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TRANSCRIPT
Press Conference Transcript
Parliament House
Wednesday 17 September 2003
Minister Nelson:
Today on behalf of the Australian Government I have
introduced into the Federal Parliament sweeping changes for
Australian universities which are intended to put them on a sound
footing for the 21st Century. The standard of living that will be
enjoyed by the next generation of Australians will be driven largely
by what happens in Higher Education and in Science. It is critically
important that as Australians we appreciate that universities need
change. They need reform for two reasons: the first is that they
need access to more money and a lot of it in the longer term; and
secondly the way in which we regulate, administer and manage our
universities is as much a part of the problem as is the level of
resourcing. The Government is committing $1.5 billion of extra
public funding in the first four years, $10.6 billion in the first
ten years and in addition to that changes to industrial relations,
to governance, to management, another 31,500 fully funded HECs
places will go into the sector over the first five years, and from
the announcements in the Budget there are a number of changes which
I have also announced today in response to requests and suggestions
put to us by the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee. They include
allowing the universities to have not a 2%, but a 5% tolerance band
in enrolments, which effectively means that universities will, in
their long term planning, be able to accept up to 5% in terms of
over enrolment of students. In addition to that, for the $122.6
million which will support regional universities and campuses, the
Government will also provide a 1.5% loading to the University of
Wollongong, as well as counting, for the purposes of regional
loading, externally enrolled students. Those students, currently
about 2,000 who attend Australian universities offered a fee exempt
place, will not in any way have their Common Youth Allowance or
their Austudy entitlements adversely affected by that. So where a
university offers a scholarship to a low income student they will
not be financially disadvantaged in terms of their social security
requirements. It is critically important that we realise, as
Australians, that we cannot any longer expect to have
internationally world class higher education available for our
children if we continue to fund and run every university in the
country in exactly the same way. We can no longer accept the
situation where students are crammed in like sardines into
overcrowded lecture theatres, where lecturers are not specifically
trained in teaching, where universities in the regions are not being
adequately rewarded for their increasingly complex and expensive
community service obligations, and this package of reform will
ensure that Australia can be confident in the standard of living
that will be driven by its higher education sector. Our large
research intensive universities are competing, not so much with one
another, they are increasingly competing with the rest of the world,
at the same time as some of our regional non research intensive
universities are struggling under increasing load, which includes
giving access to students who wouldn’t otherwise see the inside of a
university.
Question:
Is (inaudible) at the moment still opposed despite
your changes, how do you plan to get this through the Senate?
Minister Nelson:
I ask the Labor Party and the minor parties to
consider the comprehensive nature of the package. To reflect on what
the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee itself said was important
in order to give Australia a world class higher education sector.
One of the eight enabling strategies they thought to be important
was to provide HECs flexibility and there seems no logic whatsoever
to me, as the Government expands the number of publicly funded HECs
places in universities, that the Labor Party should now be moving to
ban opportunities available to Australian students eligible to get
into a university, to take up a full fee paying place whilst we
welcome 140,000 people from overseas. This has got to be considered
in the interests of Australia, not simply pandering to
misinformation which has been disseminated by some opponents to the
package and obviously the popularism which would oppose some aspects
of it.
Question:
Dr Nelson, there is nothing in this for the
University of Western Sydney. Are you going to do anything to
actually help them – more funding, more places?
Minister Nelson:
The package delivers, as I say $1.5 billion
additional funding in the first four years. We are moving the
universities to disciplined mix of funding, which means that each
university will receive, in its core funding, the same amount of
money for providing the same course to students irrespective of
where the university is. Some universities, University of New
England, University of Western Sydney, Victoria University of
Technology, would lose some money through the transition phase, were
it not for the fact that the Commonwealth will be writing them a
cheque. The University of Western Sydney has moved its teaching away
from high cost courses to lower cost courses over the last 13 years,
which has been exposed by the new funding model. The Government will
compensate them with $5.4 million in the first three years of the
transition. In addition to that they will receive 7.1% more for
training of nurses, 9.7% more for training of teachers. They will
also, with the announcements made today, a greater opportunity I’d
suggest to you, for them to have more places and from 2007 they,
like all the universities, will be financially advantaged by the
package.
Question:
Dr Nelson, (inaudible) right to expect the Senate to
push this through by the end of the year, the most sweeping changes
to Australian universities in 20 years. How can they be considered
and debated properly in that time?
