Senator LEES (1:08 PM) —There is now at least $1.7 billion of extra funding for our universities offered in this legislation, and I believe $1.7 billion extra is something that is worth fighting for. I do have a personal interest in this and an understanding of the pressures that university students are under, and indeed that universities and staff are under, because my husband and I have had all six of our children at university this year. I am well aware of the enormous size of lectures, the tutorials that may or may not happen and the tutorials that are so large that there is almost a roster for who can ask a question or some sort of a rota system that means that you may get to ask one on that day at a particular tutorial. Those pressures are something that I am certainly well aware of. I am very disappointed that the Labor Party, the Democrats and the Greens have walked away from this legislation at such an early stage and apparently are going to oppose the second reading, even though this is still very much a work in progress and there is still an opportunity to get this legislation passed.

At the end of the day, we still will not have enough money. We still will not have what I would like to see provided to our universities, unless of course the Treasurer takes his eye off the purse strings and we actually manage to get the extra one or two billion dollars. We are still going to fall short, but we will at least have around $1.7 billion more than we have now. Back in May this year I undertook to do everything in my power to get this extra money flowing to universities. Obviously, if the ALP feel that it is not enough, it is one of the issues that they can run on in the coming election. They can make promises about how much more they are prepared to give and what more they are prepared to do. Indeed, the Greens are more than welcome, as are the Democrats, to run on a ticket of abolishing HECS altogether. But right now we have a chance to put some $1.7 billion extra where it is urgently needed.

Australia's 38 publicly funded universities are in desperate need of money. Both major parties have starved our universities for the past decade and more. So now we have a higher education system that is pressuring the Senate to pass this legislation, with amendments. The vice-chancellors who appeared before the Senate committee looking at the original package all urged the Senate to work on amending this legislation in an attempt to make it acceptable, and indeed the four of us are prepared to listen to their call and to keep working.

There are two main reasons universities are in the dire financial straits that they are in. The first is the lack of indexation, and this was a Labor Party decision. The current system was introduced back in the 1990s. I think the education minister was then Simon Crean. The lack of indexation has basically meant that universities have been somewhere between $500 million and $600 million a year worse off each year since 1995, when the system was put in place. The second reason is that this government, the Howard government, made substantial cuts to universities in their first term. Even though, in the package we have, indexation has been partially addressed and we have extra money, it is only guaranteed until 2007, and then we will see, if nothing else is done, universities back in limbo and back in difficulties as they are now.

The four of us have asked the government to continue working on this particular issue and to look again at indexation. We have put a number of proposals to them. Hopefully this is one of the outstanding issues that soon will be resolved, because, with proper indexation, Australian universities will be able to face the future with some confidence. They would be able to plan and would be less likely to be forced to rely on student fees.

Since May this year, when this legislation was first announced, I have met frequently with the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee, the National Tertiary Education Union and the National Union of Students as well as with quite a lot of individual students, including students from universities in South Australia, and individual academics. I have also gone through the thousands of emails and letters that I have received, including from many concerned citizens and from parents who have children in the latter years of high school who are hopeful that they will be able to access universities. Not once was one individual or one organisation supportive of that package in its original form.

We worked on the package with the minister and have gone through the processes of watching the vice-chancellors work actively with Minister Nelson to get a very large amount of changes, substantial amendments, to the package. But what I can say about that first `effort', I guess we should call it, from the minister is that, despite all of the consultations he undertook, for which people were very grateful, the end result was not appreciated by anyone in the sector.

I am one of those who was very lucky. I had a tertiary education. Indeed, I only got one because I was able to get a teaching scholarship—a scholarship that not only made sure I did not have to pay any fees but also provided a small living allowance. I am very concerned about the level of fees Australian students are already paying and, in particular, the lack of meaningful scholarships that will allow those students from low-income backgrounds and rural areas in particular to access tertiary education. As we look at the scholarships in this package we see that means testing them is going to mean that for many of those students that are in the target group—those on Youth Allowance who are barely subsisting and need to earn a little bit extra, and those from rural areas—effectively these scholarships are worthless.

