers will have more flexibility to deal with changes in demand and supply for particular units of study. Students will now be more informed about the decisions made by higher education providers. More students will be able to access OS-HELP assistance for their overseas study. Students will only be required to complete half a full-time year of study rather than a whole year of full-time study upon their return to Australia. This amendment will ensure that students undertaking work experience units of study have the same entitlements for reconsideration of any decisions relating to recrediting their student learning entitlement or FEE-HELP balance as apply in the case of other units of study. The legislation clarifies that a person who undertakes studies through Open Learning Australia is a student and therefore has the same entitlements to FEE-HELP as other students.

These reforms will benefit higher education providers and students in regional and rural areas. In my electorate, as I have said, we have the Coffs Harbour campus of the Southern Cross University and this government has been providing additional support for that campus. The Australian government has been very focused on the fact that it costs more to provide educational services in regional and rural areas. The Coffs Harbour campus of the Southern Cross University provides a range of courses, including tourism and hospitality, which assist in sustaining the city’s local businesses and our local tourism base. It achieves skilling of our local young work force to meet the needs of the job market in the town. The Southern Cross University makes a point of catering also for mature students going through the process of retraining, who may need to change their skill set in order to continue to contribute to the regional area that the university services. There is an opportunity to undertake a range of courses to meet the needs of the local area.

The university runs courses in teaching and nursing—two very important courses. My electorate has a very old demographic and offering a nursing course at Southern Cross University is a vital part of ensuring that we have the work force to look after those older Australians who seek to retire, or who have spent their whole working life, in the electorate. It is vitally important that the university is effectively meeting the demands of the aged care work force. The university is also very focused on providing young teaching graduates. The education sector is another very important source of employment in the area. The university is offering young people the opportunity to grow up in a regional area, receive tertiary training in a regional area, and then contribute to that regional area in their working life.

It is great for Coffs Harbour that a young person can grow up in Coffs Harbour, receive tertiary training and then contribute to the work force, all without having to leave their home town if that is what they choose. That is a great amenity which is being offered by the university. The government is supporting the university through being aware of the fact that providing an educational service is more expensive in rural and regional areas. Southern Cross University receives a 7½ per cent additional subsidy—one of the highest subsidies that is available under the act—in support of the fact that the government is aware that it costs more to deliver those services in the regions.

I believe that the government has worked very hard and very effectively to ensure that we have a higher education environment that is going to meet the needs of this country in the coming years. I think we have worked very hard to ensure that students at regional and rural campuses are not going to be disadvantaged by geography, that the universities they attend are going to be funded in a way that takes into account the fact that there are higher costs involved in providing courses in those areas. The universities, too, are responding. They are responding by ensuring that the types of courses they provide are meeting a need—perhaps a need which is more generalist, perhaps a need which is very focused on providing people who are skilled in areas of demand in our local area—and that is a very wise approach.

I commend the approach that this government has taken in supporting higher education through funding particularly rural and regional campuses with a view to ensuring that they are adequately resourced to provide courses in locations where, in many cases, students have grown up and seek to work in the future. I commend this bill to the House and I certainly commend the actions of this government in supporting higher education.