Minister Nelson:
Firstly, the higher education sector has been
reviewed on numerous occasions. The issues are well known to those
in the sector. Almost immediately after being appointed to the
portfolio I decided that the status quo was not only unsustainable,
it would be an abrogation of our responsibilities to the future. We
went through a lengthy detailed and open process of reviewing the
sector which took time. We went into the Budget process, the
Government announced in May, a package of reform. Of course these
changes are as complex as the problems they seek to address. It has
taken some months to have the legislation drafted, the three
principle bills in particular. The legislation has been introduced
today and from the Government’s point of view there is adequate time
to consider the legislation thoroughly before the end of the year.
And I think in that process the Senators should not only be guided
by the package itself, but the advice that they receive from those
that fully understand higher education, and that’s the Vice
Chancellors.
Question:
How confident are you of being able to sell it to
the Australian voters at the next election?
Minister Nelson:
I think that most Australians, and most parents (and
I’m a parent myself) realise that there is something wrong with
universities. I think they appreciate that the problems don’t just
relate to some eligible students not being able to get in, but that
the quality of universities is not always what they would expect. I
think they are concerned about some of the courses that are offered
in universities, (which) at the same time are bleeding in core
activities. And I think they will also appreciate the fact that
whilst their taxes are further being used to support the education,
research and scholarship in universities, that some changes in terms
of student contributions are pretty fair and reasonable. The reality
of this is that most HECs charges in most universities will not
change. In some universities they will change and in some courses
they will change. And the other thing that is important is that
Australian and Australian parents especially, who are being told all
sorts of things, that are not true, that they will have to start
saving from the birth of their children to have a university
education. I ask Australian parents to seriously examine the merits
of the package in the context of the problems faced by Australian
higher education and where is the fairness in as we expand the
number of HECs places that are available, with a 40% drop out rate
in the university sector at the moment, of then saying to Australian
students who are academically eligible, who have their heart set on
doing a particular course, where is the fairness of saying "Well if
you had a foreign passport you can get a place in an Australian
university, but we won’t allow you to be a full fee paying student
and support you with an Australian Government loan because you
happen to be an Australian". There is nothing fair about that.
Question:
Why only $50,000? Because if a course, say in future
costs $100,000, surely that means that only kids with rich parents
will be able to go on a full fee paying place because they’re only
getting the $50,000 and they’re going to have to top it up?
Minister Nelson:
Yes, good question. The problem at the moment with
full fee paying places, there are 9,700 full fee paying Australian
students in Australian universities. The problem at the moment is if
they come from families that have got the money or can borrow the
money they can take up the place. What the Government is doing is
recognising that not being able to get the money shouldn’t stop you
from going to university. So we’re prepared to offer the students a
loan, as you know, up to $50,000. That fully covers the course for
about 2/3rds of the full fee paying courses on offer. If the
argument is put to us by the Senate parties, in particular that they
think that we should increase that level of loan, if in fact the
argument is strongly put to us, with reason that we should increase
the level of that loan for some of the high cost courses, as I have
already done with some of the things put to us now, we will consider
it earnestly.
Question:
You are prepared to consider some changes to this
package then, in order to get it through the Senate?
Minister Nelson:
Well I’ve said from the outset that we would not
allow the fundamental integrity of the reform package to be
undermined by key elements being removed. But of course Australians
expect those who govern them to approach issues with an open mind
and be reasonable, and already we’ve had some reasonable suggestions
put to us to which the Government has responded. As we go through
the debate of the Bills and we go into the Senate, if there are
further reasonable things which don’t undermine the fundamental
integrity of the package, then we will most certainly take it on
board.
Question:
What are the issues you’re willing to reconsider?
Minister Nelson:
Well we’ll see what’s discussed.
Question:
Industrial relations reform. Can you just explain
why that Bill is not longer linked, originally we heard there was
going to be four Bills, there’s now three. The workplace relations
reforms will be introduced separately, does that mean that if
they’re not passed that doesn’t stand or fall on the rest of the
Bills no longer linking to them?
Minister Nelson:
No. There are a number of things. Minister Tony
Abbot will be introducing a piece of legislation which will
proscribe protected action at the expiration of an enterprise
agreement which seriously disadvantages innocent third parties, and
that is students. Guidelines will be released in the next few days
which will give effect to the $404 million in Commonwealth Grants
Scheme money, that is the basic discipline mix money for
universities in terms of compliance with the Commonwealth’s
industrial relations laws. What essentially we will be saying to
universities, and are saying to them, is that if you want the extra
$404 million in the first three years they must be compliant with
modern governance in management practices and secondly, that
employees, that academics in universities should be free, if they
chose to, to take up a Commonwealth Contract or Workplace Agreement,
as they currently and already do. That no-one should be forced, and
it’s important to understand that these reforms will not force any
academic or employee of a university to be in any kind of employment
arrangement, but rather to see that they have a choice.
