Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 0:01 to 8:30
The Chair opens the hearing on the Universities Accord, and witnesses from IRU and Go8 discuss the establishment and independence of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC).
Topics: Education, Parliamentary privilege
Speakers: Marielle Smith, Vicki Thomson, Distinguished Professor George Williams, David Pocock, Paul Harris
Good morning everyone. I declare open this hearing of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee into the Universities Accord Australian Tertiary Education Commission Bill 2025 and a related bill. I begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders past and present and I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Toouristra Islander people here today. The committee will be conducting today's hearing by both via video conference and in person. I'm joined today by senators Delega Farooqi Muhalland and Senator PCO and we're expecting Senator Kavasic as well. These are public proceedings being streamed live via the parliament's website and a handside transcript is being made. I remind all witnesses that in giving evidence to the committee, they are protected by parliamentary privilege. It is unlawful for anyone to threaten or disadvantage a witness on account of evidence given to a committee and such action may be treated by the Senate as a contempt. It is also a contempt to give false or misleading evidence. Witnesses also have a right to request to be heard in camera. The Senate has resolved that an officer of a department of the Commonwealth or of a state shall not be asked to give opinions on matters of policy and shall be given reasonable opportunity to refer questions asked of the officer to superior officers or to a minister. This resolution does not preclude questions asking for explanations of policies or factual questions about when and how policies were adopted. If a witness objects to answering a question, they should state the ground upon which the objection is made, and the committee will determine whether it will insist on an answer, having regard to the ground which is claimed. If the committee determines to insist on an answer, a witness may request that the answer be given in camera. Commonwealth officers appearing today are also reminded of the Senate order specifying the process by which a claim of public interest immunity should be raised, and a copy of the order is available from the secretariat. I remind senators of their obligations under the behavior code for Australian parliamentarians to treat witnesses with dignity, courtesy, fairness, and respect. I remind committee members and witnesses who are appearing via video conference and who are not speaking to mute their microphones. I now welcome representatives from the group of eight universities and innovative research universities. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to Senate committees has been provided to you. For the handside record, I'd like you each to please state your full names and the capacity in which you're appearing today. We'll start with Mr. Harris in the room and then we'll go online. Mr. Harris.
>> Thank you, Chair. Paul Harris, executive director of the innovative research universities.
>> Great. Thank you, Mr. Harris. Uh we'll go to Mr. Professor Williams.
>> Yes, it's George Williams here. I'm vice chancellor of Western Sydney University and as of Monday, chair of the IU.
>> Great. Welcome.
and Vicky Thompson, chief executive of the group of eight universities.
>> Wonderful. Welcome to you both. Um I'm going to ask if you have an opening statement to table it if that's okay. Um if senators are happy with that because we are short on time today and we're all keen to get stuck into questions. Um I might start the call uh in the first instance with Senator PCO. I've got some questions and then I'll come to you Senator Faruqi. Um, Senator PCO, I'll give you a nudge when it's time to move on.
>> Thank you very much. Yeah, please, please give me a a hurry up. Um, thank you for your time and thank you for your submissions. Um, I wanted to start with a fairly broad uh question and I appreciate that you're all representing um different uh groups of universities within the sector, but reviewing submissions, there are some common themes. One of them that comes through very strongly is around the independence of the Ache. Um, but there's a bit of a divergence in views about the bill and ultimately whether it should be passed um in its in its current form and I'm interested why that's why that's the case. If you could happy to touch on that.
>> Thank you. Um perhaps I'll throw to Professor Williams first.
>> Thank you. Thank you Paul. Happy to start with that and thank you Sen thank you Senator Pocock. our group is of the view that the bill should be passed and I speak not only on behalf of the IAU but also recognizing I'm a signary to a statement of 12 universities that's just recently been released that the committee has received. Uh that's more than a quarter of the nation's universities and critically it includes universities delivering some of the most challenging and important work in regional and rural Australia. The reason we believe the bill should be passed is is firstly we support the accord its ambition to provide fair access to higher education to all Australians and we believe that a tech is necessary to achieve that reform. We're not looking at a small reform hit of the sector that we're in the midst of. If we look at the sea of change, we're in the midst of the biggest transformation of higher regulation since the mid1 1980s. And we're looking at moving from a system, a fundamental shift from a system driven by intensive competition where marketing budgets, branding, rankings, and the like can rule the day and a system that has too often delivered market failure when it comes to serving the needs that the system must serve and of course their students in the community. So, we support a tech because we think stewardship is needed um to assist that transformation. It's obviously not uncommon where you see market failure particularly delivering something as vital as public ed education that you will have government intervention to provide a steward and in this case we believe that without the steward of a tech will have new regulatory settings but who will ensure that those settings actually deliver for those the system must serve and that of course again is students and community. We have some amendments we want to put. We've got suggestions, but our bottom line is we support the accord and we think this is a necessary reform and we would like to
>> And um Senator PCO um the group of eight is in a very similar position. Our view is that we have been without uh sector stewardship for decades since the abolition of the um tertiary education commission uh the commonwealth tertiary education commission back in the um Dawkins era and that absence has come at a significant cost with decades of inconsistent policy and shifting and changing and so the position of the group of eight has always been that we support an Australian tertiary education commission. We need independent frank advice. We have also proposed a number a small number of common sense amendments. I think as you'll go through the hearings and you would have you'll see the amendments in the Senate. Many of those amendments they're very similar across at least my understanding of the amendments that I've seen uh across different groups and the sector. Um I I guess our position is if agreement on those amendments cannot be reached, the government should still be allowed to proceed because we will not be better off without an ache. Uh sounds like we're having a bit of a bob each way, but we do need an ache, but it does need amending, but we don't want to throw the
Thompson, you've said that a tech uh needs to work like bodies um such as the productivity commission or jobs and skills Australia. What what practical features from those models should be adopted for the ache?
So this goes to the issue of independence and I think you'll find consistency of theme certainly from the group of eight submissions that I've read from my individual members but also others uh that the body needs to be completely independent uh in the same way that the productivity commission jobs and skills Australia and the ABS does. It must initiate its own policy and research work rather than acting on just direction from um the minister and it should be able to publish that work without ministerial approval. that goes to the view of frank and fearless advice uh regardless of of what that is because if it's not our view is it just becomes another layer of of bureaucracy um almost a subset of the department of education which is another issue about how it's resourced and so at a practical sense we've made some suggestions around amendments to give it greater um independence and to ensure that it it doesn't add to the regulatory load it eases the regulatory burden
>> we We would certainly agree with the need, the critical need for the Ache to be able to commission research and provide advice on its own initiative. And we think that there are um common sense ways to agree protocols with government for the release of advice and reports and so on, similar to the way that Jobs and Skills Australia works and that would strengthen the ability of the Ache to deliver on its stewardship role.