Senator TROOD (Queensland) (10.28 a.m.)—It is a great pleasure to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2005 Measures No. 4) Bill 2005 and the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment Bill 2005. Coming from an educational background, the matters touched on in the bills are matters very close to my own heart, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on them. It is important to put them in the context of the changes that have been taking place in higher education over a long period of time. It is perhaps appropriate at the very beginning of my contribution to underscore the fact that the Howard government in 2005-06 will put a record amount of money into higher education—$7.8 billion. That will be a significant contribution overall to the sector. What is important about these bills is that they move us in the direction of greater diversity in the higher education sector, which is a matter on which I have spoken in this chamber in the past and a matter in which I believe very keenly. It is a direction in which we certainly need to be moving. For my part, these bills advance that cause, and I am delighted to see that.

In her contribution to the debate, Senator Nettle made the observation that she and her party were striving for equity in undergraduate education by, as I understood her argument, increasing the opportunities for greater access to higher education for undergraduates, largely for non-fee paying students. This sounds to me rather less like equity than insanity. As with so much of the Greens’ policy on so many issues, the numbers just do not compute. We would find ourselves in a situation where other areas of public policy which demanded considerable public expenditure would be found wanting if we were to go down that path. So that contribution adds almost nothing to the debate.

It is regrettable that Senator Stott Despoja is so suspicious about the reasons for this debate taking place. It is important to recognise that issues of higher education are matters of national importance in Australia. One could even argue that they are matters of national security. Nothing is more fundamental. I recall saying in my maiden speech in this chamber that I regarded matters of higher education as being critical to the nation’s future. Nothing has occurred to change my views on those matters in the last several months. These are matters of vital international and national importance. It is right and proper that we should be spending time debating them.

It is also to be observed that this is not an uncontroversial bill. The Labor Party is proposing amendments to the bill. We ought to recognise the fact that we have a difference of opinion on aspects of this bill which make it less than straightforward. In my contribution I want to put these changes in a wider context. I think it is important to understand that in the last 15 to 20 years there has been a virtual revolution in the nature of university education. There has been a fundamental change in the way in which not just Australia but countries around the world approach matters of higher education. I would argue that this revolution has taken place in broadly three phases. The first of these, and perhaps the least successful of them from my perspective, were the great Dawkins reforms of 1988. The Dawkins reforms had one good, valuable and, one might say, virtuous consequence, which was that they opened up the Australian higher education market to a wider range of participants. Prior to 1988 it was essentially an elite system of higher education. A consequence of the Dawkins reforms was that it became a mass education system. It opened up opportunities for people who had not previously thought about going to university or who had had little opportunity to go to university for various reasons—perhaps matters of culture or socioeconomic circumstances. There are various reasons one can easily think of why people might have been disinclined to go to university. The Dawkins reforms did one good thing, which was to open up the university sector to people who would not otherwise have got there.

In almost every other respect the reforms were a disaster because they resulted in a highly homogenised university sector. Every university, after the reforms were consolidated, looked much like every other university. So we were left with, essentially, far fewer educational choices in this country. We were left with a situation where we had, by the early part of this century, 37 public universities, all of which were doing essentially the same kinds of things, providing little choice to students and little choice in educational opportunities. They were essentially trying to establish themselves as comprehensive institutions. That limited greatly the range and diversity of the overall market. The difficulty in particular was that the protocols which were imposed by various departments of education around the country defined a single model for Australian education. That put us in a situation where there was an increasing degree of single-mindedness and homogenisation and we failed to offer the opportunities to students which a market of this kind does.

One of the more disastrous consequences was that we found that more students were going to university and fewer students were going into technical and further trades. It was not until the Howard government came to office in 1996 that we began to address the problem of technical education. That has resulted in the introduction of the new colleges of technical education, which are in the process of being founded. They will address a profound problem which has existed for a long period of time and which the Labor government, in its period in office after 1988, singularly failed to address. So that is a welcome dimension in increasing diversity in the higher education sector in Australia.

The second great revolution was the opening up of the Australian education market to overseas students. This began in the mid-1980s with the opening up of the market to graduate students. It was consolidated by opening the market to undergraduate students. By the mid-1980s we were in a position where it was possible for universities to offer education to full fee paying international students. This process began rather slowly at first, but we have now reached a situation where there are over 200,000 international students in Australia. They come from an interestingly diverse range of backgrounds. In the most recent statistics, for 2004, we see that 79,000-odd students came from North-East Asia; 26,000 came from southern and central Asia; 14,000 came from the Americas, broadly defined; and about 7,400 came from sub-Saharan Africa. The total is 228,000 for 2004—an increase of 8.6 per cent on the figure for 2003.

