Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (12:59): I always admire the person in Labor's central command who writes the titles of bills before the House of Representatives. This one, the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026, is written as if you couldn't oppose it—'opening the doors of opportunity'. It's so often the way with Labor that it comes in here as the government of the day with a 50-plus seat majority and feels the need to word its bills in such a way that, if you opposed it or went against it, you would be the worst of the worst.
The coalition, as the shadow education minister, the member for Berowra, said, has not finalised its position on the bill. There are reasons for that. One of the reasons for that is, once again, Labor's lack of consultation.
The coalition has concerns from the sector itself about the consultation process, including but not limited to the fact universities had not seen the bill before it was tabled. There are elements of the drafting surprising the actual sector. No exposure draft was released—probably no surprise there—and stakeholders were shown only limited material under confidentiality arrangements.
This is so typical of Labor. It comes in here with legislation and without the proper consultation. Just this week, we've seen in the online legislation designed to protect children that the work, the background research and the consultation was not done prior to the initial bill being put forward.
I supported that particular bill; I was in favour of children under 16 not being able to access certain social media platforms. I do believe that children should be allowed to be children. We saw it in the veterans legislation, where there is now going to be a $5,000 cap on allied health for veterans to access important services.
The Labor Party said: 'Trust us. We'll do the consultation over the next 12 months.' It's not good enough. The consultation should have been done prior to the budget, prior to the legislation, prior to our veterans being unnecessarily alarmed by what the budget changes could entail.
They've got every right to be concerned, to be worried and, in some cases, to be fraught with anxiety. It's their livelihoods; it's their quality of life. All of that is at stake because of changes brought about by a government which doesn't do the consultation.
The thing is that this government has a huge majority. It shouldn't need to decide on a policy and then ram it through this House. It should be doing the consultation because, irrespective of what legislation it brings before this place, it's going to get it through.
It doesn't need to ram it through. But it does need those stakeholder groups across industry, across Australia's society, it needs to do the proper groundwork, and it needs to consult. The coalition believes that this bill should be, has to be and must be referred to a Senate committee for an inquiry and report.
It should. As the shadow minister for education said in his contribution: 'The equity modifier amount is again specified in the needs based funding grant guidelines. Presumably, in theory, any future minister could simply determine that the equity modifier amount is zero.
A similar arrangement applies for the regional component. In short,' he said, 'the amount of equity and regional funding you will receive under the needs based funding grant guidelines are within the control of the minister,' Deputy Speaker, you no doubt would have heard me say often that I am not against ministers being ministers and ministers having control.
But there is some concern in this particular legislation in relation to the control of the minister. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission is not involved. To the vice-chancellors—I'm quoting the member for Berowra here—'This is how you will be funded into the future.' And he expressed surprise at the fact that the vice-chancellors had so readily and so quickly signed up to this arrangement.
Now, I represent the Riverina, and throughout the Riverina we've got many Charles Sturt University students. Charles Sturt University's genesis goes back to, would you believe, 1892 with the establishment of the Wagga Wagga Experiment Farm. In 1947, the Wagga Wagga Teachers College was founded, and just two years later the Wagga Wagga Agricultural College was established on the site of the experiment farm.
In 1972, the teachers college reformed as the Riverina College of Advanced Education, which merged with the Wagga Wagga Agricultural College four years later. In 1985, the Riverina College of Advanced Education was renamed the Riverina-Murray Institute of Higher Education, with campuses at both Wagga Wagga and Albury-Wodonga. In 1989—and I will remember this because I was the subeditor and night editor of the local Wagga Daily Advertiser newspaper at the time—the historic merger took place between the Mitchell College of Advanced Education and the Riverina-Murray Institute of Higher Education, incorporating into Charles Sturt University, with campuses in Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst and Wagga Wagga.
I'm also proud to say that my three children, Georgina, Alexander and Nicholas, are all products and graduates of CSU, in teaching, accountancy and policing, respectively. I worry about and I am very alarmed at the fact that CSU has found itself in a very unfortunate debt situation. Professor Renée Leon, the vice chancellor, in a statement on 27th June last year, just 12 months ago, said: Charles Sturt University announced to staff and other stakeholders the need to remove $35 million from the University's operating budget between now and the end of 2027.
She wrote: As distressing as this decision is, it should not come as a surprise. In recent years, the Australian university sector has been in crisis, with jobs, courses and research jeopardised by needlessly restrictive and unsupportive government policies. We have been saying as much to those responsible but those comments have fallen on deaf ears, to the detriment of our staff and communities.
Whilst that is worrying, it's not entirely government's fault that CSU has found itself in such a predicament, but something needs to happen and be done to provide more support for regional education. The member for Whitlam gave a contribution prior to me and indicated quite rightly and appropriately how hard it is for young people in the regions to get that diploma from the university of their choice, because of socioeconomic factors, distance—all manner of reasons.
And she was right. The central issue in this bill is not only funding or student places. The bill centralises enormous power over universities and higher education providers into the hands of the minister, yet, as the shadow education minister indicated, the vice-chancellors have agreed to this.
I defer to CSU's vice-chancellor when indicating the debt situation that that university unfortunately finds itself in, yet vice-chancellors have agreed to a position which provides a centrally managed model. The minister and future ministers would gain extensive powers over domestic Commonwealth supported places, international student allocations, demand-driven higher education course places, needs based funding, conditions imposed on providers, and priorities and directions given to ATEC.
These powers could be used by a future government to address serious policy problems. However, they do raise significant concerns about competition. Charles Sturt University, University of New England and other country universities which provide a great service—CSU does, and I'm fully supportive of that organisation—are in competition with the sandstone universities in our metropolitan cities.
There are also significant concerns around institutional autonomy, efficiency, parliamentary oversight and ministerial discretion. We have to make sure that our regional universities are thriving, because the success of our sandstone universities is dependent on the success of our regional universities. It's like the hub and spoke model.
Our cities can't survive and thrive without our country towns. They cannot. It's the same with universities.
Our sandstone universities, which have been very successful for a very long time, cannot continue to survive and thrive without the success of universities such as CSU and other regional universities. I will champion those universities for as long as I have breath in me, because all too often in country communities our best and biggest export are our children, our young people, those with the most potential.
I have to say, and I really stress this, just because you have a university degree doesn't make you better than somebody without one. It does not. Some of our best and brightest people are those who would never go near a university other than to maybe fix the fridge or work as a chippie, a sparky or something that doesn't require generally a university degree to do that job.
As long as you're contributing to the common wealth, then good on you—as long as you're having a go. I've always said a TAFE certificate is worth every bit as much as a university degree—a hundred per cent it is—but we have to look at the model of universities. Labor claims that the Universities Accord bill before us is doing just that.
I remain wary. I remain cautious. Whenever Labor says that it's opening the doors of opportunity or says, 'Trust us.
Everything will be all right,' I must admit it does send a shiver up my spine. The minister's public sales pitch has been $3.6 billion over the decade and 230 000 additional universities places—all of this. Well, we will live in hope.
The government must come to grips with the debt problem faced by not just CSU but also our regional universities. I say again that the sandstone universities are only as strong as the success of regional universities success. We have to make sure that our country kids who want to go to university are able to go to a university in a regional setting, because the chances are that, in three-quarters of the courses and cases, they will stay in that regional setting and we will not be exporting some of our best and brightest to the cities, never to see them again in our country settings.