Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

PROFESSOR GEORGE WILLIAMS, VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRESIDENT OF WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: I’d like to begin by acknowledging the people of the Dharug Nation and pay my respects to elders past and present, and particularly welcome Minister Jason Clare, the Education Minister, Mary O’ Kane, we’ve also got Andrew Giles here as well; Emeritus Professor Barney Glover and we’ve got Professor Geoff Lee as well from WSU.

I’m delighted that this is the first day of ATEC here on our Bankstown campus. It’s a particularly important place to recognise the start of ATEC. We’re going to have TAFE moving into this building shortly and I’m looking forward to our students whizzing up and down the lifts. I’m delighted to see a lot of our students here today as well, studying education. From our point of view, we’re really committed as a university to delivering on the Accord. We see ourselves as the university of the Accord that will make sure we reach our targets of 1.8 million people by 2050 studying at university. That gets us from 45 to 55 per cent of students studying a bachelor’s degree. And we know here what is needed to get those students into study, particularly equity students, and to give them the opportunities that they deserve.

I’d also say, though, what we’re seeing at Western as the Accord recognised, is that there are problems with the system that are getting in the way of us being able to deliver on that ambitious goal. We’ve seen 10 to 15 per cent decreases in the number of students from low SES and also equity backgrounds, such as first in family coming to university. And so, for us today, this is a really important announcement because it marks the opportunity to start fixing a broken system so that every student, irrespective of their postcode, irrespective of their background, has the opportunity to world world-class university education.

From our point of view, we look forward to working with the Minister in ATEC, particularly to fix the Job-ready Graduates programme, which is means a $50,000 arts cost of a degree for many of our students and that’s actively dissuading our students from studying at university. We also know that it needs to go beyond the really good package that reduces student debt to actually dealing with the fees in the first place to make sure that students can afford to come to university. We also look forward to working with ATEC, particularly on international students. They are critical contributors to the Western Sydney economy, particularly nurses and other areas where we’re dealing with critical shortages. And in our case, 24 cents in every dollar paid by an international student supports an Australian student in their study. They support food, equity programmes and the like. And again, we look forward to contributing there. So, from our point of view, we’re really delighted here at Bankstown on this historic day. I’d also like particularly to acknowledge Barney, whose vision led to this building some years ago. And we’re pleased to be here, pleased to support ATEC and look forward to supporting its work.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks very much, George. And this is really the perfect place to launch the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. As George mentioned, this is the vision of Barney in many senses. This building emerged out of the ground over the course of COVID and now stands as the tallest building in Bankstown, with that big sign at the top saying Western Sydney University. And I said when this building was officially opened a couple of years ago that this is more than just a building, it’s a beacon. When those lights shine brightly over Bankstown every night, people see it. I know the students here would see it. And I hope that young people right across our community see it and think, well, maybe university is for me as well.

When I was a kid growing up in Western Sydney, university was somewhere else. And for a lot of kids that I went to school with, university felt like it was for someone else, that it was not for kids in the western suburbs of Sydney. There was lots of Macca’s logos, lots of KFC logos, lots of Westfield logos, not a lot of university logos. That’s now changing, and that’s important if we’re going to break down that invisible barrier that stops a lot of young people from giving university a crack in the first place. And that’s a big part of what the Universities Accord was about. It’s also a big part of what ATEC is about. And as you just mentioned a moment ago, George, something else exciting is about to happen here at this fantastic building, and that is, from January next year, Bankstown TAFE is moving in. The top eight floors of this building will be occupied by students from Bankstown TAFE that are just across the road at the moment. And so, from next year, in one building, you’re going to have TAFE and university all under one roof. That sends a really important message as well, about making sure that our tertiary education system is more joined up, that we’re working together, that we’re making it easier for students to move between TAFE and university. And again, that’s a really big part of what the Universities Accord report was all about, about trying to break down that artificial barrier that stops a lot of people from moving from one part of the system to another.

