Address to Universities Australia Gala Dinner

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we meet on tonight. The Ngunnawal people. And I pay my respects to their elders past and present.

This is a who’s who of higher education.

As I look around the room, I see Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors, Chief Commissioners and Commissioners, the Chief Scientist and Chief Executives, professors and a few politicians.

I want to recognise Julian Leeser, the Shadow Minister for Education who is here.

And Tony Cook, the absolutely extraordinary Secretary of my department.

I also want to mention someone who isn’t here.

That’s Emma. Emma Johnston.

I told the story at Emma’s memorial the other day about sitting around a campfire with her last year.

Talking to her about ideas I had.

And how in her own gentle way she helped me understand why I was wrong and how she gave me a better idea.

She was something special.

Someone capable of not just carrying the torch forward, but taking us in a new direction.

Lighting a better path.

But that was taken from her.

And from us.

Thank you Luke and Carolyn for the honour of being asked to speak here again tonight.

I really do appreciate it.

I never thought I would get the chance to do this once let alone five times.

It is the greatest privilege of my life to do this job.

There aren’t many jobs like it.

That give you so much opportunity to do so much good.

Where the decisions you make can change the lives of people who aren’t even born yet.

And the country we are yet to become.

I don’t take it for granted.

And I don’t want to waste a day.

If I am honest, from time to time it also triggers a bit of imposter syndrome.

That voice that whispers in your ear, telling you you’re not good enough.

It gnaws at me.

But it’s also part of what drives me.

For a long time I have had the same reoccurring dream.

I am at university and I am told I can’t graduate.

There is a course I haven’t done. Or an assignment I haven’t finished.

It wakes me up.

I’m not really sure what it means.

But I do know what being here, right now, means.

This job.

And I am not done here either.

This is a big year.

More Australians will start a university degree this year than ever before.

It’s also a year where reform kicks into another gear.

Where the big reforms to break down the barriers that stop kids from disadvantaged backgrounds getting into university and getting through, get switched on.

When some of the big structural changes start to take shape.

It’s also a year where some of the things that have put universities on the front page of newspapers for all the wrong reasons need to be fixed, for good.

I don’t like it when people say universities are overrated or friendless.

It’s not true.

I know how important every single person in this room is and the institutions you work for.

I know how important you are in making the future our kids will live in.

The things you will discover. The diseases you will cure. The businesses you will create.

The lives you will change.

Universities change the world, like almost nothing else does.

But universities also have to change with it.

That’s what the Accord is about.

It’s a blueprint for change.

To help us build something that is bigger, and better, and fairer than we have today.

To help us build the workforce of tomorrow. The country of tomorrow.

And the architect of that of course, is Mary O’Kane, who is here tonight.

I know it’s called the Accord, but as I have said before, it really should be called the O’Kane Reforms.

Some of them are built on the shoulders of giants like Denise Bradley.

Others are ideas gathered directly from people in this room.

All of them have Mary’s fingerprints on them.

Mary didn’t just write the Accord, she has helped build it.

As the first Chief Commissioner of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, Mary has helped take the words she wrote off the page and bring them to life.

And I want to take this opportunity again tonight to pay tribute to you.

The ATEC that you designed and built, is now in the Parliament.

And in the next few weeks I hope it will pass.

Of all the things in the Accord, I think this is the most important.

Not because of what it will do this year or next year, but what it has the potential to do in the next decade and the decade after that.

You want real long-term, systemic reform? This is it.

Instead of the hunger games we have at the moment where universities are encouraged to be the same size and eat each other alive for students, the ATEC will help us build something different.

A system that’s bigger than we have today, double the size.

A system that’s built around the know how of each university, and the needs of the nation.

A system where we have universities of different sizes and who do different things.

More like a constellation than the cut and paste approach we have today.

A system that’s more seamless. More connected. Where it’s easier to move between TAFE and university. And get the skills you need quicker and cheaper.

The ATEC will help us do all of this and more.

It will have real power to shape the system.

