Julian Leeser
Berowra · Liberal Party · Australia
“Third, the bill gives the minister unilateral power to impose conditions on higher education providers under the new section 36-65 of the HESA, which is introduced by this bill. The current version of section 36-65 of the HESA requires that there be an agreement in place with the provider. The new version does not.”
“Presumably, if you're a university and you get a bad decision, then your only recourse is judicial review, litigation or a constitutional writ. It's not a great option when the target of your litigation will be the minister who will make the future decisions that shape your ongoing financial viability.”
“This bill changes it from capped funding to capped places, but the places cost different amounts depending on the course. The Commonwealth contribution to a history degree is $1,316; agriculture costs $32,400. Could a university which typically teaches history be allocated 100 places and decide to convert them to agriculture?”
“I said very clearly that I understand the value of international students to Australia. I also said: We will want to make changes to the settings around international students, but I want the sector to know that we want to work closely with you to develop these policies and announce them in due course.”
“This so-called system steward, ATEC, can be bypassed at any time by a minister choosing to exercise this power. Again, this means universities are, under this bill, subject to extraordinary control by this minister or any future minister.”
“He said that Australian kids should be taught Australian values, which he defined as democracy, the rule of law, basic freedoms and a fair go.”
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“And there is 15-year-old Taha Safari, one of the youngest victims among the protestors, who was detained by authorities, his body handed to his family three days later, and 28-year-old Negin Ghadimi, shot with live ammunition, cleaving her body from her stomach; unable to get to the hospital, she died in the arms of her father. We hear of widespread sexual violence, including against children. An Iranian-born journalist said in recent days, 'No women's bodies are turning up, and that's because, according to eyewitness accounts, they're raped, their uteruses are removed, their scalps ripped off along with their hair, and their bodies covered in cigarette burns.' This is a regime of pure evil. And we know Iran has Australia in its sights. Radical Islamist extremism should have no place in this country.”
“More than 30,000 people have been murdered. I want to talk about just a few of these people: Sholeh Sotoudeh, a mother of two young children, from Langarud, who was pregnant with her third child when she was killed when forces opened fire on a crowd she was in; Ziba Dastjerdi, 33, who was shot and killed in front of her eight-year-old daughter at a protest at Nishapur; and 40-year-old Soran Feyzizadeh, who died because of torture he was subjected to while being held following his arrest on 7 January—reports say his body was barely recognisable due to the extent of injuries caused by repeated blows.”
“Australia has spent too much of the past four years berating Israel rather than standing up to Iran, when they were warned by the Persian community and the Jewish community about the danger Iran poses to Australia. It took two regime-coordinated attacks on our own soil—at Lewis' Continental Kitchen and the Adass Israel Synagogue—for this government to be dragged kicking and screaming to take action. Australia should be leading global efforts to bring the Iranian regime to justice, but the Albanese government has never acted with strength or urgency. Today in Iran protests have spread across hundreds of cities and towns. Millions of ordinary people have found the courage to stand up and demand change. Many more have been murdered, arrested, tortured or left carrying trauma which will last a lifetime.”
“At that time, as shadow Attorney-General, I offered the coalition's support for any measures to help the government list the IRGC. When I hosted Senator Claire Chandler at a forum with the Persian community in my constituency in 2023—and Senator Chandler did a terrific report on human rights abuses in Iran—people told me they were afraid to come because of the long arm of the embassy and the IRGC in our own country. In October 2023 I called for diplomatic relations against Iran to be suspended, even as Labor luminaries like Bob Carr were having happy snaps with the ambassador. Our government's Middle East policy has been a shambles.”
“I know that so many of them are here because for the past half century the Iranian regime has made their lives in Iran a living hell—a criminal regime that abuses women and minorities, a criminal regime noted for its abuse of human rights at home and its export of terror abroad, a criminal regime whose long arm follows people and intimidates them even in this country. I've been calling out Iran for a decade for its human rights violations against its own people—women, the Baha'i and other minorities—and for its terrorist proxies around the world. My proudest moment in the six years I served on the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security was when we listed in full Iran's proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. In February 2023, following the murder of Mahsa Amini, I called for the listing of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.”