The Universities Accord report was released just over a year ago and it’s a really important piece of work. And I want to thank Professor Mary O’ Kane in particular, and the team that she led for producing that report for the nation. It’s a blueprint for how we reform higher education for the next decade and beyond. And we’ve now started the process of implementing its recommendations. That includes things like university study hubs in our regions and in our suburbs. It includes fee-free university courses, those bridging courses that help young people – that might have finished school, but they’re not ready for uni yet – to do a free course to get ready to start a university degree. It includes the changes we’re making to HECS. We’ve made changes to indexation last year. In a couple of weeks, I’ll introduce legislation into the Parliament that will cut the student debt of 3 million Australians by 20 per cent, including the students that are here with us today.

And it also includes paid prac for the first time ever. From today, the Australian Government will be investing in providing financial support for teaching students, for nursing students, for midwifery students, and for social work students while they do the practical part of their training. It’s worth almost half a billion dollars and it’s real practical support while you do your practical training. These are young people who are going to teach our children, who are going to look after us when we’re sick, who are going to help women during childbirth, help women fleeing domestic violence, some of the most important jobs in this country. And this is real practical help to help with the practical part of their degree.

And today something else happens, something else from the Accord comes to life. And that’s the establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. And its real purpose is to drive long term reform. Implementing the Accord is the job of more than just one minister or two ministers or, or one government or two governments. It’s long-term reform, and that requires a steward that’s going to drive and implement reform over the next decade and beyond. And that’s why Mary and the team recommended it. That’s why the government is implementing it. From today, an interim Australian Tertiary Education Commission comes to life while we introduce legislation to make it permanent. And the people who recommended it are the people who are going to help to bring it to life. I’m bringing the band back together.

Professor Mary O’ Kane, thank you for agreeing to be the interim chair of, well, the chair of the interim ATEC. Barney, you’re sort of wearing a semi hat here as the head of JSA, but helping us as one of the commissioners as well. And Larissa Behrendt, distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt, who’s not with us today, but has also agreed to be one of the commissioners of the interim ATEC. It’s about getting the people who recommended this to help bring it to life, to lift words off the page and make this real. As George pointed out, the role of the ATEC is critical. It’s about making the system more joined up. It’s about compacts with universities about what they do. It’s about striking funding agreements with universities to implement the important work that universities do in different parts of the country. Not every university needs to be the same or do the same thing and the ATEC will be critical in that and providing advice to us on the cost of courses and the funding of courses and the costs that students pay. So, this is really important and it’s not just about universities. We called this the Australian Tertiary Education Commission for a reason, because we want to look at the whole system, make sure that it’s more joined up and working together. And so, this body reports to both of us, Minister for Education and the Minister for Skills. And I’d ask Andrew to say a few words.

ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: Yeah, thanks very much, Jason. This is a really important day. Jason, you’ve just been talking about long term reform. Well, I’m conscious that people have been talking about harmonisation in tertiary education for a very, very long time. But today it becomes concrete, with the interim Australian Tertiary Education Committee taking its first steps. And I really do look forward to hearing from Mary and from Barney in a few minutes about the journey to date and the journey going forward.

Because this is long term reform that has been a long time in the making but is absolutely fundamental for the reasons that Jason set out. But also as we think about the needs of the Australian economy today and into the future, I’m very conscious that Jobs and Skills Australia are telling us that nine in 10 jobs require some form of post compulsory qualification and that amongst those there’s roughly a 50/50 split between those that require a university degree and those that require vocational education and training. So, when I think about that split, I think about how important it is that we’re standing right here in Bankstown, in your electorate Jase, in a building that will very shortly bring that vision to physical life with the proximity of TAFE and university students. And that’s a symbol also of a big part of the ongoing work of the ATEC about building clearer pathways between vocational and university education, breaking down some of those barriers, because there’s really two barriers that we’re talking about here. The ones that are preventing too many Australians from accessing university or vocational pathways, and those that are stopping people from being the adaptive learners that they want to be and which our economy demands. So, there’s really important work in two respects for the ATEC to get underway.

