Amendments likely as senators question Australian funding overhaul

Australia’s Labor government will need to resort to horse-trading to manoeuvre its university funding overhaul through parliament, after a Senate committee review of the legislation produced a mixed report card.

The Labor-dominated committee recommended that the Senate pass the bill, highlighting strong stakeholder support for the key funding changes. “The concerns raised by some participants” have largely been addressed through the government’s last-minute amendments to fix a “drafting error”, the report says.

An additional “purpose clause” could further alleviate worries about ministerial control, while grant guidelines could be amended to address reservations about how students from disadvantaged backgrounds are identified, the report says.

Opposition and cross-bench senators offered starkly different views, in “additional comments” occupying as many pages as the main body of the report. Committee members from the opposition Liberal-National coalition raised objections to some aspects of the bill, while expressing strong support for others.

The Australian Greens said the bill should be amended to address the “significant concerns” aired during the inquiry, while independent senator David Pocock recommended 20 amendments to the legislation and six related changes to Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) operations.

“It’s regrettable that the committee report elides carefully considered criticisms and minimises the extent of dissatisfaction with the bill,” Greens tertiary education spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi said. “In evidence to the inquiry, the higher education sector stressed the need for significant amendments. The sentiment was loud and clear.”

Labor controls 30 of the 76 seats in parliament’s upper house, and will probably require another nine votes to secure passage of the legislation. While the Greens’ 10 votes would be enough to get the bill over the line, the coalition may prove easier bargaining partners.

The coalition is yet to declare its position on the legislation, saying it would do so after considering the committee’s report. While the committee’s coalition members offered no recommendation on the bill, their comments include four firm proposals.

They want the proposed “over-enrolment” caps “wound back” or removed altogether, along with more changes to reduce the “obvious overreach in ministerial powers” over funding allocations. Coalition senators also want the legislation to address “loopholes” in the funding arrangements for regional education, and to require Atec to publish the criteria it uses in allocating university places.

Monash University policy expert Andrew Norton said there was a “clear Senate majority” for more constraints on ministerial discretion. An amendment to “soften” the over-enrolment caps would also be likely to garner Senate approval, given strong criticism of the measure from the Greens and Pocock. “It is in the government’s interests to be pragmatic on this issue,” Norton said.

The coalition senators said proposed penalties for over-enrolments would create an incentive for universities to “hold places back”. This was “contrary to the stated intention of the bill, which is to grow the higher education system.

“Worse, the penalties can actually penalise providers for improving their performance. A university could slip into ‘over-enrolment’ territory simply by improving its retention rate. This is an absurd and perverse outcome.”

Pocock cited “serious concern” about over-enrolment penalties. Faruqi said it was “misguided” to assume that students who were “turned away from their preferred university and course” would simply enrol in something else. “The problem is not where students are choosing to study, but the government’s deliberate underfunding of higher education in Australia.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com