Policy & Research Briefing Note - Federal Election 2016

Major Political Parties Tertiary Education and Research Policies

(as at 20 May 2016)

The following is a comprehensive overview of the tertiary education related policy for the

three major political parties (the Coalition, the ALP and the Greens) for the 2016 Federal

Election.

Note: This information will be updated during the course of the election campaign should any

further announcements be made by these parties.

Contact:

For further information please contact:

Terri MacDonald, Policy and Research Officer, (tmacdonald@nteu.org.au)

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 1

Coalition Government (Australian Liberal Party & the Australian Nationals)

Higher Education

In terms of Higher Education the Government has deferred to offer up a policy platform,

choosing to instead release a discussion paper entitled Driving Innovation, Fairness and

Excellence in Australian Higher Education1 - and thus delay making decisions until after the

July 2016 election with implementation of any policies to be delayed until 1 January 2018.

The options paper is intended “to guide the consultation process with the sector” and while

floating a range of alternative measures” which, while abandoning complete deregulation,

would still see substantial fee rises. Indeed, from the options paper t is clearly evident that a

re-elected Coalition government would actively pursue its agenda of reducing public funding

to higher education by shifting more of the cost burden to students, but not necessarily by

the exact policies mechanisms originally proposed by former Education Minister Christopher

Pyne in the 2014 Budget. This having been said, the polices must fit within the

government’s Budget envelope of providing $2.5billion in savings over the forward

estimates.

The broad brush framework for this approach is evident in the 2016 Federal Budget. The

most obvious aspect being the $2b savings from higher education, although it far from

straightforward how this is made up (for a more detailed analysis see Impact of 2016 Budget

on Universities Briefing Note).

Savings measures

The Budget does however identify some clear cuts to the Higher Education Participation and

Partnerships Program (HEPP) reduced by $152 million to a total $553 million over four

years.  The Office of Learning and Teaching has also been abolished, with the resulting $18

million in savings going to TEQSA and the Quality Indicators in Learning and Teaching

website.

Cutting public Investment

In the absence of any specific announcements it is appropriate to review the policy positions

outlined discussion paper, which for the most part continues the agenda laid out in the 2014

1 See https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/driving-innovation-fairness-and-excellence-australian-education

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budget. In this, the government maintains its 20 per cent funding cut which students will

bear on top of a reduction in per-student government grants. The outcome would be a shift

in the share of cost burden to students to about 50-50. Students will also likely be hit by a

reduction in the income threshold at which they start repaying their Higher Education Loans

Payment (HELP) debt (down to $40,000 from $54 126), and perhaps also be hit with a loan

fee of between 5-20 per cent. 

Making students pay more

While the Coalition abandoned the unwinnable position of complete fee deregulation in the

Budget, the discussion paper proposes a form of partial fee deregulation that allows

universities to charge whatever they wish for ‘flagship’ courses. Given that these would

have been the most likely candidates for $100,000 tuition fees under complete deregulation,

this change appears to be largely superficial and appears that the Federal Government is

seeking to implement its deeply unpopular deregulation of fees through the policy back door.

The Government’s goal of innovation and differentiation between universities sits behind this

agenda.

Furthermore, the non-flagship courses would see a substantial increase in fees by a

substantial lifting of caps on fees to compensate for cuts to public funding. A 20% average

cut to funding would require average fees to increase by at least 25%.

Reining cost of HELP

The discussion paper also floats a number of proposals for recouping debt from students

who don’t repay any or all of their HELP debt, including not allowing retirees access to the

loans scheme to undertake ‘recreational’ degrees; introducing a household income test in an

attempt to get repayments from ‘wealthy’ mothers who work part-time or not at all; and -

recouping debt from deceased estates2. While a lifetime cap on how HELP debt that could

be borrowed should stay, there is a proposal that the amount could be refreshed as students

pay off debt to encourage lifelong learning (but would also renew their debt).

Expansion of Commonwealth supported places

2 The majority of HELP debt related recommendations appear to be lifted from the Grattan Institute’s publication HELP for the future – Fairer repayment of student debt (March 2016) http://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/968-HELP-for-the-future.pdf. The P&R Unit has undertaken analysis of the recommendations of this report in our soon to be released discussion paper in the impact of proposed HELP-HECs changes on women.

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 3

The Discussion paper leaves the door open on the issues such as extending government

subsidies to private higher education providers and expanding the number of pathway and

sub-bachelor places, but it should be noted that there remains a clear push in their suite of

policy proposals towards deregulation and privatisation.