“As the member for Berowra I am delighted to represent the fourth-largest Persian community in the country. Persian Australians are wonderful people, with an ancient civilisation and a modern liberal outlook. There are nearly 100,000 Persians in Australia, and they contribute to every aspect of my community, from the P&Cs to the sports clubs to the doctors and nurses at Hornsby Hospital. They're engineers, IT professionals, artists and small-business owners. They moved here to create a better life for themselves and they work every day to contribute to our country and our community.”
“(Extension of time granted, on the motion of Mr Leeser) Instead, what we would like to see them do is support the amendment. I noted in the minister's comments that he wasn't going to support the amendments of the crossbench, but perhaps he will support the very fine amendment here proposed by the opposition with the assistance of the member for Wentworth. We want to see a national tertiary education objective, if it is to be legislated, that Australians would readily recognise as being an appropriate national tertiary education objective, and that's what this amendment is designed to do. I commend the amendment to the House.”
“It says that the objective of tertiary education in Australia is exactly what you'd expect it to be: teaching, learning, research, scholarship, productivity, positive student experiences, competition, innovation, efficiency, value for money and support for Australian values. I want to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Wentworth, who has improved this by the addition of what now reads as paragraph (d) in the amendment that we've put forward, and I thank her for the contribution that she's made. If the government do not support this amendment, they'll be sending a very clear message. They'll be prioritising misplaced pride over substance. They'll be voting against teaching, against learning, against research and against support for Australian values.”
“It's for governments to consider the recommendation, to weigh up the justifications, pros, cons and implications. In deciding to write it into legislation, this is an active policy decision by the government. Once it's in the legislation, it's there; they own it. As I've said, the national tertiary education objective, as drafted, is not fit to proceed. Amending it should be a necessary but not sufficient consideration for legislating anything like an ATEC. So this amendment changes it. It's a simple and straightforward amendment, and I'd like to think it's uncontroversial.”
“They say: The NTEU believes that this objective does not adequately address the character, nature and purpose of higher education; it makes no reference, for example, to the importance of critical inquiry, academic discovery and discourse, institutional independence or even to academic freedom. Instead, the objectives seek to define tertiary education as part of broader Government policy and could apply to virtually any sector. It's very strange when the coalition and the NTEU find agreement on something, but when they do, I think it should be a red flag that says, 'Perhaps the objective is not right as it is.' It's not an excuse to say that this objective was the recommendation of the Universities Accord. That shouldn't bind governments.”
“It fails to set things that are and should be relevant to decisions about tertiary education in this country—things like teaching, learning, research, scholarship, productivity, positive student experiences, competition and innovation across the sector, Australian values, efficiency, value for money both for the taxpayer and the student, and the reduction of regulatory burdens. Those are the things that the regulator should be taking into account when making every decision about our tertiary sector. Those are the things that you'd expect and hope to see. As I said before, it's not just me saying this, and it's not just the Liberal Party. Even bodies like the NTEU—no great ally of the Liberal Party—have said this.”
“You can imagine how, when ATEC goes to enter into a mission based compact with the University of Sydney or University of Melbourne, an issue motivated protest group might be interested in challenging you. Well, this objective is their green light. It guarantees that those considerations will be taken into account where they are otherwise irrelevant, and it makes it just that little bit easier to challenge an ATEC decision on activist grounds. That, in and of itself, is bad enough. Worse than that, I think the objective misses the obvious.”
“Failing to do this means your decision is liable to be overturned on judicial review. If you're a regulator making the decision, it's a matter that's relevant. You must take it into account. And, if it's not relevant, you must not take it into account. That's common sense, and it's also the current law. So when you pass a provision like section 13 as it's currently drafted, you make sure that deeply political but otherwise irrelevant considerations like social development and environmental sustainability must affect every decision ATEC makes. You're opening yourself up to every green lawfare activist who wants to challenge a decision about a provider in the courts because it doesn't adequately deal with climate change or the latest progressive social trend.”