I feel really excited, though, to be at the ground floor of this great long-term enterprise as we seek to do two things. We seek to support a labour market that works for Australia to grow the Australian economy, to make sure that there’s a better fit between the jobs that are out there and the pathways that we are offering and making accessible to young and indeed not so young Australians. And on the other hand, to make sure that every Australian can access the skills they want for a fulfilling, rewarding and secure job into the future. So, today we take a really big step forward. It’s a step that’s really all about partnership. I’m thrilled to work so closely with Jason in his capacity as Minister for Education. I’m thrilled to work with people across the sector, whether it’s in vocational education, whether it’s in university, whether it’s employers, whether it’s unions, whether it’s experts, to make sure that we have an education system that is fit for purpose. And when I say fit for purpose, that’s fit for the needs of our economy and fit to meet the needs and the aspirations of every Australian in every corner of this great country. With that, I’m really pleased to hand over to Mary O’ Kane, who really in, in many senses is the architect of this vision and then will take on board stewardship of seeing it realised. So, thank you, Mary.

MARY O’KANE, CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF THE INTERIM AUTRALIAN TERTIARY EDUCATION COMMISSION: Thank you, Minister. Well, this is a very exciting day and it’s particularly thrilling to have a group of teaching students here. You’re the symbol of why we worked hard on the Accord and why we’re so thrilled that the Tertiary Education Commission is starting. It’s actually starting again. A little bit of a history lesson. It actually was the Labor Government at the end of the war established it. It was then picked up by the Menzies Government, the Liberal Government after that, and added to, and went for a long time to 1988. And there hasn’t been one for a while. But in the Accord work, we determined that you really need something that interprets the higher education system to the community, to government, and that can listen to the higher education system and interpret that back. So, if you like, it’s a whisperer, it’s the higher education whisperer for the nation.

And like the commission of post the Second World War, this one has some really big things to advise government on. We just heard Minister Giles talk about the importance of the national economy. And unless we have the right skills, we won’t have the economy or the society we want. And this is really about growing that skills base enormously, growing the types of skills, modernising them, but also making sure that we have the right pathways, we have the right and above all, the numbers going in. And we’re not going to get the numbers into higher education unless we have different mechanisms to the ones we have now. It’s not just about people going to school and going on to higher ed; it’s about people being able to come back in to do university later in life. It’s about going through different pathways. And this is why there’s a lot about access in the Accord and that we’ll be trying to enliven in the Tertiary Education Commission. So, how can people have done really good courses at TAFE, go to university and the other way around?

When I was in South Australia, we had, one of the favourite things people would do, would do a degree in history at one of the universities and then go to Regency TAFE and do a hospitality qualification. And that combination was a really good one for the tourism industry and so on. So, it’s very exciting to be part of this sort of new, looking at new ways to realise a much larger higher education system, even stronger knowledge system than we have in Australia. A new, the economy being stronger and our place in the sort of international system, you know, being even more marked than it is at present. And so, I hope that for you, you’ll be measuring us. I hope you’ll be looking at the Tertiary Education Commission and saying, yes, it’s doing what I want or it’s not, and if not, I hope you’ll come and talk to us, because it’s very much an open for business, talking to the students, talking to the universities and passing it all on to government. So, thank you for being here today while we celebrate. And I’ll do a shout out to Larissa. Hopefully she’s watching on some sort of thing. She’s up in Yucala with a range of Indigenous students who are there with her and filming for various things. So, thank you very much. I should have said we’d talk to Barney.