Summary of Higher Education Policy

In summary the Governments higher education policy can be summarised as one that seeks

to:

reduce public investment in higher education, and

make students pay more.

VET & TAFES

The federal government has proposed a set of tougher measures in their discussion paper,

Redesigning VET Fee HELP (released on 29 April) in a last ditch attempt to deal with the

unsustainable VET FEE-HELP blow-out. This paper calls for a full redesign of the scheme,

noting the scale of unrestrained malpractice by private providers who have used unethical

and possibly illegal recruitment strategies as they seek to gauge out as much profit from the

public purse as possible.

The discussion paper proposes a series of measures to improve the integrity of the system,

which can be seen as the Coalition’s platform on reforming VET:

The application of minimum eligibility requirements for VET FEE-HELP recipients.

Reducing the lifetime student loan limit from $99,389.

Placing a funding cap on the scheme overall

Prioritising VET FEE-HELP funding to courses that align with industry needs or lead to

employment outcomes.

Providing better information for VET FEE-HELP eligible students before they enrol.

Establishing a VET FEE-HELP ombudsman.

Redesigning the regulatory oversight of VET FEE-HELP, giving the Commonwealth

more power to tie payments to compliance measures.

Consideration of different payment tests around student engagement, progression and

completion.

The possibility of existing providers needing to reapply.

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 4

It is worth noting however, that many of the recommendations made in the paper were

amendments which Labor moved to implement in late 2015 and which the government voted

down.

Research and Innovation

In November 2015, Turnbull announced the Coalition’s Innovation Agenda. In terms of

universities, Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced new investment in national

scale research infrastructure under the National Innovation and Science Agenda of $2.3b

over 10 years, including $1.5b for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure

Strategy (NCRIS). This supports collaboration between researchers, government and

industry, with a view to commercialisation of research.

Also allocated is $127m to establish the Research Support Programme and Research

Training Programme for universities. This is part of new research funding arrangements for

universities (which incorporates the RSP and the RTP funding) effectively replacing the

current framework of six research block grants with these two programmes:

The Research Support programme will provide around $885 million in 2017 to

Australian universities as a ‘flexible’ funding stream to support the systemic costs of

research.

The Research Training programme will provide around $948 million in 2017 to

support domestic and international higher degree by research (HDR) students.

Research income from competitive grants will continue to drive funding allocation to

support research.

Engagement will be measured by research income from industry and other end-

users. Publication track record remains an important indicator of research quality

which is recognised in competitive grants and rankings.

Student HDR completions will remain as an important measure in determining

Research Training funding amounts

$9m will be allocated to measure the impact and engagement of university research, to be

conducted by the Australian Research Council (ARC) as a companion exercise with the

Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) assessment (pilot to take place in 2017).

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 5

$13m over five years to encourage women to choose to stay in STEM research, STEM start-

ups and STEM orientated businesses.

Other initiatives are aimed at fast tracking collaboration between business interests and

researchers, with tax incentives provided to businesses for innovation and research,

particularly in STEM areas (biomedicine, agriculture, cyber security, advanced computing

etc). The current ARC Linkage Projects scheme will also be changed so that it is open to

new applications continually, instead of the annual rounds, to better suit business and

industry collaboration.

International Education

The government has provided $12 million in the Budget to fund its National Strategy for

International Education 2025 (released on 30 April). The strategy is in 3 parts:

The National Strategy for International Education 2025  is a “whole-of-sector”

approach and sets out a 10-year plan for further developing Australia’s position as a

“global leader in education and training”. The national strategy is based around three

pillars: “strengthening the fundamentals”; “making transformative partnerships” and

“competing globally.”

The Australian International Education 2025 (AIE2025) market development roadmap, provides a 10-year market development framework for Australia’s

education exports, including “game-changing” strategies to build scalable,

collaborative networks of education providers, attract capital to fuel the sector’s

expansion, and target key markets abroad.

The Australia Global Alumni Engagement Strategy 2016-2020  outlines a five-year

plan to strengthen and engage Australia’s foreign alumni in order to improve

diplomatic access and influence and building trade and investment links.

However, close reading reveals that the strategy is full of generalised goals, motherhood

statements and policy platitudes, with very little detail on how these are to be achieved.

