Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026

Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (10:37): I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. I support the central purpose of this bill—to give more Australians the opportunity to attend university and to give students from disadvantaged backgrounds the support they need to succeed once they get there. Our most valuable national asset is our people and training and educating Australians must be at the centre of any serious plans to improve productivity, fill critical skills shortages and build the industries and the Australia that we need and want.

The Australian Universities Accord makes the scale of that task clear. By 2050, at least 80 per cent of Australia's workforce will need a university or vocational qualification, up from around 60 per cent from the accord report. Today, close to half of Australians in their 30s have a university degree, but the rate is roughly half that for people from low-income families and regional communities.

Talent is not confined to particular postcodes, families or schools. Opportunities should not be either. This bill is an important step towards a larger and fairer system, and I commend the government for progressing it, but it must create a funding and governance system that is fair, transparent, durable and protected from political misuse regardless of who occupies the ministerial office or government.

Under the new managed-growth funding system, the minister will set a total allocation pool and the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, will allocate core and additional growth places to universities and other eligible providers. The government expects this model to support an additional 230,000 places for commencing university students over the next decade, backed by an additional $3.6 billion in funding.

The bill also establishes need based funding for universities enrolling students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students studying at regional campuses. These are welcome reforms. I also welcome the greater long-term coordination through ATEC and mission based compacts.

Australia needs an expert body that can take a national view of workforce needs, regional access, course capacity and financial sustainability. My central concern with this bill is whether it gets the power balance right between the discretion of the minister, ATEC and individual providers and universities. Government has a legitimate role in setting national priorities and ensuring public funding delivers public value.

Universities must be accountable for quality, access, student safety and responsible financial management. But stewardship is not control, and I am concerned at the overreach that's being provided to the minister here. Universities need the autonomy to fulfil their mission, teach and conduct research, invest in capability and respond to their communities without the overreach of the minister.

This autonomy protects free inquiry, research integrity and the ability to challenge conventional wisdom. Questions remain among Australia's tertiary sector as to whether this bill gets that balance right. The concern is that this bill will allow the minister to impose additional funding conditions on an individual university outside the mission based compact process.

Those conditions would be separate from and additional to the mission based compact process. This is a broad and opaque power that could overlap with ATEC's responsibilities. ATEC was established as the expert statutory steward of the system, responsible for negotiating mission based compacts and allocating most Commonwealth supported places.

Separate ministerial conditions could cut across that work and, we know, could way too quickly become politicised. The government may say the current minister would use this power responsibly—fair enough. But that's not the test that parliament should be applying.

The test is not whether the current minister would exercise the power responsibly. Parliament must legislate for every future minister and possible government, and we must ensure that there is that proper separation and not an overreach of ministerial power. I simply don't support the government being so involved in the day-to-day operation of our tertiary sector.

Higher education expert Andrew Norton has warned that establishing the legal limits of this power may require universities to take the government to court, something they may be reluctant to do while relying heavily on government funding. It would also be such a waste of resources and funds. The bill lets the minister set the overall national pool, and ATEC allocates places between institutions.

As an expert statutory body, ATEC can consider each provider's capacity, regional role, financial sustainability, student demand and contribution to Australia's skill needs. But decisions about how an institution distributes its allocation across particular courses should remain with that institution. This should not be subject to ministerial overreach.

The bill does not clearly prevent the minister or ATEC from making allocations at a course, field of study or other subprovider level. It doesn't take Einstein to see the concern that, if a minister or ATEC reaches right down to the allocation of courses, field of study or other provider level, a government of the day with a particular ideology or view in relation to certain areas can absolutely then use the lever of funding and allocations to reach into and predetermine these areas.

My amendment, which I will be discussing with the minister, therefore draws a clear boundary. Government may determine the national total and ATEC may allocate places between providers, but universities must retain the responsibility for the mix of their own courses. Neither the minister nor ATEC should be deciding how many international students an individual university may enrol in a particular course.

