I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024. This bill implements recommendations of the Universities Accord, whose final report was released in February this year. The Universities Accord involved an expert panel led by Professor Mary O’Kane and undertook vitally important work that produced a long-term plan for our university sector. In particular, I want to recognise panel member the honourable Fiona Nash, who is Australia’s first Regional Education Commissioner and a former minister for regional development. I acknowledge her particularly important role on the panel in advocating for university students from regional and rural Australia. Indi, a regional electorate, has one of the lowest rates of higher education attainment in the country. Just 17 per cent of Indi residents have a bachelors degree or more compared to the national average of 26 per cent, and we must close this gap.

This bill implements four recommendations of the Universities Accord. First, it will cap the indexation rate for all HELP loans, more commonly known as HECS, to the lower of the consumer price index or the wage price index and backdate this to 1 June 2023. Second, the bill provides for the creation of a weekly prac payment, a new form of income support for students who are required to undertake unpaid placements in teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work. Third, the bill establishes a new Commonwealth grant scheme for fee-free uni-ready courses so that more students can access bridging courses to transition to university. I was pleased to recently meet with La Trobe University’s vice-chancellor, who emphasised this measure would help more regional students enrol in university. Finally, the bill requires higher education providers to allocate a minimum of 40 per cent of student services and amenities fees revenue to student-led organisations.

I support all of these measures and I want to draw particular attention to the first two: capping the HECS indexation rate and the new Commonwealth prac payments. More than 14,000 people in my electorate currently have HECS debts amounting to $300 million in total debt. It is a staggering amount for our electorate and, with more than 10 per cent in indexation applied to these debts in the last two years, it means around $30 million in extra debt in Indi in that time just because of indexation. I know that rising debts are causing rising concern right across my electorate and indeed right across the nation. It is making it harder to balance study and work, harder to save for a home and harder to have a family. Debts are hanging around longer and it will take many of today’s young people decades to pay them off. I’m concerned that ballooning levels of debt will discourage young regional Australians from pursuing higher education, that it will discourage more working Australians from upskilling or making a career change, that it will deny more people the opportunity to build a meaningful and rewarding career and that it will set regional communities such as mine back. The Universities Accord agreed, stating that the status quo risks:

… deterring some people from seeking higher education at exactly the time we need growth in participation.

In regional Australia, I know how desperately we need more teachers, nurses, engineers, planners and agricultural scientists, just to name a few professions. Frankly, if debts continue to grow like we’ve seen in recent years, then we have Buckley’s chance of meeting the government’s 80 per cent higher education target by 2050.

That’s why I support reform to HECS. The Universities Accord recommended significant reform, including ensuring that debts don’t increase faster than wages. The government is now delivering on that recommendation, and I heartedly commend them for that. But let’s be clear: that would not have happened without the strong advocacy of the crossbench. This change came on the back of a petition led by the member for Kooyong that amassed more than 288,000 signatures, making it one of the largest petitions in Australian political history, calling on the government to fix the broken HECS debt system.

The proposed changes in this bill will wipe more than $3 billion in debt across Australia and many millions of dollars in communities across my electorate. It will soften the blow caused by sky-high inflation, but it will not fix many of the underlying issues. There is more work to do. HECS is not fixed yet. I support the Universities Accord recommendation and amendments put forward by my crossbench colleagues to change the timing of indexation to deduct compulsory repayments before applying indexation. The status quo is unfairly adding thousands of dollars to Australians HECS debts, and it could be fixed. In a cost-of-living crisis, this simply isn’t good enough. I support the calls from the member for Goldstein and the member for Warringah to change the unfair timing of HECS debt indexation.

Alongside the changes to HECS indexation, the introduction of Commonwealth prac payments was another welcome budget announcement. The new prac payment, around $319.50 per week, will support around 68,000 teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students per year to complete their university placements. Recipients will be means tested, and the payments will be delivered by the universities as a type of bursary to students. This was the result of years of advocacy by students and the organisations representing professions that require practical placement to complete their degrees. Income support during university placements was also a recommendation of the Universities Accord, which explicitly recognised the need to reduce the financial hardship and placement poverty caused by mandatory unpaid placements.

According to the Department of Health and Aged Care registered nurses require a minimum of 800 hours of unpaid clinical placement. For teachers it’s 80 days, and for social workers it’s 1,000 hours. As a former nurse, I know that students must complete this practical training before they receive their qualifications. But, especially in a cost-of-living crisis, students should not be expected to work for free. On many occasions, that’s exactly what unpaid placements are. Take it from me; I’ve seen plenty of this. They’re critical to the whole clinical team.

Unfortunately, what should be a necessary course requirement has turned into what is widely known as ‘placement poverty’. A 2022 survey by the Council of Heads of Social Work Education, which surveyed more than 700 students, found that the financial burden of placements—often requiring travel, parking and professional clothing or a uniform—could be crippling. There’s the cost of undertaking the placement and then the lost income that comes with giving up other paid work in order to undertake these placements. More than a third of students surveyed said they lost their entire weekly income because of placement, with 96 per cent of students saying they didn’t have enough money to pay for food, clothes and travel required. The consequences of these challenges aren’t just financial. The mental health of many students also suffers with these pressures. These experiences are reflected in the stories of many constituents who contact my office about the significant challenges they face or a family member faces when they’re required to find the time to study, work, care for children or other family members and then, on top of this, undertake weeks of unpaid placement.