Question:
Will that legislation affect just academics, or
nurses and teachers and social workers as well?
Minister Nelson:
It will apply to the employees of the university,
all of the employees of the university.
Question:
Dr Nelson, how can you explain to parents that your
juggling of full fee paying places will allow other students, other
children, to get into university with up to five points less than
their peers, which in real terms means a difference of 10% to 15% in
entry scores?
Minister Nelson:
Well firstly the HECs places, which are publicly
funded places where the taxpayer contributes almost 75% of the cost
of the university education, the HECs places are determined by
merit, they are determined by the Year 12 scores that a student
achieves, except that 40,000 people who got a HECs place this year
did not get there on merit. They got there because they were
educated in very difficult circumstances and some of the didn’t even
get a Year 12 result, and I don’t think anybody should be opposed to
that. But the cut off score for HECs is determined, not be academic
ability, it is determined by supply and demand. And it is for that
reason that some universities have reduced the entry score for
medicine, for example, for HECs places, from 99 to 90, because they
realise that it’s not just academic ability there are other things
that need to be taken into account. The cut off score, for example,
for arts law at the University of New South Wales this year, for a
full fee paying student, is 94.5. I challenge any person, I
challenge anyone, to argue that if a student chooses to go to the
university, that where the university determines that they are
academically qualified, where that student, having missed out on a
HECs place, then fully funds his or her own place in that
university, if they are determined to be academically qualified and
pass with flying colours in most places, as I’m told, in their first
or subsequent years, why shouldn’t they be allowed a place. And
also, every student that chooses to take up a full fee paying place
in a university leaves a HECs place for another student. Why should
a student be forced, when they have their heart set on doing
vetinary science to go and do another HECs funded course in
something they don’t really want to do when they’re academically
capable of doing something else.
Question:
But they’re still getting in with (inaudible) Dr
Nelson.
Minister Nelson:
They are not receiving any form of public subsidy.
They are being determined by the university itself to be
academically eligible, and any parent of any child that is currently
studying for Year 12, where that child has his or her heart set on a
particular course, knows that if the cut off is 99.4 and that
student achieves 99.1, or 97 or 98, any parent and any teacher of
those students know that they are academically qualified, why
shouldn’t they be offered a full fee paying place where the taxpayer
is not subsidising their place, in the same way that a student from
Beijing, Jakarta, Canada, Europe or anywhere else, would come to
Australian and take up a place.
Question:
You’ve made the point that Simon Crean receives a
discount on his HECs for his children, because he pays that up
front, yet you yourself did a couple of degrees – you did Science
and Medicine – something that you would actually stop other students
from doing. Do you think it’s a little ironic that you are going to
ban students from doing what you yourself did, which is change your
mind?
Minister Nelson:
Students will continue to be free to change their
mind in terms of the courses that they do. What the Government is
saying is that students cannot go on indefinitely doing one
undergraduate course after the other. There will be a minimum five
year learning entitlement where the taxpayer will subsidise a full
time undergraduate degree for a student. Where the course is five
years or longer an additional year will be added and of course the
minimum vocational requirement for a course will also be available
to students. We’re trying to say to Australian university students
that you cannot go on, year after year, log jamming the university
system, stopping other people from coming in and doing one
university undergraduate after the other. It’s a perfectly
reasonable thing and if students want to continue in that way, well
then after their learning entitlement has expired, well then they
can fund themselves.
Question:
The last fiddling tax cut took up $10 billion, will
you be in there in Cabinet trying to persuade your colleages to
direct money towards higher education, or do you think tax cuts
should be a priority to the Government:
Minister Nelson:
I will always be fighting on behalf of education. I
mean education, as Thomas Jefferson said, is the defence of the
nation. So I will be competing with all Ministers from all
portfolios.
Question:
Do you think more money on education rather than a
tax cut?
Minister Nelson:
The Government in the end will make a decision in
terms of where it thinks the taxpayer’s hard earned dollars should
be spent.
Question:
The Government will make a political decision I’m
sure, but your preference would be?
Minister Nelson:
I obviously will support the Government. Wherever
possible what will happen is that the Government will return
taxpayers hard earned dollars to them.
Question:
You say the most important thing in a generation,
and most people would agree with you, why not try to prosecute that
argument to spend $10 billion on education?
Minister Nelson:
Once the Government has discharged it’s
responsibilities in a variety of portfolios Matt, if there is any
money available, the Government’s preference always is to return it
to the taxpayers.
Thank you.
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