National Student Ombudsman Levy Bill 2026

Dr TRISH COOK (Bullwinkel) (17:26): As a former student of two universities and also a former teacher at TAFE and at ECU, I rise today to speak in strong support of our Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (National Student Ombudsman Levy) Bill 2026 and the National Student Ombudsman Levy Bill 2026. This legislation establishes an enduring industry funded framework to safeguard student welfare and strengthen accountability across Australia's higher education sector.

For too long, students facing serious grievances—from administration unfairness to gender based violence—found themselves trapped in internal university processes that failed to protect them. In response, our government created the National Student Ombudsman, a free, independent and trauma informed avenue to resolve escalating disputes and drive systemic institutional improvement.

As this critical body completes its establishment phase, this legislation today introduces a fair cost-recovery levy on providers, ensuring that the ombudsman has secure permanent funding without ever passing a cent on to the students. In short, this legislation delivers long-term sustainability to an essential watchdog that protects students, raises standards across providers and reinforces public trust in our tertiary education system.

It's a necessary pillar of our broader generation mission to build an accessible, high-quality higher education sector for Australia's future. Education has always been the greatest engine of opportunity in this country. It's a ladder by which Australians from every background, every region and every walk of life can build a better future for themselves, their families and our nation.

But that ladder works only if our tertiary system is accessible, fair, safe and ready to meet the profound economic transformations of our time. In February 2024, two years ago, our government released the final report of the Australian Universities Accord. The accord is not merely a policy document to sit on a shelf gathering dust.

It is a long-term blueprint for higher education reform over the next decade and indeed the decade after that. It looked clear-eyed at the horizon and asked a fundamental question: what kind of workforce, what kind of economy and what kind of society does Australia need over the next 20 to 30 years? The answer delivered by the accord was stark and unmistakable.

It found that, over the next few decades, Australia will need to increase the proportion of our workforce that has tertiary qualifications—a certificate, a diploma or a degree. That's 80 per cent of the Australian workforce who will require a tertiary qualification. It means more Australians at TAFE and more Australians at university.

From the clean energy transition to the care economy and from advanced manufacturing to the digital technologies, our nation's prosperity relies entirely on the skills, knowledge and capabilities of our people. We can't afford to leave anyone behind, and we can't afford to delay. When we received the 47 recommendations of the universities accord, we did not waste time.

The Albanese Labor government has already implemented more than 30 of the accord's 47 recommendations in full or in part. We're delivering reforms that touch every part of the student's journey, from the moment they aspire to study through their years on campus to the day they enter the workforce. First and foremost, we're tackling student debt.

We're making HECS fairer and better. For too long, the burden of student debt has weighed heavily on younger Australians trying to get ahead, save for a home and build for their lives. We took decisive action, cutting HECS debts by 20 per cent across the board.

We've capped indexation on HECS debts to the lower of the CPI—the consumer price index—and the wage price index, ensuring that student debt can never again be allowed to grow faster than average wages. And we are transitioning to a progressive marginal repayment system and lifting the minimum payment threshold, leaving more money in the pockets of graduates when they need it most.

We also recognised a profound injustice in education that had gone unredressed for decades, and that's placement poverty. For students in demanding disciplines, mandatory unpaid prac hours mean choosing between completing their degrees and putting food on the table or paying their rent. Our government introduced paid prac for the very first time in our nation's history.

We started with student teachers, nurses, midwives and social workers, and we've extended that essential support across our allied health and care workers—students in clinical psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, paramedicine, pharmacy, radiography, rehabilitation therapies, audiology and podiatry, the jobs of the future. By easing the financial squeeze on these students during their clinical placements, we're keeping them in their courses and ensuring our hospitals, clinics and schools have the future workforce they so desperately need.

