Australian funding bill set to pass Senate

Australia’s university funding overhaul appears set to pass parliament in significantly altered form, after the Australian Greens said they had “secured” changes.

Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi has introduced “pages and pages” of amendments to the “Opening the Doors of Opportunity” bill, which legislates a system of “managed growth” for universities and additional “needs-based funding” for educating students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“There are many things in this bill that needed to change,” Faruqi told the Senate. “You do have to wonder why a bill that needs so many changes was even brought into parliament in the first place.”

The 12 Greens amendments include provisions requiring the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) to take account of student demand when it allocates domestic enrolment quotas, and to add a 5 per cent “buffer” to those quotas.

The changes would also remove the education minister’s powers to prevent places from being allocated to particular courses, and to set needs-based funding supplements for particular universities at zero.

“Atec will be required to publish its reasons when making allocations, and the minister’s unfettered power to make conditions on funding grants will be removed,” Faruqi said. These would feature among “a number of amendments” to curb the “excessive ministerial powers” and address the “overall lack of accountability and transparency” in the proposals.

Students’ socioeconomic status, and consequently their entitlement to needs-based funding, would no longer be gauged “at the time the person enrols in the unit”. This would “rectify” the “absurdity” of disadvantaged students rendering themselves ineligible by moving to wealthier neighbourhoods to attend university, Faruqi said.

She credited education minister Jasons Clare’s staff for negotiating the changes in good faith, but expressed disappointment at the government’s rejection of some of the Greens proposals. They included provisions requiring reviews of international student quotas and top-up funding for all disadvantaged postgraduate students.

Under the bill, postgraduate students only qualify for needs-based funding if they are indigenous, Faruqi observed.

While some of the Greens amendments resemble those previously tabled by the opposition, the two groups remain poles apart on some issues. The Greens vehemently disagree with an opposition amendment requiring universities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which “conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism”, Faruqi said.

Independent senator David Pocock has also tabled fresh amendments requiring a review of the Job-ready Graduates funding settings, and introducing new safeguards on universities’ enrolment allocations. His amendments would also curb the minister’s powers to issue directives to Atec. “I don’t understand why a minister would even want these powers,” Pocock told the Senate.

“Can you imagine the lobbying that it opens them up to – the public criticism where they…make a decision that may or may not be ideologically aligned with a certain group?”

He said the bill could empower ministers to ban certain courses and mandate others. “Given what we’ve seen overseas, it’s really not hard to imagine a government banning all sorts of things – welcome to countries, pride events on campus – or interfering with what universities teach about climate change, genocide, the Holocaust. No government should have this sort of power to impose ideologies on our universities.”

The government has tabled its own amendments to rules around the allocation of quotas, variation of funding and spending of needs-based funding. Debate on the bill has been suspended.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com