It will be independent. It will be able to tell governments things they don’t want to hear and call out the things that need to happen next.

The only real reason to oppose it is if you think the way things work at the moment is good enough.

I don’t.

I am looking forward to seeing the Senate Report when it comes out in the next few days.

And the ideas in it.

I want to take this opportunity to also thank Barney Glover, Larissa Behrendt, Fiona Nash and Tom Calma.

Mary, Barney and Larrisa were the first ATEC Commissioners. Barney has now been joined by Tom and Fiona.

What they have done, and what they are doing right now, isn’t easy.

Change is hard.

Last year they helped land the student load for this year. That wasn’t easy. It could have gone very bad. The work they did was critical.

And it’s not the only thing they are doing.

They have set up a group led by Professor Stephen Duckett to work on the cost of teaching and learning.

Another piece of work led by Emeritus Professor Liz Johnson on improving the professionalism, quality and capability of teaching at universities.

Work on a First Nations Higher Education Framework.

And work on a more joined up tertiary education system. And I will come back to that in a minute.

In the next few months I will introduce another piece of legislation.

This will give the ATEC the tools it needs to build a system that’s not just bigger and better, but one that’s fairer too.

This is the bill that switches on the two big equity engines in the Accord.

The first time I spoke at this event I talked about this. I think I have talked about it every time and everywhere ever since.

About the sort of education system we have, and the one we need.

I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on how rich your parents are, where you grew up, what school you went to, or the colour of your skin.

But we are.

If you want proof of that look at who’s at university today.

17 percent of students in our universities are from the poorest 25 percent of families.

If you think that is ok or good enough, we are probably not going to agree on much.

If you think it’s better than it used to be, I have got bad news for you. It hasn’t changed that much in the last 30 years.

And it needs to change.

The sort of country we need to become means it needs to change.

A country where more jobs require more skills.

That means we need to change the way our entire education system works.

To build a system based more around need.

A system based on evidence.

And reform that does both.

That’s what the changes to childcare that started last month are about. That guarantees every child who needs it access to three days a week of subsidised education and care.

That’s also what fixing the funding of our public schools is about. Something no government has ever done, until now. Until the agreements that we now have struck with every State and Territory.

It’s the biggest new investment in our public schools by an Australian Government ever.

And it’s not a blank cheque. It’s tied to reform. The sort of things we know that work. Evidence based teaching. Phonics checks. Small group tutoring. The sort of things we need to do to turn around the decline in the number of people finishing high school.

And this bill is the next step.

It will guarantee a place at university for everyone from a poor family, or from a regional or remote location that has what it takes to take on a Bachelors degree.

We have done this for Indigenous students. Now we are doing it for all students from poor families and from the bush.

If you get the marks, or you’ve got the skills, you will get a spot. You will get a place.

A Commonwealth Supported Place.

From next year the ATEC will provide every university with a set number of funded places for Australian students.

That number will be capped.

But the ATEC will be able to lift that cap for students from poor families and students from regional and remote locations.

If they have what it takes, we will fund a place.

What’s the difference between this and what we did 15 years ago? The demand driven system that Bradley recommended?

That increased the number of students at university.

But the percentage of students that came from poorer families didn’t really move at all.

And when the Coalition shut the system down it was kids from poorer families who felt it the most.

What we are doing here is increasing the number of students at university, and providing universities with extra incentive to enrol more students from poorer families and from the bush.

To get them in.

And more financial support to get them through.

That’s the second part of the bill.

Needs based funding.

Think Gonski for universities.

The school funding system provides schools with extra funding based on where they are located and the needs of the students they educate.

Students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds receive additional support. 

So do schools in the regions and the bush.

The Accord recommends we do the same for universities.

It means extra academic and other support services to help students make it through university.

It’s demand driven.

The more students a university has that meet the criteria, the more funding they will receive.

The more students there are at a regional campus, the more funding that university will receive as well.

It starts this year. It starts in a lot of places this week.

This bill will lock it in for good.