Let us just look specifically at rural students. They are not getting a fair go. The week before last I travelled to Mount Gambier in the south-east of South Australia and discussed these issues at quite a large meeting. I have had quite a few discussions with the group that has formed in Mount Gambier. These parents tell us that the costs of sending a child to university in Adelaide are frequently prohibitive—they simply cannot do it. Even without including HECS, the costs involved with living away from home—extra meal costs, phone calls, the occasional visits home et cetera—add up to about $9,000 a year. Parents are saying that in many cases they simply cannot do it. The stresses on students are enormous if they do manage to do it. Many of them return home within a matter of months, probably not even finishing the first year. Parents certainly cannot consider sending the second or third child.

I congratulate the three high schools in my old home town of Mount Gambier. When I taught there they tended to always be highly competitive. They certainly are competitive on the sporting field. But this is one of the very few issues on which I have ever known the three high schools—Grant High, Mount Gambier High and Tenison Woods College—to get together on an issue and to put a determined, unified case. They provided the evidence as to what it costs parents. They looked at the statistics and pointed out that the costs are forcing families to say to their young people, `We are sorry; off you go; get a job. Perhaps work for a year or a year and a half to access Youth Allowance as an independent. Right now, we certainly cannot send you to uni.' Unfortunately many of those students who take 15 or more months off—to earn what they have to earn to access Youth Allowance independently—never make it to university. These are issues that are not faced by kids who live in Adelaide.

Already we have the evidence. We know the participation rates in higher education for rural students are less than half those of students in metropolitan areas. Naomi Godden of the National Youth Roundtable has conducted research which shows that in Western Australia, while 54.8 of every 1,000 people in Perth participated in uni study, only 20.7 of every 1,000 people in regional areas did so. She has also found that since 1996 there has been a six per cent decrease in university participation from regional Western Australia and an eight per cent increase in participation in metropolitan Western Australia. So I say again that the scholarships and they way they are offered in this package will not fix this basic injustice.

When parents are paying $9,000 to support their children in university, a $4,000 scholarship is simply not enough. It is also an insult to tell students that if they earn extra money in a part-time job Family and Community Services will start removing their youth allowance—that is, if a student has managed to get it in the first place. Students on Youth Allowance are the very students we should be targeting and supporting with scholarships. Those who have had children at university will know what the costs are; Youth Allowance itself is not enough to live on. These students have to go out and find extra work and that in turn conflicts with the timetable for them—the times they are supposed to be attending lectures or getting assignments submitted. Students on a $4,000 scholarship and earning a little bit to top up the Youth Allowance will lose about $3,000 from their Youth Allowance. So what is the point? Giving with one hand and taking with the other is not an equity measure in my opinion.

I will move on to look at HECS. HECS was established by a Labor government so, obviously, regardless of who wins the next election HECS is here to stay. It has already been increased substantially under this government. A tertiary education is not just something that benefits the individual. I think this is something that some people are losing sight of. We as a community rely on doctors, nurses, engineers, physiotherapists, teachers et cetera. All of Australia benefits from a skilled work force and should be encouraging—indeed assisting—those young people, or indeed older Australians, who have the ability, talent and qualifications to access university. If we continue to push up the costs so that students come out with bigger and bigger debts then many of those jobs such as general practitioner will become less and less attractive. We are asking graduates from medical school to choose general practice but it is obviously a lower paid option than the specialty areas. It would be much better for students to go off and be a radiologist or a specialist who works in a hospital. They would be able to pay HECS off at many times the rate that the average GP would be able to do to get rid of the debt hanging over their head.

