National Student Ombudsman Levy Bill 2026

Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (17:14): It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak to the National Student Ombudsman Levy Bill. Establishment of this position has been one of the most significant contributions of this government to keeping students safe on campuses. It began in August 2023, when representatives of the STOP campaign Australia launched the #IDeserveSafety initiative at Parliament House.

They collected thousands of student testimonies from across the country, submitting them to the universities accord. They demanded systemic reform. At that stage, 275 students were being assaulted in university settings every week.

Amongst the key demands of that campaign was the creation of an independent oversight mechanism to hold institutions accountable for their handling of gender based violence. I and my crossbench colleagues amplified this call, and I'd like to give a shout-out especially to Zoe Daniel, the former member for Goldstein, and Kylea Tink, the last MP for the now-abolished seat of North Sydney, for their strong and effective leadership on this issue at that time.

Together, we helped to get those student representatives in front of the education minister, who was kind enough to see them the same day we met with them. We talked in the House and in the media about how things had to change. The minister and the universities accord listened.

The accord found that students needed a simpler and more accessible way to pursue complaints, with proper support. It recommended an independent student complaints mechanism for higher education students. Three years later, we've come a long way.

We helped to pass landmark legislation reshaping how universities respond to sexual violence. We now have a Student Ombudsman and a national code that will oversee all higher education providers, requiring evidence based prevention strategies and best-practice support for victims-survivors. These are achievements three years in the making.

Together, those students, their supporters, the crossbench, the other parliamentarians who supported them, the minister and the government have made our campuses more safe for the next generation of students. On 1 February 2025, the National Student Ombudsman formally commenced, supported by $19.4 million over the two years for 2024-25 budget. The ombudsman in now in place, working to resolve student complaints about higher education providers, providing a free and independent service available to all higher education students, regardless of the university at which they study.

Since opening its doors 18 months ago, the National Student Ombudsman has supported students through complaints of gender based violence, antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of racism or discrimination on campus. It's become a critical piece of infrastructure for the wellbeing, safety and experience of students at a time when we're seeing significant challenges across the university sector.

The ombudsman is already demonstrating its value. As of 31 August 2026, the National Student Ombudsman had received 7,690 student contacts. It had resolved 6,016 of those matters—78 per cent.

That means that thousands of students have already been able to access an independent avenue to have their concerns heard and, where possible, resolved. This is a profound legacy of this place and one which I'm truly proud to have been involved with. However, the Minister for Education has notified higher education providers that the sector is going to have to contribute to the ongoing costs of the ombudsman.

This package of bills delivers on that expectation, providing for the imposition, collection and administration of a new levy on higher education providers to recover the costs of administering the ombudsman. A failure to pay will amount to a breach of a condition of registration for those universities and other institutions. It may result in enforcement action, which would be undertaken by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

The legislation provides for the minister for education to make rules to facilitate the collection and administration of the student ombudsman levy, but much of the detail beyond that is not in the legislation. The missing details include how the levy formulation will be calculated and how it will be distributed across those higher education providers. Those parameters are going to be left to ministerial delegated legislation.

The explanatory memorandum for the bill argues that this approach is necessary to provide flexibility to ensure that levy arrangements can be appropriately adjusted over time to reflect both the costs of the National Student Ombudsman's functions and the exercise of its powers. I do understand the appeal and the need for flexibility, but it has to be balanced with the requirement of transparency.

The government has previously stated that the levy will be distributed across providers based on their student population. The government has previously reasoned publicly that the overall student population is a core cost driver for the Student Ombudsman, but neither the bill nor the explanatory memorandum confirm this approach. Universities Australia has challenged this.

It has claimed that there's little evidence for a relationship between a provider's equivalent full-time student load and the actual demand placed on the ombudsman service. Headcount might be a more appropriate measure of the need for the services of the ombudsman, but other factors should probably be considered. For example, rural students have greater need for pastoral support, given their isolation and their geographic disconnectedness, the first-in-family factor for many rural students, the compounding effect of regional hardship and the lack of local infrastructure around many tertiary centres in the regions.

