Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (16:46): I'd like to begin by thanking the member for Maribyrnong for her contribution to the chamber. She talked about the importance of education in the context of—well, I'm very fond and affectionate of the great state of Victoria, as no doubt you are as well, Deputy Speaker Haines, but I'm not going to pretend that it's not spluttering at the moment under the demise of a terrible Labor state government.

But one of the great traditions of the great state of Victoria is, of course, the long legacy, commitment and responsibility it has had around lifting the standards of the whole of the nation in the context of education. The member made reference to the legacy of education in the great state, but what she omitted was the important origin of that legacy. Of course, universal primary education was one of the great Liberal achievements in the Victorian tradition.

It's something we're very proud of, it's something we believe in fundamentally and it's something we will continue to believe in. It has been part of the Liberal legacy not just for Victoria but for Australia in primary education and in secondary education—the role of keeping education choice a central pillar of a pluralistic society. There are so many people on the other side of this chamber who believe in conformity—the idea that there is only 'one size fits all' in education, where everybody must go, as a state automaton, to a state education system and have one form of curriculum, which tells everybody how to educate and learn—because it enables them to have their form of control over how people develop and grow.

Some of us believe in pluralism. Some of us believe in choice. Some of us believe in diversity not just in the colour of our skin or how we choose to live our lives but in opinion.

We believe that this should also be embodied in our education system and that our education system should support these principles, which is why we believe in funding diverse education systems. That's not just the state system, of course; it's also independent systems based on faith or other traditions. It goes all the way through the tertiary system as well, and one of the great legacies of the Liberals has always been supporting tertiary education.

In fact, we founded most of the university institutions in this country, including providing the pathways for Commonwealth scholarships. Labor's always focused on inputs; we've always focus on outputs. We have focused on how to make sure that we have good citizens coming out of education who build the strength and foundations of success for the future of Australia.

How do we make sure that, when Australians apply themselves through an education system, they are actually getting value and benefits out of the system? Labor's solution for education has always been the same: get people into the system, use it to their own ends, have people rack up debt and then justify their benefits by throwing the cost onto the taxpayer at the end and claiming they're delivering some sort of benefit.

That is not a sustainable way forward. But that's not what we're here to debate with the Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025. We're here, with this legislation, to talk about how to build the future.

This is about how to talk about building the continued strength of the education system for Australia. It is so important that, when we're building the future of Australia's education system, it's done so from a principle of achieving and aspiring towards excellence. We don't talk about excellence in education anymore.

It has become a sort of anathema to the model of education for our country. We've had this indoctrination run, particularly by the unions, for so long that education and benchmarking education should be based on ratios of dollar inputs or, of course, on the basis that you have the comparability between different class sizes and schools rather than how we're lifting the standards and improving the outcomes for students, teachers and communities.

You'll always hear me talk about excellence as an outcome for education because that's actually the true benchmark of achievement that we should seek to aspire to. The reality is: I don't care how much we spend on education if we achieve excellence in outcomes, lift the standards for children of the next generation, have children who come out of the education system who set their sights higher and further off into the horizon and become more ambitious not just for themselves but for the community and the nation in which they live.

I expect and hope and dream for the same thing in tertiary education as well. That's what was so sad the other day, when I was at a lunch at Monash University. My old mates have a lunch for the newly elected members of parliament.

Of course, I had been to one of these lunches before, and, because of, let's say, unique political circumstances, I had the great privilege of being invited once again. There were other members of parliament there last Thursday, who also studied at Monash University, with the vice-chancellor, as well as other— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Haines ): Order. I might just remind the member for Goldstein that he should be focusing at least some of his speech remarks on the contents of the bill, so I would urge him to do so at some point soon, please.

Mr TIM WILSON: I'm quite happy to because the bill covers issues around international education and integrity measures, which somewhat relate to things around tertiary education, which, of course, includes universities. This was a topic that came up at the lunch I was talking about at Monash University only the other day. I'm just providing a flavour and a context.

I can talk about the menu, but I'll skip over that because it's not really the subject of the bill. But it is important to understand the context—new members of parliament at Monash University, having the great privilege of meeting with the vice-chancellor and the deans, talking about where the university was going, what their ambitions were and how they were delivering for students.

A key part of the topic of that conversation was how they found the balance between international students and domestic students; how they were going to manage those challenges in the context of artificial intelligence and the role that was going to play in the future of education; and how they were going to, then, redesign the aspects of the on-campus experience to meet the expectations and needs of doing so.

It was an interesting conversation. We were talking about those balances and tensions that now exist within tertiary education and whether people were going to continue to pursue the choice of tertiary education because they saw the value, the integrity, the qualities and the outcomes as a trade-off for education debt. There's a big question about whether that is still part of the ledger in the aspiration.

One of the things that is so frustrating from the university's standpoint—and the message was given to us to sing it loud and clear—is not getting signals from government around how they want to invest in the future programs that will build the contribution of a university to the future development of the state of the country. Another is, if they got those signals from the state and the federal government, how important that would be for them to invest in being able to deliver for the capacity of higher education and research, and then being able to build the skills capacity for Australians.