We're also breaking down geographical and structural barriers that prevent capable Australians from reaching higher education. We have doubled the number of university study hubs across the nation, funding 20 new regional study hubs and 14 suburban study hubs—study hubs such as the one at York in my electorate of Bullwinkel and at Midland and Gosnells TAFEs—because we believe you shouldn't have to leave your community, your family or your job just to get study support when you're doing a tertiary certificate or degree.

We've expanded the number of free university bridging courses, creating clear pathways for students who need extra support to step into higher education, and we've guaranteed demand driven Commonwealth supported places for all First Nations students who achieve the marks to get in, removing artificial caps and backing Indigenous excellence. We have established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ATEC, an enduring, independent steward of the tertiary system, ensuring that system-wide growth aligns with national priorities and student needs.

We're also opening the doors to higher education. Opening the doors is only half the task; we must also ensure that once the students walk through the doors of the environment it is safe, supportive, fair and accountable. Every student in this country deserves to pursue their studies in an environment free from harm, harassment and neglect.

That's why our response to the accord included two historic integrity measures: the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence and establishment of the National Student Ombudsman. For far too long, the complaints process within higher education institutions let students down. Longstanding failures in complaint handling left students feeling unheard, dismissed or retraumatised when they sought help.

When a student faced serious grievances, whether concerning administrative mistreatment, unfair disciplinary actions, discrimination or even horrific incidences of sexual harassment and assault, they often found themselves running into institutional brick walls. Providers were frequently perceived as protecting their own reputations rather than safeguarding the welfare of their students.

The Albanese Labor government has said, 'Enough is enough.' We established the National Student Ombudsman to give every higher education student in Australia a free, independent and trauma informed pathway to escalate complaints about their higher education provider. If a student is unable to resolve concerns through their provider's internal process or if that process has failed them, they now have somewhere to turn.

They have an independent champion with the statutory power, independence and trauma informed expertise to investigate matters thoroughly and impartially. The ombudsman's support provides safer, more accountable and more responsive higher education settings across the entire country. That evidence is in, because the demand for this National Student Ombudsman has been significant, with 7,690 student contacts as of 31 August 2026.

I note that 6,016 of those matters have been successfully resolved. Behind every one of those stats is a student who needed help—a student who was stressed, frustrated or traumatised and simply needed somebody to listen, investigate and deliver a fair resolution. The ombudsman has resolved 93 per cent of complaints through informal dispute resolution processes.

That's how these outcomes are being achieved, and it's an extraordinary achievement. The ombudsman is also driving systemic institutional change. Eighty per cent of the surveyed providers reported implementing system and service improvements following their engagement with the National Student Ombudsman's complaints-handling and education teams, so they're amending their processes in line with the National Student Ombudsman's recommendations.

The ombudsman provides education and guidance on best practice in handling complaints, and it identifies systemic issues affecting students before these can fester into widespread failures. It strengthens university and college governance, elevates student outcomes and contributes directly to restoring and deepening public trust in Australia's higher education system.

The National Student Ombudsman Levy Bill 2026 establishes a fair levy on providers to maintain this system. But let's be clear: we established this. The start-up and operational costs of the ombudsman were fully borne by the Commonwealth government.

But we're now stepping up and creating this model, which is an industry cost-recovery model, so that the system, the institute of the ombudsman, can continue to do its great work, because we know that the ombudsman fosters students, providers and the broader higher education system. The legislation before the House today is about fairness, integrity and future-readiness.

We have a generational goal to build the 80 per cent of our workforce that will hold a tertiary qualification. To reach that goal, we must continue to make higher education fairer, more accessible and more supportive. As I said, we're doing that by wiping 20 per cent off student debt, by supporting students in mandatory placements and with the study hubs in outer suburbs and regional towns.

We're backing First Nations students and expanding the fee-free bridging pathways. And, with this bill, we're ensuring that an independent, trauma informed, fully funded watchdog will hold providers accountable and ensure every student is treated with the dignity and fairness they deserve. That is what good government looks like—being practical, being principled and being focused on the future.

I commend the bill to the House.