Centre Alliance holds the cards on university funding bill, adding new demands
More protections for struggling students and a review of the Coalition’s higher education changes are among new demands Centre Alliance has made in return for their support for the job-ready graduate bill.
MP Rebekha Sharkie, the party’s education spokeswoman, revealed the fresh demands to Guardian Australia on Monday ahead of a Senate vote this week in which its senator, Stirling Griff, is the crucial swing vote who can sink or pass the package.
The party is now in the box seat to decide the bill’s fate after the govern
ment did a deal with One Nation and the independent senator Jacqui Lambie declared her opposition to the bill last week.
The bill increases fees for some courses, including humanities, to fund fee cuts for other courses such as sciences and an overall cut in the government contribution from 58% to 52%.
Sharkie said discussions with the government are positive but her party is still seeking to “improve some deficiencies” in the bill. The new demands are “only some of many” it has made, she told Guardian Australia.
In September, Centre Alliance revealed it had also asked for extra growth places for South Australian universities in order to obtain its support.
In response to concerns the bill would cut students off from government funding if they fail more than half their courses in first year, Sharkie said Centre Alliance had asked for legislative protection of special circumstances that could excuse a high fail rate. These include illness, death, mental illness, divorce or natural disasters such as bushfire.
Centre Alliance also wants the bill to be reviewed within 18 months, a timeframe that would leave one-and-ahalf years to make changes before transition funding is phased out by 2024.
Lambie has urged the Senate to block the bill, arguing it will make university more expensive for poor students. South Australian senators Rex Patrick and the Greens’ Sarah Hanson Young have also piled pressure on Centre Alliance on the basis the state’s three universities oppose it.
The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi made a last-ditch pitch on Monday, arguing Centre Alliance should hold out for new money for the sector.
“The government can fund new student places without forcing through this complicated overhaul of fee hikes and funding cuts,” she said, citing education minister Dan Tehan’s promise last week of an extra $326m for new places in 2021.
“Centre Alliance has a choice now. Help the Liberals deliver their austerity package and sell out already struggling young people, or join crossbenchers, the Greens and Labor in blocking the bill to demand a better deal for our students and universities.”
Sharkie said that the bill is “large and complex” and Centre Alliance still hasn’t arrived at a final position.
Sharkie said media coverage and union campaigning had focused on just one element of the bill, higher fees for some humanities courses, while neglecting to mention students can cut course costs by studying other subjects even within that discipline, such as English and other languages.
The National Tertiary Education Union are lobbying Centre Alliance ahead of a vote in the Senate later this week, in time for universities to plan their 2021 budgets.
In July, Sharkie said she had “serious concerns” about fee rises of up to 113% for humanities students, warning the hikes were “grossly unfair” on students currently in year 12.
But in September, Sharkie softened the party’s opposition by noting “parts of the bill … have merit but what’s proposed for South Australia is concerning”.
Because all three of the state’s universities are classified as low-growth metropolitan universities, the package currently offers them funding for a 1% growth in bachelor places, compared with 2.5% for high-growth metro universities and 3.5% for regional universities.
Centre Alliance wants South Australian universities treated as regional to gain the 3.5% growth.
One of the peak bodies representing universities, Universities Australia, has called on the crossbench to back the job-ready graduate package to achieve funding certainty. But there is still strong backlash among research-intensive universities who fear cuts to their teaching and learning budgets.
On Sunday Tehan said he would keep working to get a result in budget week.
“I want to thank the Senate crossbench for their good faith negotiations,” Tehan said. “I look forward to continuing to work with the crossbench to secure passage of the legislation.”