BARNEY GLOVER, JOBS AND SKILLS AUSTRALIA COMMISSIONER: You probably, you could not stop me. Thank you, Mary, for those words. I want to particularly thank the two ministers that are here today. My minister, Andrew Giles, Minister for Skills and Training in Australia. The real energy behind what Andrew wants to achieve, to transform the Australian vocational education and training system to support the labour market we need now and into the future and the work that Jason Clare has done as Minister for Education to bring the ATEC today into fruition to support the Accord and to see today not just the ATEC established and for Mary to lead this implementation phase with the support of Larissa and myself, but so many other aspects of the Accord recommendations that the government’s already picked up and are in place. And placement payments today for those students you mentioned across nursing, midwifery, social work and teaching, to receive the benefit they need to avoid poverty in placements is a wonderful achievement of the accord and congratulations to the government.

There are a number of reasons why I think this is a really important day. It’s not just that two ministers are here that’s significant in itself. I want to congratulate George for the work that Western Sydney has done to take this building, to make it what I believe will be one of the most important dual sector enterprises in higher education and vocational education training in Australia. When those TAFE students are here next year, this will be as big as most dual-sector universities in Australia. So, it will be in itself a great opportunity to press what joined up means for tertiary education Australia to have a harmonised tertiary education system in this country and to do it in ways we haven’t been able to do before. So, there’s a challenge here for TAFE NSW and for George and for Michelle Simons, who does a wonderful job here as the Dean of the School of Education. A wonderful challenge to say, what can we do differently? What can we do better? How can we ensure that we produce graduates from higher ed and those who complete vet qualifications with the skills and knowledge they need for the economy of the future, as Mary said, because there are wonderful opportunities in the future for all Australians, but we’ve got to match up our skills and our jobs.

It’s one thing that Jobs and Skills Australia has been saying for some time, we need a joined up tertiary education system. We need to better match our skills from our education and training into our job market. We need to recognise that increasingly we need post-secondary qualifications for the future. And as Minister Giles said, we’ve got to get the balance right between higher education and vet. And that’s not about different ways of cutting the same cake. It’s growing this cake. And that really means. And this is another reason why it’s exciting to be here in Bankstown, because as Mary said, we’ve got to uplift more Australians to participate in post-secondary education more than we’ve ever done before. And that means reaching into equity, in first in family, as George said, students from a low socio-economic background, First Nations Australians. I pay tribute to the work that Larissa has done to make First Nations Australians at the centre of the Accord and at the centre of the ATEC. And she does a wonderful job in supporting that. And people with disability and other equity groups, we need to make sure they’re fully represented.

So, this is a great place to do this. It was a great place to build this building. Not just that it was 50 metres from the Minister for Education’s electoral office. That was just an additional benefit, but to put it here in the South-West of Sydney and to reach out to these communities and say it’s not just higher education, tertiary education is in reach and it will be transformational and it will ensure that this region has the economic uplift and the social and cultural benefits that tertiary education can bring. Exciting day. Well done to everyone. Thank you.

CLARE: Can I just make some comments on reports this morning of alleged sexual assault of children in childcare centres in Victoria. This morning I’ve spoken to Lizzie Blandthorn, the Minister for Children. I’ve also spoken to Tim Watts, member for Gellibrand, in the area where some of these child care centres are located in Victoria. This is extremely serious. There is nothing more serious than this. The alleged perpetrator is in custody right now, but this is one of the reasons why this was top of the agenda when education ministers met in Adelaide on Friday. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve banned the use of personal mobile phones in childcare centres. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve made mandatory reporting of physical and sexual assaults in childcare centres a requirement within 24 hours rather than seven days. It’s one of the reasons why I will bring legislation to the Federal Parliament in the next few months to cut off funding to childcare centres that aren’t up to scratch. And as I said, it’s one of the reasons why this was top of the agenda when education ministers met on Friday to look at what are the next steps that we need to take to make sure that our children are safe in child care centres. There are more than 1 million parents who rely on our early education and care system to care for our children, to educate our children and to keep our children safe. This is personal for me because I’m one of those parents and there is nothing more important to me than making sure that we take every step we need to take to keep our kids safe. Thanks very much.

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