There is a big enough body of evidence showing now that we should not be increasing HECS and that buying a home and starting a family are issues that are influenced by the amount of debt students come out of university with. While I have said all along that I am prepared to continue to fight for what is now an extra $1.7 billion, I am yet to be convinced that the money will be shared fairly across all universities. There are still a number of institutions which I believe will continue to struggle or will be worse off under the new Commonwealth grants scheme: outer metropolitan universities, such as the University of Western Sydney, and multi-campus universities such as the University of South Australia. There are special cases, such as the Victorian College of the Arts, which have not had issues sorted out and do not fare well under this legislation.

This whole issue is still in open and active debate with the minister. While there have been some changes—for example, for the Maritime College—and we are pleased with the progress that is being made, there is still some way to go to make sure that the very universities that deal with the largest body of disadvantaged students and the largest numbers of students who come from families where no-one has been to university before are the universities that must not, in any way, be worse off. Indeed, they need more support under this package.

Another area of concern is the whole issue of governance—basically, the issue of independence or autonomy for universities. The original bill was, in basic description, horrific. It allowed for substantial intervention from government as to how the universities were to be run. Indeed, there was to be an unprecedented level of intervention. Even though they were desperate for the money, the vice-chancellors unanimously would not move any further with the original measures in place. Aspects in this area are still under active negotiation, although I note that the vice-chancellors have done an awful lot of the work on these issues. The four Independents will continue to work in particular on the matter of Australian workplace agreements. As one vice-chancellor said to me recently, he already has some 190 professors on 120 different rates of pay. So what is the problem? We simply do not need it. How much more flexibility does the minister actually want?

The minister has raised the matter of the `cappuccino' courses. I have gone looking for where these courses are offered. I had great difficulty finding any of the postgraduate courses that have caused the minister such problems or offence. It seems that TAFE has some of these but, as you look through them, you can see that they are all courses that are very much needed, are part of broader courses such as hospitality courses or courses relating to our tourism industry or are in fact PhD topics. I note here an improvement on the status quo in that the Senate and the House of Representatives will now be involved in a disallowable instrument if the minister does want to challenge any courses that are provided under HECS, but we still have some work to do on the timing of that. My view is that universities should be as independent from government as possible. I would like to add a fourth element to the separation of powers. I believe universities are the bastions of democracy. We must have free speech. If we have institutions that are able to effectively challenge the government of the day, if they so wish, or put on courses that the government may indeed find are against some of their policies or their beliefs, so be it. In the long run, it is up to students whether or not they want to do these courses.

On the decision about the second reading vote, given the progress that has been made I am reluctant to see the debate end here. I do not want to see the legislation voted down, because our universities do need the funding and we are making progress with the government. I undertook from the start of this process to listen to all the stakeholders and to try to get that extra money flowing. Basically, my aim has been, firstly, to get the maximum extra money we possibly can for the 38 universities; secondly, to minimise—hopefully to prevent, but I do not think we are going to get there—any cost increases to students; and, thirdly, to get extra support for those students we know from our research are not getting a fair go: rural students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds where families are on very low incomes and/or where no-one has ever been to uni before. That also includes Indigenous students—there has actually been a drop in the number of Indigenous students accessing university in recent years—and some students from a non-English-speaking background.

Finally, my aim has been to minimise any intrusion on university independence. As we see universities following this debate and continuing to call for more money, I hope that we are able to work our way through to a successful third reading vote—but we are certainly not there at the moment. I hope that at the coming election we will see all parties promising more for universities. Even the extra $1.7 billion, as I said before, is not enough. Our universities have a backlog of need for structural improvements—in some cases, the complete rebuilding of facilities—and they have an urgent need for more ongoing, day-to-day funding and more money for research. There is a long list of what we need. Even with the money in this bill, we still have a considerable way to go to get up to the average OECD figure for what we put into not just our universities but also public education generally. I call on this government to think again about the amount of money that is finally going to get through to universities in this bill. In particular, I say to government that we need to think again about those disadvantaged students that the research shows us are talented and capable but at the moment are not able to get to university because of the hurdles that are put in their way.