“Then, if that weren't clear enough, the legislation goes on to say: (2) In performing functions or exercising powers, the ATEC and the ATEC Commissioners must have regard to the National Tertiary Education Objective. It's explicit. This is a requirement of this new legislation. It guarantees that, in circumstances where it would otherwise be irrelevant, the ATEC must be thinking about social development—whatever that means—and environmental sustainability. Let me just digress for a minute to explain why this is the case. As the minister knows and as I know and as everyone else in this place knows, it's a basic principle of administrative law that, in making a decision, a body like ATEC must have regard to relevant considerations and must not have regard to irrelevant considerations.”
“As I said in my contribution to the second reading debate, if we're going to have a legislated objective for tertiary education in Australia, it can't be the version that's currently in the legislation. It's worth revisiting what that objective actually does, because it has to be said that it will be an iron rod that gives guidance to the new regulator. What does the objective say? The legislation says this: (1) The National Tertiary Education Objective is the objective for tertiary education in Australia to: (a) promote a strong, equitable and resilient democracy; and (b) drive national, economic and social development and environmental sustainability.”
“I move the opposition amendment: (1) Clause 13, page 10 (lines 19 to 23), omit subclause (1), substitute: (1) The National Tertiary Education Objective is the objective for tertiary education in Australia to: (a) develop a world-class tertiary education sector that drives excellence in teaching and learning; and (b) deliver world-leading research and scholarship, particularly in strategic areas of national significance; and (c) improve productivity by developing a highly skilled, adaptable and productive workforce; and (d) establish close links between tertiary education providers, industry and business to strengthen student outcomes and support innovation across the economy; and (e) deliver positive student experiences across the tertiary education sector; and (f) promote competition and innovation across the tertiary education sector; and (g) support Australian values, including equality of opportunity, the rule of law, and Western liberal democratic traditions; and (h) drive efficiency across the sector to provide value for money for students and the Australian taxpayer; and (i) reduce regulatory burdens on the tertiary education sector where practicable.”
“I miss his regular emails with his direct, plain-speaking advice, often on how I could do my job better. To his family—to Charmaine, to Ilana, to Danielle and to Michael and to his brother, John, and his family—I say: may Stanley's memory be a blessing.”
“Please stay with me at least one more time, as this one is just as vital, if not even more so than the others.' When Stanley got involved in something, his passion turbocharged it, whether it was the United Israel Appeal, Moriah College, the Jewish Museum, AIJAC, St Vincent's Hospital, the Heart Foundation or Inala school in my electorate. He was generous and passionate because he looked at this country, which had been so good to his family, and he wanted to give back. In the last couple of years, he became very concerned about the direction of our country and the long-term survival of the Jewish community in Australia, and he wanted to do everything he could to address it. Stanley was direct, he was funny, he was passionate and he was proud.”
“I want to acknowledge the passing of a great Australian, Stanley Roth. Stanley was a husband, father, lawyer, businessman, philanthropist and tzadik—a righteous man. He was a patriotic Australian, a proud Jew and a committed Zionist. I'm proud to call Stanley a friend and mentor. Stanley was a huge figure in the Australian Jewish community. His leadership of communal organisations was extraordinary, and to work with him was to get a masterclass in organisational leadership. A typical request from Stanley might start: 'I happily acknowledge this might not be the first fundraising request you've ever received from me.”
“I wish I'd had the opportunity to say to Luch how much he mattered to me, as he mattered to so many of the colleagues here. To his family and to all those who knew him: may his memory be a blessing.”
“I will never forget, when I was on the back bench, sometimes you'd only just need to wave at Luch and he knew exactly what you wanted, whether it was a water or the big lectern or the small lectern, and there were other days where perhaps the only thing you did, in terms of walking into the House, was walk in just to get your name marked off and see him. But his service, his decency, his remarkable connection with people right across the parliament and right across the building is something that is very much worthy of celebration. To his family, who will have been shocked at his untimely passing, as we all are: I hope they take comfort from the fact that so many people from across the parliament who've served here for many years are paying tribute to this wonderful man who really touched so many people's lives.”