There is a stated intent of growing the international student market but doesn’t detail how

this is to be achieved in any detail, although there is much referencing to online modes of

teaching and learning, the potential to grow enrolments in the regions and the school sector,

and that universities and business should be focusing on international education

partnerships on and offshore.

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The Australian Labor Party (ALP)

Higher Education

In September 2015 the ALP released its higher education policy platform. In it, the ALP

stated that if elected it would:

Increase the number of students completing their study by 20,000 graduates a year

from 2020, but will also introduced incentives around retention and completion.

Replace the existing Higher Education Participation Program (HEPP) with a Higher Education Access and Growth Strategy targeted at improving access for low

income students, students for rural and regional areas, Indigenous Australian and

migrant students, students with disabilities and from disadvantaged background.

There would be a focus on student outcomes, including completion.

Provide more information to parents and students, such as average salary and

career options on graduation, so they can make better decisions about university

selection.

Introduce via legislation a new Student Funding Guarantee which would be indexed,

investing an on average an additional $9,000 per student for a standard 3-year

degree.  Under this, the ALP would see the average funding per student at $11,800;

then in 2018 a boost of funding per student would see this rise by more than 27 per

cent ($2500); by 2026 the guarantee would see universities more than 40 per cent or

$4,000 better off per student each year in government funding compared to the

Coalition Government’s policy. The Student Funding Guarantee would include

additional funding to reverse the Government’s Budget cuts

Prioritise study in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) with a

range of incentives that includes an offer to write off the HECS debts of 100,000

students who complete a STEM degree at university.

Provide TEQSA with an additional $31 million to better regulate the quality of

teaching and resourcing in our universities

Establish an independent Higher Education Productivity and Performance

Commission which will focus on accountability, performance and university

productivity, as a mechanism to ensure the production of graduates meet the needs

of the future economy.

Offer a Startup Year at university to young Australians looking to start their own

enterprise.

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 8

Boost the number of young Australians taking up STEM courses at university as well

as upskilling 25,000 teachers.

These measures would be part of a White/Green Paper consultation process with the sector,

which would be introduced shortly after taking office.

The ALP’s policy is opposed to the deregulation of tuition fees, and would offset the cost of

the Higher Education Package (estimated at $2.5b over forward estimates) by not

proceeding with the following Coalition Government initiatives:

Expansion of the demand-driven system to sub-bachelor places and to bachelor

places at non-university higher education providers;

Abolishing FEE–HELP and VET FEE–HELP loan fees; and

Establishment of the Structural Adjustment Fund promised to help regional

universities adjust to a deregulated system.

The additional expenditure will be offset, over the forward estimates and the medium-term,

by existing commitments to reform the taxation of multinational entities and superannuation

tax concessions, and the abolition of the Emissions Reduction Fund.

VET & TAFES

If elected Labor would hold a comprehensive review of the vocational education and training sector – equivalent to the landmark Gonski Review into school funding and the

Bradley Review of higher education (and first since the Kangan Report in 1974). In

addition, the ALP has undertaken “to back TAFE into the future by developing a

comprehensive National Priority Plan  that defines the unique role of TAFE as our public

provider and delivers on this by working with the states and territories to provide ongoing

guaranteed TAFE funding”.

Labor has already undertaken to:

Establish a VET Ombudsman;

Cap tuition fees in line with how university fees are set;

Lower the lifetime limit for VET FEE-HELP loans to half the current amount;

Require loan applications for students to be handled by the department rather than a

private college or broker;

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 9

Ban or place restriction on brokers;

Provide the Minister with the power to suspend payments to a private college under

investigation.

Cap HELP at $8,000 annually, although there would be provision for an exemption

on legitimate high-cost courses such as nursing and engineering following ministerial

approval. (Government data shows that the average cost of a diploma almost tripled

from $4814 in 2012 to $12,308 in 2014, with Information technology diplomas cost an

average $18,735 a year, hospitality diplomas $16,982 and management diplomas

$15,493. By way of contrast, the annual student fee for a degree in law or commerce

in 2016 is $10440.)

Research & Innovation

Although the ALP is yet to announce its policy on research matters, in 2015 the party

released its “Innovation reforms” which committed it to:

1. Accelerating regional innovation via Regional Innovation Hubs;

2. Structural reform through Innovate Australia;

3. Improve the flow of capital to startups through Startup Capital; and

4. Supporting the “best and brightest overseas” through a Landing Pad for Australian

innovators.