Last year, I wrote to the minister on behalf of the constituent who is an enrolled nurse trying to upskill by undertaking training to become a registered nurse. This requires this particular constituent to undertake 20 weeks of unpaid placement, suspending her employment in the process. The constituent noted that, if the placement is at a hospital far away from home, then they also have to find and pay for their own accommodation, not to mention child care and all the other expenses. For some nurses, this means they must choose between working and completing a degree. As this constituent said, have you ever heard of apprentices not getting paid? I’ve also heard from a family member of a woman trying to obtain a childcare qualification requiring 60 days of unpaid placement. She highlighted to me the absurdity of a struggling industry that can’t attract workers due to abysmal pay getting 60 days of free labour.

I want to acknowledge that women are much more likely to have careers in the professions we are talking about—teaching, early childhood education, nursing, social work. According to the latest census, in my electorate, more than 9,000 women are employed by the healthcare and social assistance sector, compared to almost 2,000 men. In education and training, almost 5,000 women are employed, compared to around 1,500 men. And we know only too well about the gender pay gap in this country. Underpaid, overwhelmingly feminised professions, like teaching and nursing, contribute to this. The gender pay gap is exacerbated by the requirement to undertake weeks or months of unpaid placement. We must support women to expand their professional opportunities. The Commonwealth prac payment will provide more financial assistance to help women complete qualifications and therefore improve their income. Truly, this is a step in the right direction.

So I strongly support the new prac placements, but here’s the thing: I don’t just want teachers, nurses and social workers to be eligible; the government must consider expanding the payment to allied health students and other important professions that require unpaid placements. I draw attention to allied health because they are an absolutely vital, critical sector of our health workforce, providing crucial services in aged care, the NDIS, schools and our acute hospitals. Unpaid placement hours are a real barrier to training in this profession, and, again, I know—I have worked alongside allied health professionals. We cannot deliver the care that we must without them. As the Chair of the Australian Council of Deans of Health Sciences, Professor Terry Haines, said, placement poverty does not discriminate. For example, occupational health therapy requires 1,000 hours of clinical placement. Dietitians require a minimum of 100 days of placement. Physiotherapy requires 1,000 hours of unpaid placement across 12 months. Medical radiation practitioners require 52 weeks of placement over four years. Again, we can’t do without these people. This is why I will move an amendment that will require an independent review on the operation of the new prac payments three years after they commence. This review must consider expanding payments to students undertaking courses that require placements, including allied health courses. I want to see allied health courses included before three years. I absolutely do. But, if this doesn’t happen, this amendment will make sure that the government considers including them, and that’s really important. This review will also consider whether the new prac payments are effective, whether they are accessible to the teaching, nursing and social work students and working as they should.

It’s important to note that the bill itself doesn’t specify the eligible courses, the means testing method used or even how students will receive the payment. This detail will be laid out in guidelines and regulations determined by the minister. Higher education policy expert Professor Andrew Norton has raised concerns that universities who would administer the payment don’t have the resources to run means testing. A mandated review of the payments should consider things like this so we can make any necessary improvements. We want this to work. I want to thank the minister and his office for the productive discussions we have had. I appreciate his understanding of this, and I’d really encourage him to think more broadly about the other professions who need to be included in these payments.

The measures included in this bill are important. Progress has been made in acting on the Universities Accord recommendations, but if we are to achieve the 80 per cent tertiary education attainment target by 2050 there’s a lot more work to be done. I’ve already outlined changes that could be made to this bill to ensure it delivers for regional, rural and remote Australia, including changing the date the HECS debts are indexed to come after compulsory repayments are made. Prac payments should be expanded to include degrees in allied health, which are vital to addressing workforce shortages in the regions.

This government must also deliver on its commitment to a new needs based funding model that works for regional Australia and that recognises the added cost of delivering tertiary education in regional areas. Regional universities in my electorate are key contributors to the community. They undertake influential research, and they’re a driver of regional employment and regional economic development. But the status quo is failing them, their staff and their students, and the government must ensure that they are set up to succeed. It’s why I support regional university study hubs, which make it easier for students to succeed while living in regional Australia. I know firsthand what an impact centres in Corryong, Mansfield and Wangaratta have had, and I hope to see a hub finally funded in the Murrindindi shire, where it would make such a difference for students in communities such as Yea, Alexandra and Kinglake, which quite frankly are locked out of further education.

While I commend the government for its action on some key recommendations of the Universities Accord review, the work is not done. As a regional Independent, I will ensure the education needs of regional, rural and remote Australia are strongly represented in this place and I will continue to push the government to do better. All in all, I’m pleased with the reforms that are here and I commend this bill to the House.