“To those of us in partisan politics, it's often hard to imagine what it must take—an idea that the member for McPherson knows well—to be engaged in an impartial position in this House. So many of us join our political parties because we feel so passionately about our democracy and about issues to do with our democracy, or we stand for parliament—as you do, Deputy Speaker Sharkie—as a crossbencher, because you have a set of values that you want to impart onto the parliament. But our attendants don't do that, and the staff that work in the parliament don't do that; they are here as servants of our democracy, and they take a dispassionate view. And Luch was such a great ambassador for the parliament. He was such a great ambassador for the idea of service.”
“My office is opposite Zoe McKenzie's, the member for Flinders's, and in her office window she had a beautiful picture of her and Luch, when the parliament resumed in January for those important sittings to deal with the aftermath of Bondi, and I said, 'That's a beautiful picture of you and Luch in your office window.' And then she told me that Luch had passed, and, like so many, we just couldn't believe it—that somebody who's been so vital to this place, who's been so important for the good humour of this place, had. Some days in politics you have days where the highs are very high, and other days you have days where the lows are very low, and Luch was always there to inspire, to welcome, to greet—to just remind you, with his good humour and good nature, of the importance of the service role that you're giving here.”
“Like a barista knowing your coffee order, he would remember what time your car was going to pick you up and where it was going to pick you up the next morning. He brought a great smile, and, after a flight that could sometimes be unpleasant, he was a wonderful person greeting you and bringing the good humour that he brought to all of the work that he did.”
“It's an honour to follow Minister King in her contribution and the member for McPherson, who not only worked with Luch as a parliamentarian but as an attendant as well. There have been so many beautiful speeches made in this debate, and I agree with the minister that Luch is the sort of person that we would have had a series of speeches for had he lived to retire; he'd have had a particular retirement farewell speech. Luch is one of those people that is so vital to the character of an institution like this. One of the things that he didn't do towards the end, because I think the parliament had dispensed with it, was this. In the first two terms that I was here in my 10 years of service, Luch would greet you at the airport on a Sunday evening.”
“In closing, I thank the House and move the amendment as circulated in my name: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House: (1) notes with concern that: (a) Australia's tertiary education sector is significantly over-regulated; (b) providers report to multiple competing and overlapping bodies; and (c) some providers are required by law to deal with more than 300 different pieces of legislation and regulation; (2) affirms that the objective of tertiary education in Australia must focus on teaching, learning and research, and should otherwise be aimed at promoting a dynamic and innovative sector that provides a positive student experience, delivers value for money, improves Australia's productivity and supports Australian values; (3) further notes widespread concern among the tertiary sector and expert stakeholders about the drafting of this legislation; and (4) calls for this legislation to be the subject of proper and thorough scrutiny".”
“We will join the very large chorus of stakeholders and interested parties saying these bills are not fit to pass, and we will continue working on those bigger questions in the interests of all Australians.”
“Those opposite will say that the purpose of ATEC is to answer them. That's not a good answer. It doesn't explain why the department can't or won't do it, and it doesn't explain what the department will do going forward. It doesn't even explain why the sector needs yet another regulator. In any event, the gap between answering those questions and the options put forward in this bill is just too wide. Even if you support ATEC in principle, this legislation is too problematic. So, in summing up, let me say this. If forced to vote on this legislation before the committee completes its inquiry, the Liberal Party will oppose this legislation. That is the holding position.”
“What is the impact of AI, which right now can develop and sequence information almost to a university level and almost for free turn it into a package or a podcast that I can use to educate myself? What does that mean for our sector? What steps do we as a nation need to take right now in terms of our policy settings and longer term development to best position ourselves to train and educate future generations? These are big questions, and they should be answered by the Australian Department of Education as the minister's principal policy adviser. Otherwise, what's the department doing? It doesn't run any schools. It doesn't run any childcare centres. It doesn't run any vocational or higher education institutions. If it's not answering these questions, what is it doing? Regardless, none of these questions are answered by these bills.”