All of this - the ATEC, the demand driven system for students from poorer families and needs based funding - will change what the system looks like.

But we also have to change the way it acts.

That’s what the Student Ombudsman is about.

It’s what the Code on Gender Based Violence is about.

And the reforms to governance.

And the changes I have flagged to TEQSA.

I know everyone here will say we are focused on what students want and need.

But it doesn’t mean we are doing everything we need to.

I worry about the inverse relationship between international rankings and what QILT surveys say about student satisfaction.

I worry about what we have lost on campus since Covid, and whether we will ever get it back.

I’m not just worried about the cost of going to university, I am worried about the cost of living that students have to bear while they are there.

It costs a lot more to go to university today than it did when most of us went. It’s about twice as much in real terms.

That’s why cutting student debt by 20 percent was such a big thing in the election.

I know there is more to do. I think we all know that.

One of the things we should do this year is create a standard system that makes getting a degree quicker and cheaper if you already have a TAFE qualification in the same area.

At the moment it’s all over the shop.

Let me give you an example.

If you have a Cert IV in School Based Education Support and you want to become a teacher, some universities will take a year off your teaching degree, some will take six months, some will take three months, some will take nothing off at all.

We need to sort this out. Make it easier for students to get the skills and qualifications they want and need without relying on potluck that they pick the university that offers the best deal.

At the very least we should make it easier for students to compare what every university has to offer.

If we link this up with Free TAFE, it means some students will effectively be able to do the first year of their degree for free.

Some universities are doing this already.

Western Sydney University and the University of Canberra are the pace setters.

But others aren’t far behind.

The IRU wrote to me the other day saying they want to roll this out. 

Barney has also written to me recommending the ATEC develop a National Credit Recognition Framework.

And that as part of that the ATEC would allocate more student places to universities that really lean into this.

An incentive to encourage all universities to maximise the credit they give. 

I like the sound of that.

This is the sort of thing we have to do to make it quicker, cheaper and easier to get the skills you need. And the economic horsepower we need.

I think business can help more here too.

There are some companies at the moment that will employ you while you are studying and when you graduate they will pay off your student debt.

I’d like to see more of that.

I’d also like to see more internships and more degree apprenticeships.

RMIT, Flinders and Adelaide University already do this, but I’d like to see more.

Particularly in areas of real strategic need. There are some good examples overseas and Skills Ministers are working on this at the moment.

There is also more to do to improve teaching and learning. 

I’m not just talking about AI.

The Accord has a whole bunch of recommendations here that we haven’t touched yet.

That includes professional learning and teaching standards for academics, minimum teaching qualifications for teaching roles and professional development for all staff.

We haven’t acted on any of this yet, but I am looking forward to seeing what Emeritus Professor Liz Johnson and the ATEC come back to us with.

The Accord also recommends a strategic examination of the research we fund, right across government. Education, health, defence, industry and other portfolios.

And looking at how to increase our R&D competitiveness.

That’s now done, and it will be released by the Minister for Industry and Innovation, Tim Ayres, in the next few weeks.

Tonight I also want to talk about something else.

About what happened at Bondi.

About antisemitism.

And about our collective responsibility to do everything we can to weed it out and stop it growing back.

People aren’t born antisemitic. We are not born hating anybody.

It’s something that’s taught. That’s learnt.

And it’s something which can metastasise into the most terrifying wickedness.

We tell our children that there is no such thing as monsters, but that’s a lie.

How else do you describe what we all saw on our phones and TVs in December.

But it’s not just monsters we have to fear.

It’s the casual acceptance that some people are treated differently to others.

We are not a racist country, but that doesn’t mean racism doesn’t exist. Of course it does.

And it creeps into campuses just like it does everywhere else.

I will never know what it’s like to be discriminated against because of who I am. Or what I am. Because of my faith. Or my accent. Or the colour of my skin.

But what I can do, what we can all do, is try and put ourselves in the shoes of people who are.

What Atticus tells his daughter Scout to do in To Kill A Mockingbird.

To climb inside someone else’s skin and walk around in it.