It seems only reasonable that the department should provide its justification for the proposed methodology in calculating and apportioning this levy. Similarly, clause 9 of the levy bill states: The regulations may provide for exemptions from levy— but provides no details regarding where those exemptions might be appropriate. I acknowledge that the explanatory memorandum notes: … exemptions may be made where a natural disaster impacts higher education providers' ability to enrol students or offer a full course load.

Again, though, this is an issue which is under ministerial control and which the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills has noted could raise some concerns. I ask the minister and the department for further clarity, both on the nature of the levy and on the basis of any putative exemptions. The government expects to recover $33.2 million over three years from 2027-28 from this measure and then $11.3 million per year ongoing from higher education providers.

I'm glad that there's a provision in this legislation that the minister must ensure that the cost recovery levy is no more than the actual costs of the ombudsman, but cost recovery arrangements should also include safeguards against unnecessary growth in the ombudsman's activities, staffing and costs. This should and could include clear reporting on complaint volumes, on the nature and outcomes of investigations undertaken by the ombudsman, on expenditure by activity, on staffing levels and on the effectiveness of education and outreach undertaken by the ombudsman.

It seems only reasonable, given that the tertiary institutions have to pay for this facility to be established on an ongoing basis, that they should be able to understand the basis of the activities on an ongoing basis through some transparent reporting arrangements. These safeguards are the more important because this legislation comes, let's face it, at a time of significant challenges for the tertiary education sector.

Universities Australia reports that 13 Australian universities were in deficit in 2024. It has warned of growing regulatory compliance costs, and it has called for a review of higher education regulation to reduce red tape. The Regional Universities Network providers, which cater for one in 10 university students in Australia, are recording net operating losses.

There was a time in Australian history when governments accepted that higher education was a public good and they funded it like one, but that assumption seems to be eroding and higher education is quietly being privatised. The Regional Universities Network recognised this in relation to the National Student Ombudsman, pointing out that state based ombudsmen were previously funded by governments and that that was done in recognition of the fact that they serve a public interest.

Australia seems to be walking back from that principle that, when something serves the public interest, it should be publicly funded. I'm glad the government acted on the accord's recommendation to establish an ombudsman—again, this is an achievement that the crossbench fought very hard for—but the accord made 47 recommendations and many of them still sit unimplemented.

In the context of Australia's approach to withdrawing funding from the higher education sector, that's hardly surprising. But the biggest elephant in the room is the policy that this government least wants to touch: the job-ready graduates program. Passed by the former coalition prime minister and minister for education, it has now been left to languish for longer under this government than the last by the current Labor prime minister and minister for education.

Job-ready Graduates increased the cost of some degrees—arts, law, business and economics—and decreased the cost of other disciplines, like teaching, nursing and STEM. In the process, universities received $813 million less in 2024 alone because the increases in the price of some degrees didn't fully compensate for the decreases in others. This was a package that cut the university sector by stealth.

The Universities Accord was clear in its assessment that this policy has failed. It found that the intended purpose of Job-ready Graduates, which was to influence student choices through price signals, had not been achieved. It recommended urgent remediation.

But the government has as yet done nothing to fix Job-ready Graduates. It says it wants to expand access to university. The minister says he's investing in students' wellbeing and safety.

But the government continues to refuse to fix the HECS debt crisis caused by the Job-ready Graduates scheme. The government likes to invoke the Universities Accord when it delivers on it, but it ignores the accord when that requires some difficult decisions. The National Student Ombudsman is an excellent example of what can happen when a government listens to students and acts on the recommendations of the accord.

And the crossbench fought for it, because students need an independent avenue to raise complaints, to seek resolution and to ensure that they can remain and feel safe on campus. I'd like to give a shout-out to those campaigners, those fabulous brave women, from the STOP Campaign: Camille Schloeffel, Sophie Aboud, Nuria Olive and Lauren Taylor. There are more; I can't name them all.

But all those wonderful advocates came to this place as part of that campaign and fought so hard and well for this and won. The crossbench will continue to fight to protect students, and we'll continue to keep fighting on the Job-ready Graduates mess as well, because the thousands of students who called for the National Student Ombudsman, who cared about their own wellbeing and safety and that of those of the next generation of students, deserve no less than for this parliament to consider their financial safety as well.