“What is the process and methodology that should be adopted for international student intakes? How do we deal with low volume, expensive but strategically important skill sets and capabilities that are taught in our universities but which are expensive to maintain? How do we maintain the presence of those regional campuses that feed activity and meet the needs of communities outside the big cities? How do we provide and promote competition and dynamism between the public and independent sector? What is the long-term trajectory of Australia's standing on the international stage, given the growth of its campuses in South-East Asia, China and in our region more broadly and their ability to offer comparable quality at a lower price point? Are our universities losing their social licence?”
“So I hope that this committee in the Senate has the opportunity to properly scrutinise the legislation, to ask questions of expert witnesses and to understand from bodies who operate in the field how this bill will affect them in a practical way, and I hope that the government would support me in showing this basic respect for stakeholders and the parliamentary process in having a proper inquiry. Let me finish by saying this. There are bigger questions about our tertiary sector that need to be solved and where, in the last couple of years, government policy has not made any real inroads. How long can we continue with one third of our universities struggling? Does the current balance between vocational and higher education really suit Australia's long-term needs?”
“As IHEA said, Australia's higher education system consists not only of public universities but of a broad range of independent higher education providers, including private universities, university colleges and both not-for-profit and for-profit non-university higher education providers, or NUHEPs, and the range of providers is much broader once VET is added. ITECA covers both, and it points out that the independent sector accounts for 77 per cent of all higher education institutions in Australia and 92 per cent of registered training organisations. Of course we should be hearing from those types of bodies. Doing otherwise is a disservice to the parliamentary committee, and it's a disservice to the Australian people, who expect us to properly scrutinise legislation.”
“They deserve to hear from the experts in the field and those with a stake—witnesses like Professor Mark Warburton, a highly respected academic from the University of Melbourne who wrote a penetrating and insightful analysis that deserves recognition and careful consideration, and bodies like the Independent Tertiary Education Council of Australia and Independent Higher Education Australia. They have the most skin in this game when it comes to this legislation, because tertiary education is more than just our universities.”
“Unions, government bodies, universities, independent providers, experts—all of these are saying that the ATEC legislation currently before this parliament is not fit to pass. Before I go further, let me be clear. There is a committee process that is underway right now in the other place. We respect the committee process, and I hope it is an extensive committee process. There were 60 different submissions made to that committee—powerful, insightful and careful analysis from across the sector. We need to hear from those witnesses, and the committee will fail in its duty if we do not hear from them. If the government doesn't call the witnesses I've mentioned today, it will fail, because the Australian public deserves to hear from the authors to understand where this legislation is good and where it is not.”
“He goes on: In Higher Education Attainment Under the New Managed Growth Funding System it's one of his papers— I show how both the claimed expansion associated with Fee-free Uni Ready places and the claimed additional funding provided in the 2024-25 MYEFO changes are overstated. I provide evidence that planned government funding will most likely result in lower higher education attainment in the 2030s, than in 2021. … In his Second Reading Speech, the Minister stated of ATEC that "Its operations will be transparent". The Bill does not provide for this. It's pretty damning criticism. Many others criticise the ATEC's perceived lack of independence and its failure to deliver on what was originally conceived of when ATEC supporters first pitched the idea to government. The list of critics is extraordinary.”
“… To get the sector to work more like a system. … And to help drive real and lasting reform. Unfortunately, the direction of change for the system is articulated only in the most broad and high-level terms: Warburton goes on to say: There is no satisfactory detail on how ATEC is going to achieve any of these things. Given the magnitude of ambition for ATEC, it does not seem unreasonable to ask for some detail on precisely what changes it will be making in the short term, how it will go about making those changes and what leverage it will have to enforce those changes. Many of the claims made about the Government's response to the Accord are inflated … This person was a higher-education adviser during the Hawke and Keating governments.”
