Address to University Chancellors Council Plenary Meeting

Can I start by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land you are meeting on and their Elders past and present.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today at the last plenary meeting of the University Chancellors Council before the merger with UA.

John, can I thank you and everyone here for all the work you have done as a Council.

And for the contribution you will continue to make as part of Universities Australia.

Bringing university chancellors and vice chancellors together makes a lot of sense.

One body representing the leadership of these nationally important institutions at a time of lots of challenges and lots of change.

This is not easy work but it’s important.

I said at the start of this year that this would be a year where the Accord kicks into another gear.

Where we put in place some of the big structural changes in the Accord.

And where the things that have put universities on the front page for the wrong reasons need to be fixed. For good.

And that’s what’s happening.

The ATEC is up and running.

Barney Glover is at the helm.

You all know Barney well.

It’s a big job and I’m sure you agree he is the right person for it.

He knows how important universities are and how important all of this is for Australia.

The first compacts are now almost done.

That’s an important milestone. It’s a key step in building a bigger, better and a fairer system.

To do that we have also got to pass the legislation that’s in the Parliament at the moment. And I am hopeful that will happen next week.

It puts muscle on the bones of the ATEC.

It will give it the power it needs to manage all the growth that’s coming.

And it will mean more kids from poor families and from the regions and the most remote parts of the country get a chance to go to university, and the help they need when they get there.

It will open the doors of our universities wider.

That’s already started.

When I got this job 274,000 students started a university degree in Australia.

Next year that number will be 354,000.

That’s big. That’s a jump of about 30 per cent.

And it’s just the start.

This legislation will open those doors even wider.

It means an extra 230,000 students getting a chance to go to university over the next ten years and an extra $3.6 billion to support them.

That will change what our universities look like.

But we also have to change the way we act.

That’s what the Student Ombudsman is about.

It’s also what the changes I made to the Threshold Standard in July are all about.

They embed in the Threshold Standards the governance principles recommended by Melinda Cilento, Bruce Cowley and Sharan Burrow last year.

They also require universities to publish the outcomes of council meetings, consultancy spending, external roles of your executives and remuneration reports.

They put in place for the first time explicit requirements to prevent and respond to racism, in all its forms.

These new standards will be enforceable from 1 January next year.

These are important changes and I know you understand why they are needed.

You have held some of the highest offices in the country.

You’ve sat around Cabinet tables and board tables.

You also know that writing down a set of principles or processes is only part of the job.

What matters is how they shape the decisions you make.

And how they help you in the job of steering your institutions.

Universities are autonomous.

Politicians shouldn’t tell you what courses to offer or what research to undertake.

I don’t tell you who to hire or where to invest your resources.

But universities do serve a public purpose.

And they receive more than $22 billion a year from taxpayers to do that.

And they rightly expect universities to act in the public interest.

That’s why these reforms are important.

It also means making changes to TEQSA – the powers it has, and the way it works.

And my intention is to introduce that legislation before the end of the year.

It will make compliance with the Higher Education Standards Framework a condition of registration.

It will give TEQSA clearer powers to require providers to remedy breaches.

It will strengthen its ability to respond to systemic problems, including racism and governance failures.

And it will give it the ability to fine providers that breach the standards, and it will substantially increase existing civil penalties.

But it’s not just about the way universities are governed.

It will also change the way TEQSA is governed too.

And I will have more to say about that soon.

The good that universities do is vast, and I know sometimes it can feel like you don’t get credit for that.

Universities are big and complex beasts, and you have to make difficult with consequences that last a long time.

That’s a big responsibility.

It’s important work.

And it will become even more important in the years ahead.

That’s because more Australians will need the skills that only you can provide.

But not just that. It’s more than that.

The research only you do will make and remake the world we live in. And that our children will inherit.

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

And a better country.

And I want our universities to be better too.

That’s what the Accord is about. That’s what all of this is about.

The decisions you make around a council table reach well beyond that room.

They affect the young person, or older person, wondering if university is for someone like them.

They affect the researcher who has an idea that could change the world.

And they affect people who will never set foot on your campus, but whose lives will be different and better because of what happens there.

Thank you for what you do. Thank you for the good you do.

And thank you for working with me on the reforms we are making to make our education system even better.