So the market remains buoyant. It is an opportunity for students to come to Australia to get a broad education in a range of areas where Australian universities have an international reputation, where they have high levels of expertise and where their services might well be available to students in other parts of the world. This is an international market. All of the surveys that have been taken on the overseas student experience underline the value of these markets for overseas students. They are very positive experiences for most people, and in some respects one could argue that this is a very effective means of conducting Australia’s foreign policy, because most of these students remain in Australia for a long period of time, depending on the kind of course they are undertaking. Many are here for several years. They not only have experience in institutions but get a wide experience of Australian society.

It was highly regrettable that Senator Nettle, in her contribution, focused on what she saw as the downside of this process—in particular in relation to universities—and failed to outline the benefits to overseas students of participating in Australia’s higher education system. It is not just the overseas students who have the opportunity to gain benefits from this process; it is of course a great advantage for Australian students. In my experience, overseas students enrich the teaching and learning environment of institutions, they enrich classroom discussion and they expose Australian students who may not have had the opportunity to travel overseas to different values and cultures. They provide opportunities for students to interact with people from and learn more about foreign cultures, and that seems to me to be a very important dimension of the overall overseas student experience in most of our institutions.

The ESOS Act, which is a part of the debate we are having today, is important because it actually clarifies the responsibilities and the services that universities are required to offer to overseas students. These are not trivial matters. They are matters of considerable importance, both to students and to universities. The services include matters of grievance, dispute resolution and access to information and counselling in relation to orientation and first arrival in institutions and academic progress. Speaking from experience, I know that these are matters of great sensitivity to all students, but academic progress is certainly something which is of concern to overseas students. They come with a commitment to education. They come to Australia determined to achieve their objectives of a better education, and, as I said, for the most part that is a very positive experience. The services provisions also apply to matters of further study and accommodation. So these matters are critically important to the way in which students experience education in Australia. They are not to be trivialised, as has tended to be the case, by the contributions of the other side in relation to this particular debate.

It is true that concerns have been expressed about the nature of the participation of overseas students in Australian universities. I say two things about that. First of all, we have to be on guard all the time regarding standards. Some concerns have been expressed about the extent to which overseas students have been inclined to pull down the educational standards of institutions. My own experience in universities in this country is that, for the most part, that is not the case. Students retain very rigorous standards of education and are determined to do so because they fully realise that their reputations depend on doing so.

It has also been argued that there is a danger that there will be a dependence on the income from overseas students. The point is that these programs have now been in place for going on 20 years. They have resulted in steady increases in the numbers of students participating, and students act in an international market. They are prepared to come to Australia because they get good value for their education. They prefer to come to Australia because it is a safe place for overseas education. They prefer to come to Australia, from Asia in particular, because it is close to their home. And they prefer to come to Australia because they know that they will get value for their money. So the prospect in the near term that this market is going to collapse in the dire circumstances which have been argued seems to me to be overextended.

The third revolution that has taken place in higher education in Australia is the expansion of institutions both in Australia and overseas. It is a parallel process, where some Australian universities have established campuses overseas. Several institutions in Australia have established campuses in places like Malaysia and elsewhere in Asia—I know of an experience in China. The other part of the parallel process is overseas universities establishing themselves in Australia. This is the nature of the Carnegie Mellon exercise. They will be coming to Australia to establish a high-quality educational institution. It will add great diversity to the international student market in Australia. I welcome that because it will move away from the homogenised university sector that we have had for such a long period of time. It will be subject to the national protocols, so there can be no argument that the result of this particular move will be a decline in standards. The quality will be retained. The state government strongly supports the proposal, as we heard previously in this debate. It will certainly add, I think over a long period of time, an interesting dimension to the education market in South Australia.

The expectation is that in the first year there will be around 50 students participating in Carnegie Mellon University, and this will rise to around 200 students in 2009. This is an important development in the internationalisation of Australian education. The reality is that universities not just in Australia but also around the world are acting in an increasingly international environment. It was once the case that universities in Australia, as elsewhere, were essentially in a very small marketplace. In 2005, they are not just competing with other universities in their cities, they are not just competing with other universities in their states and they are not just competing with other universities nationally; they are competing in an international marketplace. That is something that every vice-chancellor whom I have ever met is very conscious of. It enters very strongly into their planning processes into the future, and it guides their thoughts about the structure of their courses, the arrangements for teaching and the arrangements for use of resources. Everything about the university experience is now related to the reality that universities are in an international market.

The Carnegie Mellon institution, which will establish itself in South Australia in the early part of next year, is a manifestation of the fact that this market is increasingly diversified. It is a manifestation of the fact that Australia is recognised as an extremely valuable and important place for higher education. It is a reflection of the fact that we can offer an experience to overseas students that they cannot easily get in other parts of the world. I therefore welcome with enthusiasm the higher education bill and the ESOS bill, which will clarify in very important ways the nature of the overseas student experience in Australia. It will define more clearly important aspects of student participation in Australian education, and that is to be welcomed.