“Due to ATEC's design flaws, we can have little confidence that it will improve on the current policy framework. Professor Mark Warburton, a highly influential academic, a respected public servant and a former adviser to the Australian government during the Hawke and Keating years, said this: The Government has announced its "three important structural reforms that are central to setting the tertiary education system up for the future". These are the ATEC, Managed Growth Funding and Needs-based Funding. It has not provided adequate detail on how any of these proposals will advance the objectives the Government has set for them. In his second reading speech for this Bill, the Minister declared: the ATEC is the Accord. … It is a national project and it needs a steward that is there for the long haul.”
“He said this: The government's policies imply a belief that a more bureaucratic approach will improve higher education outcomes. Even if we accept this assumption, it is not clear that ATEC will improve matters significantly compared to current Department of Education arrangements. His principal recommendation is simple—that the bills should be rejected—and the criticism he gives is devastating. Before dissecting the legislation in detail, he says this: The following chapters— in the submission— identify numerous flaws in the ATEC proposal. They include recommendations to improve the bills, should they have in-principle parliamentary support. But the ATEC bills should be rejected. They would narrow higher education's purposes. As they stand, they offer universities nothing but additional government control and bureaucracy.”
“Dr Ant Bagshaw, a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education in Melbourne, broadly supports the diagnosis that Australia needs a system steward in its higher education sector, but he said this: The Senate should recommend that ATEC not be established in its current form, and that the Department of Education be legislatively required to discharge the stewardship role with strengthened transparency, consultation and capability. … … … … system stewardship is not the same as creating a new agency. Professor of higher education policy at Monash University Andrew Norton, one of Australia's leading public policymakers and commentators on higher education, asked, in the first question in his submission, whether an Australian tertiary education commission should be created at all.”
“In short, ATEC does not support Australia's national research agenda. Regional Development Australia picks up on the failure of the legislation to address the needs of regional communities. Under the heading 'Concerning gaps for regional communities', it says: The Bill and its settings make welcome progress towards access equity for cohorts who are currently underserved, particularly at an individual student level. However, at a structural level there remains a risk that these settings may entrench or amplify existing inequities affecting regional institutions and communities, with implications for their capacity to contribute to the nation's long-term prosperity. That's extraordinary. And it's not just bodies who are impacted by the change that have criticised the bill.”
“Integration with existing data collections and reporting platforms is essential to minimise duplication. Compliance obligations should, at their core, add value for students by generating actionable insights that improve equity, participation, and completion rates, rather than diverting resources from teaching and support services. Science and Technology Australia, the peak body for the nation's science and technology sector, said: Science & Technology Australia is concerned that while the Bill states the proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission's … powers will extend to university research and research training … there is insufficient clarity in the proposed legislation and no evidence of sufficient capability or resourcing built into the ATEC to properly support university research.”
“Deakin University, having described itself as a firm supporter of ATEC, said: However, though supportive of an ATEC, and already engaged with the interim body in a productive and meaningful manner, Deakin holds several concerns regarding the proposed legislation. We posit that addressing these concerns, which range from a lack of clarity to missed opportunities to truly achieve the ambitions of establishing such a function, should be a priority. The Tasmanian government, in diplomatic language, fired a warning shot about the introduction of unnecessary and duplicative compliance mechanisms. Referring to such mechanisms, it said: These mechanisms should be demonstrably necessary and proportionate, avoid administrative burden and ensure that reporting requirements contribute directly to improved educational and research outcomes.”
“… in practice, ATEC's functions, including allocation of domestic and international places, establishment and oversight/monitoring of compacts and influence on the Threshold Standards, give it a regulatory role. … Without [expertise in the independent sector], there is a real risk that ATEC's work will default to a public-university-centric view of the tertiary system, overlooking the contributions, challenges and operating environments of independent providers. This would undermine the Commission's ability to function as a genuine system steward and would diminish the accuracy, balance and relevance of its advice to Government.”