That is why this conversation is so essential. It is because universities' skills based research institutions play such a critical role in the lifeblood of our society and our community, and, more importantly, in skilling up the next generation of Australians to be active contributors to our community and, of course, participants in our economy. But what we so often find is a misalignment or a misdirection.

We're seeing it in particular at the moment from the current government, where they're not giving the signals that the market needs to give clarity about the skills people need to be full participants in the economy. I think, increasingly, we're going to pay a very big price around that. It's not just about the market signals; it's also about making sure that quality and standards are maintained so that we can provide skills for the economy.

I know this legislation deals with a number of places being provided for Indigenous medical students. That's an enormously important part of primary care services, provided particularly for the unique challenges faced by Indigenous communities. We hope that those who train as medical practitioners from Indigenous communities provide support services for the whole of the Australian community and also find ways to help assist the unique challenges that are faced there.

But we also want to make sure that those people who study at other tertiary institutions go on and provide the services needed in the Australian community for them to become full market participants and then be able to invest in the future of the country. As I said, at this lunch at Monash University, there was a very critical assessment of the federal and state governments on whether they were achieving that.

In fact, it was quite the reverse, particularly in discussions around defence technology. Major multinational companies were desperate for signals from the government about whether they should be investing in the technology with partners like Monash University, signals which were coming up short. So I'd just say—I said this to all of the Labor members who were present—how important it is, given the responsibility they hold on behalf of the people of Victoria, that, if you are to be a member of this parliament, yes, you're a representative of your community, yes, you're a representative of your party and, yes, you're a representative of your state, but, more importantly, you're a representative to grow the whole of the nation.

Education plays a very important part in that. By making sure education institutions fulfil that responsibility, as part of fulfilling your responsibility for the whole country, the stronger we will be. We need that at our institutions in Victoria, including Monash University, which is a university founded by the late, great Sir Robert Menzies as part of the program post the Second World War.

Mr Hill: The Liberal club still has his banner up. That's their representative— Mr TIM WILSON: And this is one of the great things. The member for Bruce gets very animated about this because, despite his constant demonisation and flippant and churlish remarks, he enjoys sitting at the table of the National Executive of the Australian Labor Party with dubious figures—let's say that, at least—that is, associates of Mick Gatto and John Setka, such as Zach Smith, the Victorian head of the CFMEU, with the Prime Minister.

Mr Hill interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Haines ): Order! I'm having trouble hearing the member for Goldstein. Mr TIM WILSON: These sorts of interventions raise very serious questions about the fundamental problems in their priorities, where they'd rather ridicule universities and the legacy of our great prime ministers' founding universities than draw attention to the fact that they are associated with deeply, deeply suspect characters.

But that's the difference. We fundamentally believe in empowering Australians and empowering choice in education. Rather than imposing conformity, rather than creating institutions that are designed, as Labor would do, to make one size fit all—because Australians are automatons for them to control, where everybody has a place so long as it is in their control—Liberals believe in a vision of education which says, 'How do we foster and build up the next generation of Australians to live out the best of their lives?' We want young Australians right from the get-go, when it comes to choice about things like child care, through their parents, to have choice and agency about the support they need to manage their family conditions.

We do not want to tell them that the only pathway to get child care is through the decisions of what works for the unions. When it comes to primary education, we want people to have choice, not just about the primary education services or the school that they can go to; we want a plurality that respects faith, traditions, cultures and values, and also, frankly, I would like to see much more diversity within curricula.

In secondary education, the principle remains the same. We'd like to see it with curricula so that people can manifest and build up their skills and their talents based on what they realise about their full capacity so that they can go out and live their best and most successful lives. If it gets to the tertiary level and people decide to continue on with their tertiary education, they then have choice.

Whether it's through TAFE skilled pathways or university or any other form of executive education in Australia or abroad, there is only one objective: for people to have the choice to be able to realise their full potential to do their best in their lives so that they can go on and get a job and set up a small business or build up the growth and potential to be able to support their family and go on and buy their own home and retire with dignity and security so that they can live their best lives.

We are in the business of backing Australians who back themselves. That is the Liberal way. Education is central to that vision and that objective, and we will not retreat from it one iota.

Whether it's making sure that we have TEQSA requirements in line, whether it's around international education integrity measures; whether it is in the context of making sure that we have the right subsidy arrangements; whether it's about making sure we back Indigenous Australians, particularly in the medical practices, to be able to get the education they need to provide the education support services that are so desperately required—whatever pathway it is, we want to set Australians up for their best success, so long as they back themselves.

We want reward for hard work, savings, sacrifice and effort. We want to build the institutions that empower Australians to live out their best lives. We want choice, freedom and opportunity, and the one thing we certainly don't want is to impose conformity and indoctrination and to have institutions designed to compel Australians to serve the state.

That is the fundamental choice between us and our Labor opponents, and that's the basis on which we're going to prosecute this bill through this parliament.