We need to do that and more. We need to do something about it.

That’s what the Antisemitism Education Taskforce is about.

We are very fortunate that David Gonski has agreed to chair it.

There is no one better qualified to lead this work than David.

When I rang him and asked him to take on this task his advice to me was pretty simple.

He said it needs to focus on antisemitism. And it needs to look at the whole education system.

And that’s exactly what it will do.

From the Early Years Framework, to the National Curriculum, to the Higher Education Standards Framework.

From teacher training and resources to programs in our schools.

To anywhere else it needs to go.

It will work over the next 12 months, but it won’t report in 12 months. It will meet regularly and provide recommendations to me and to education ministers on a regular basis.

I want to recognise the fact that universities have done a lot of work here in the last few years. 

I know that.

TEQSA has done a lot of work here too. 

That includes the Statement of Regulatory Expectations on complaint mechanisms and work on how to manage external actors on campuses.

The last few years have convinced me though that TEQSA needs better tools to be able act where there is a systemic challenge. And where it is in the public interest.

Whether it’s dealing with antisemitism or anything else.

I talked about this last year, and later this year I will introduce legislation, the first really significant reforms to TEQSA since it was established 15 years ago.

I said a minute ago we are not a racist country. We’re not.

But we’re not blind either. Look hard enough and you will see it.

Listen carefully enough and you will hear it.

Read through the Race Discrimination Commissioner’s report I released last week and you will find it.

It’s hard reading.

It doesn’t say racism is any worse in our universities than anywhere else, but that’s not the point.

It makes it clear we are not doing everything we can, or should.

You can see that in the answers that 76,000 staff and students gave.

Their stories should compel us to act.

I think we can be proud of what we have done together over the last few years in response to evidence of sexual violence on campus.

That started with a similar report from the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins.

And we can do the same here.

But it’s up to us.

As a first step I have announced that we will change the Threshold Standards to require universities to demonstrate they are taking action against racism.

It’s not the only change we will make to the Standards this year.

There’s also the changes we have to make to university governance.

The changes recommended by Melinda Cilento and the Expert Council on University Governance and the Senate.

That includes changes to the Threshold Standards, changes to how Vice-Chancellor salaries are set and changes to make University Boards and Councils more open and accountable.

I have talked about some tough stuff tonight.

About things we need to fix.

Things we need to change.

It’s not because I don’t value what we have right now.

Or appreciate what you do.

Or how important it is.

It’s because I do.

Because the future we talk about isn’t possible without you.

Universities really are the great hope for anyone seeking a better world.

Two months ago or so I was in India with Luke and a few others here.

We were in a slum in Delhi.

And we met a woman named Dr Kiran Martin.

If you want to be inspired, want to be convinced that hope is not just a word, meet Dr Kiran.

Almost 40 years ago she walked into that slum for the first time. A freshly minted paediatrician in the middle of a cholera outbreak.

The cholera didn’t scare her away.

Neither did the local slumlords.

A year after she arrived she set up the Asha Society.

Asha means hope in Hindi.

And over the last few decades it’s done just that.

It’s provided basic sanitation, primary healthcare and education.

It’s now in a hundred different slums, changing the lives of more than a million different people.

Some of those people have made their way all the way here.

When I was there, I met Nancy who lived in the slum. 

A young woman, who because of Dr Kiran, got the education her parents didn’t. Who finished school. Who went to university. Who got a Bachelor of Arts degree. 

She majored in Political Science and she graduated with Honours.

Last year Nancy got a scholarship to do a Masters degree in International Relations at Melbourne University.

She starts it next week and she is here with us right now.

That’s what I mean when I talk about the power of education.

That talent is everywhere. It’s opportunity that’s not. 

And that education can change that.

That a woman with a medical degree and a big heart can change the lives of millions.

That a child born into a world with almost nothing, can become anything.

And that our universities can be part of that.

Can make that possible.

This is the great enterprise that we are all so fortunate to be a part of.

The torch that we all hold in our hands.