Course level controls would intrude directly into academic decision-making and prevent universities from responding flexibly to student preferences and changing workforce needs. We have seen the impact of such decisions in the Job-ready Graduates scheme for domestic students, a horrendous program that the government has yet to remedy despite being in government now for four years.

The bill nevertheless gives the minister broad power to prescribe matters that ATEC must follow or consider when allocating international student places. Without adequate limits, that power could be used to target a particular institution or influence a number of students enrolled in a particular course. Course level controls are contrary to institutional autonomy and would undermine universities' ability to respond to student preferences in place based planning.

Canberra should not micromanage what individual universities teach. Universities Australia has warned that the interaction between the bill's course designation powers and ATEC allocations could weaken the existing protections for continuing CSP students. Although ATEC must consider a provider's capacity to meet its continuing student obligations, the bill should put the matter beyond doubt.

A subsequent designation or allocation decision must not remove the CSP status of a student who has already commenced their course. The course selection of enrolled students must be protected and respected. I really urge the government to clarify this question.

No student who begins a course in a Commonwealth supported place should lose that status part way through their degree because a minister has later designated the course differently or because ATEC changes a provider's allocation. Students plan their lives and finances on the offer they accept. Government policy should not move the floor beneath them midway through their studies.

The bill's needs based funding model has the potential to become one of the most important legacies of the accord, but success can't be measured by enrolment numbers alone. It should be measured by whether underrepresented students are actually supported to access university, remain engaged and ultimately graduate. That work begins long before a student arrives on campus.

Universities need to work with schools, families and communities to build aspiration, explain pathways and help prospective students seek higher education as a realistic option. The 2050 Alliance has rightly argued that needs based funding and outreach should not operate as disconnected programs. Both serve the same objective, increasing participation among communities that remain underrepresented in higher education.

The amendments that I will propose will allow ATEC to publish an institutional equity strategy aimed at widening access for Indigenous students, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and other equity cohorts recognised in the needs based funding guidelines. Universities could use funding received under this part of the bill to undertake activities implementing that strategy, including appropriate pre-enrolment outreach.

This would give providers greater flexibility to invest in coordinated, evidence based and multiyear programs, instead of treating outreach and enrolled student support as entirely separate tasks. You don't get to an enrolment just by accident; we need to have that outreach program as well. We will not close participation gaps by waiting until a student arrives on campus or assuming that they're just going to make their way from disadvantaged or remote and regional areas to an enrolment in a campus.

The outreach program is important. We must build the pipeline well before that point and then support students all the way through to graduation. Finally, this bill must not be presented as a completion of the Universities Accord agenda.

The JobReady Graduates scheme continues to distort student contributions and punish students for choosing particular fields of study. I voted against it when it was presented as legislation under the Morrison government in the 46th Parliament. I continue to urge the government—it's been four years—to repeal it and fix this broken system.

The JobReady Graduates package doubled the fees for arts, humanities and social work and attempted to pick winners by using student debt as a behavioural lever. From 2027, students in the highest contribution band are now expected to pay more than $55,000 for a standard three-year degree. That is insane.

A country that claims to value critical thinking, communication, culture, social work and public service should not price those disciplines as though they are indulgences. They remain core to the workforce and the skills matrix that we need for the future. The government's 20 per cent student debt reduction and HELP repayment changes were meaningful and welcome, but the underlying JobReady Graduate structure remains.

A university education should challenge a student intellectually, not cripple them financially. The ambition behind this bill is worthy and urgent. Australia needs more skilled people and a higher education system that reaches talented students locked out by geography, disadvantage or circumstances.

Managed growth funding and needs based funding can help deliver that, but opening the doors of opportunity must not also open the door to ministerial interference. The minister can set national direction, ATEC can independently make provider level allocations and negotiate mission based compacts, but universities should remain autonomous institutions accountable under clear and transparent law.

Students must have certainty that the place they begin in when they commence their study is the place they can complete, and the bill can open the doors to opportunity wider. We must build a system that is strong enough, fair enough and independent enough to keep those doors open for generations to come and make sure that it is immunised from political interference.