This third wave of innovation policy initiatives also builds on Labor’s previous

announcements, including measures to boost science, technology, engineering and maths

(STEM) skills, increase access to venture capital to commercialise great Australian ideas

and support local start-ups. It also incorporates policy in Schools, TAFE, Higher Education,

Investment and workforce initiatives, including the following:

co-investing in early stage and high potential companies through the $500

million Smart Investment Fund.

Bringing together the superannuation, venture capital and startup sectors in

an Innovation Investment Partnership to identify barriers holding back investment in

Australian-based venture capital funds and early-stage enterprises.

Improving access to finance for startups and micro-businesses through a partial

guarantee scheme, Startup Finance.

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Getting startups to help solve government problems through Challenge

Platforms and support startups to compete in government tenders.

Supporting 100,000 young people, especially women, to Study STEM by writing off

their debts on completion.

Putting more focus on quality and completion at university with around 20,000 more

graduates each year and Student Funding Guarantee.

Developing a National Digital Workforce Plan (ALP states that 100,000 more ICT

workers will be needed by 2020).

Create two new visa classes, offering 4,000 visas, to attract international talent to

help develop Australia’s growing startup ecosystem.

Creating a new Startup Year at universities to help students commercialise their

ideas.

Boosting the skills of 25,000 current primary and high school teachers to Teach

STEM.

Teaching scholarships for 25,000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics

graduates.

Giving every child the opportunity to Learn Code or computational skills at primary

and secondary school.

Working with industry to establish a $9 million National Coding In Schools centre to

develop the resources and expertise required.

International Education

The ALP has promised $2m to boost the number of international students in Tasmania as

part of an incentive package aimed at improving Tasmania’s economy. Further policy

around international education is yet to be announced.

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The Australian Greens

Higher Education

The Australian Greens support free, well-funded and high quality, life-long education and

training. Their policy platform on Higher Education is part of the Lifetime of Learning policy,

which outlines their support for schools, students with a disability and the tertiary sector.

The Lifetime of Learning policy states that Greens oppose any moves to increase fees for

students and would invest $1.4 billion per annum to:

reduce students’ fees and associated HELP costs by 20%, and

reinstate the Student Start-Up Scholarships as a grant

The Greens state that their Lifetime of Learning package has been fully costed by the

Parliamentary Budget Office at $1.403 billion per annum, over the forward estimates. They

state that their policy, however, will be cost neutral, using a continuation the Coalition’s

‘deficit levy’ on a permanent basis for those earning over $180,000 per year to raise an

additional $1.55 billion per annum to offset the increased costs over the forward estimates.

VET & TAFES

The Greens support a VET system with TAFE at its core and the provision of affordable

education and training of quality. The Greens believe that the current funding model needs

to be abandoned with priority given to supporting the public TAFE system. In order to

restore TAFES as the central component in the VET system, the Greens would3:

1. Abandon the failed market contestability model by reversing the trend of public funds

flowing away from TAFE to private for-profit providers and reinstate core public funding to

TAFE as the primary provider of VET in Victoria including ongoing funding for capital works,

facilities, equipment and funding for community service obligations;

2. Enforce minimum teaching qualification requirements for all VET providers and minimum

supervised hours of delivery and appropriate practical components for all courses that

3 The policy is located at Greens Victoria (http://greens.org.au/initiatives/vic/standing-tafe) but the premise of returning TAFE as the centre of the VET system is referred to in statements by federal Greens when responding to the Coalition and ALP’s national policies on VET.

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 12

receive government subsidies; and

3. Establish a panel of eminent persons to assess the impacts of the contestable VET

funding model and funding cuts over the last five years on the viability of TAFE; the quality,

accessibility and affordability of vocational education and training; and to propose a

sustainable model that maximises the public benefit.

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Research & Development

The Greens research and development policy will increase science and research funding to

3% of GDP by 2025 and 4% of GDP by 2030. This commitment is supported by the Green’s

policy to reverse cuts to universities and boost base funding by 10%, which the party

believes would see R&D investment reach their target of 3% of GDP by 2025, if not earlier.