“It seems clear that the ATEC Bill before the Committee is not at a stage where it is ready for consideration by the parliament and the Commission is not ready to be established. It is far preferable to ensure that an agency of this importance is ready, and its enabling legislation is not compromised by eagerness for speed. ITECA strongly urges the Committee to deeply consider the need for this Commission, as its core functions can, and in many cases already are being undertaken by existing agencies of the Commonwealth. Independent Higher Education Australia said this: The Bills establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission … as the central system "steward" for Australia's tertiary education sector. It is in fact a regulator in all but name.”
“Universities Australia has said: As currently drafted, the Bill does not deliver on the Australian Universities Accord's … aspirations for an independent body to design and drive the longer-term reform agenda for Australia's tertiary system. Independent Tertiary Education Council of Australia said: ITECA supports reform aimed at improving the long-term clarity and cohesiveness of Australia's tertiary education system. However, the ATEC Bill as currently drafted, does not align with the stated ambition of creating an integrated and equitable tertiary framework. The ATEC Bill suffers from drafting that is based on there being no clear needs case for the tertiary system, especially the more than 4.8 million students and over 3,700 tertiary education businesses that will have little or zero engagement with this new bureaucratic fancy.”
“It is unclear how the ATEC can achieve harmonisation and mobility across the whole of the higher education sector in these circumstances. And at a time when interest rates are rising as a result of Labor's poor economic management, which has seen education costs balloon by 5.4 per cent—higher than the core inflation rate—there's no justification for yet more government expenditure which doesn't add to productivity or reduce the cost of education for Australians. Yet again—when Labor spends, you pay. But the criticism of the bills doesn't stop there. Extraordinarily, there seems to have been incredible disquiet about this bill even among the very institutions that championed ATEC in the first place.”
“It does not improve student experience. It does not add value for those who make sacrifices to attend universities. The $54 million could be allocated to fund $1 million research grants for each one of Australia's universities, with more than $10 million left over. And when it comes to harmonisation between higher and vocational education, these bills don't achieve what they're meant to do. ATEC is intended, in part, to reduce the barriers between VET and higher education, to allow students to move back and forth between the two freely. However, the ATEC legislation appears to be focused on Australia's 43 universities, largely ignoring the 166-odd non-university higher education providers and the 3,700 tertiary education businesses.”
“ATEC is a new regulator, and no disinterested observer would look at the constellation of higher education and VET regulatory and governance bodies and say, 'What we really need right now is yet another regulator.' Let me move to issues of duplication, cost and lack of harmonisation. These issues of excessive regulatory burden raise the related issues of duplication and cost, because, as has become clear in Senate estimates, the department, as a department of state, will retain policy oversight over all matters within its policy remit, including higher education. Inevitably, with all of the regulators, there will be overlap and there will be duplication. Translated, that means there will be cost to taxpayers. But there's a broader problem, because the $54 million that's allocated to ATEC does not create a single additional student place.”
“It will operate alongside but distinct from the Department of Education, which oversees general education policy; the Department of Home Affairs, which governs international student intakes; the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, which has responsibility for skills and the VET portfolio; TEQSA, which is the specific higher education regulator; ASQA, which regulates the remainder of the tertiary sector; the National Student Ombudsman; the Australian Research Council; the National Health and Medical Research Council; Jobs and Skills Australia; state and territory regulatory bodies and designated state authorities; professional accreditation bodies; and all of the other bodies which exercise oversight, influence, control or otherwise shape the tertiary education environment.”
“Stakeholders have specifically rejected the government's denials through Senate estimates that ATEC will be a regulator, saying that attempts to do so rely on an overly technical definition of the term. I go further. it's disingenuous to say that ATEC will not be a regulator. It will exert policy influence. It will shape resource allocations. It will have the power to enter into compacts with universities, suspend them where it decides to do so and replace them with standard-form agreements. That is a suite of powers that is clearly designed and intended to regulate behaviour within a very important sector of our economy.”