This was outlined in the Greens Securing Our Future Through Research and Development

plan, which commits the party to:

A ‘Protecting Science’ package, consisting of a combined $847.9 million boost to the

Australia Research Council, National Health & Medical Research Council,

Cooperative Research Centres;

Restoring funding to the CSIRO and preventing job cuts ($306.5m);

Funding for indirect costs associated with research ($201.2m);

Further steps towards default 5 year grants in ARC and NHMRC;

Reverse short-sighted Government cuts to the Sustainable Research Excellence

program and boost university research ($1,306 m);

Investment in critical infrastructure via Innovation and Science Australia ($422.6m);

Investment in strategic opportunities for international collaboration ($43.4m);

Additional funding for the Future Fellowships scheme to attract and retain top

research talents ($297.2m);

Open Access Publishing of Government funded research ($197.7m);

Support for women in science ($213.7m);

Supporting collaborative health research centres to translate the research

discoveries into clinical practice ($171.9m);

Support the ongoing development of the Medical Research Future Fund; and

Reverse cuts to R&D tax offsets ($690m).

The boost to R&D outlined in their plan would be funded from announced revenue measures

by the Greens, including the abolition of fossil fuel subsidies (the Greens have projected that

abolishing one such subsidy alone, the fuel tax credit rebate, would save the budget at least

$4.5 billion a year).

Importantly, the Greens have identified the need to provide a stable and dependable

research funding framework that ends the rolling funding shortfalls that has seen the majority

of the research workforce employed on continuous short to medium term contracts, with

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 14

corresponding high levels of insecure employment. In order to address this, the Greens

would request that the ARC and NHMRC develop ‘proven capacity’ guidelines to guide the

distribution of their Future Science funds. Researchers and organisations with ‘proven

capacity’ in their fields would be eligible to apply for funding to allow them to continue

research in that field. This would not only relieve experienced researchers of the need to

spend resources on repeated project-based grants, but it would also provide more secure

employment and better pathways for early- and mid-career researchers, including for those

researchers who may be less likely to secure ARC/NHMRC funding in their own right; The

ARC and NHMRC would be asked to do further work in considering the impacts of moving to

a default 5-year grant term. Whilst the Greens support the principle of longer funding cycles,

and although the Parliamentary Budget Office has advised it would have no meaningful

impact on the federal Budget, they state that they would seek advice from the sector as to

any impact it would have on the number of successful grants awarded and on the sector

more broadly.

In addition to reversing the funding cuts to university research (injecting $1.306b over the

forward estimates) the Greens would ensure that funding is holistic and supports all capital,

maintenance and operating costs. Their plan is to cover the indirect costs of research, such

as administration, equipment and staff, although they also state that more systemic changes

need to be made to the way that indirect research costs are funded. They have also

committed $50 million per year in grants to research and innovation organisations to assist in

the development of strategic programs to help retain female workers and carers as they

manage competing demands on their time. These programs may include part-time

fellowships, childcare support, family friendly facilities or increased technical support while

on maternity leave.

In relation to international research, the Greens have committed to an additional $43.4m

over the next 4 years towards strategic opportunities for international collaboration to bring

funding in the area up to almost $80 million. This will enable greater support for:

early to mid-career researchers to establish partnerships with international

leaders in their field, building the networks Australia needs for future innovation;

Collaborative innovation projects to deliver industry and economic benefit for

Australia through research links with overseas companies and facilities; and

Strategic partnerships determined by existing government priorities and

cooperation agreements, supplementing and aligned with existing bilateral

Higher Education Policy Overview – Major Political Parties, 2016 Federal Election. 15

strategic partnership for India and China and the landing pads identified in the

innovation strategy.

Also of interest is the Greens commitment to drive the development and implementation of a

national program of Open Access Publishing ($197.7 m), to be undertaken in collaboration

with major academic institutions, research bodies and publishing houses and cover the fees

associated with publication of research arising from an ARC or NHMRC supported project.

This will help ensure that publically funded research is freely available to researchers,

business and the wider community.

More information at www.greens.org.au/research.

Innovation

The Greens have also released a separate Innovation Policy intended to support start up

enterprises, focus on STEM education and boost innovation funding. Central to this policy is

setting a 3% innovation investment target for the Future Fund, which would see around $15b

invested into the innovation sector over four years. This would also support a $678.9m

investment over the same period aimed at increasing the uptake of Science, Technology,

Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) studies at both schools and universities (and links in

with the Women in STEM policy noted under their research policy platform).

International Education

Under their New Economy plan, the Greens note the need for a “vibrant education sector” for

both domestic and international students. Their 2016 Budget Principles policy supports the

growth of key sectors including education and services along with advanced manufacturing,

tourism, agriculture and clean energy. In a number of (unspecified) sectors that Greens

would set 15 year growth targets.

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