Topics: Student-first policy, student safety
Stephen Cenatiempo: The Coalition has pledged what they’re calling a ‘Student-first’ education policy, which whilst, you know, there’s probably a lot more that needs to be done here, they’ve actually hit a lot of the important areas. Slashing foreign student enrollments, forcing universities to work with police on student safety, banning University boards from setting million dollar salaries for their vice chancellors, among other things. To talk to us about this, the shadow education minister, Senator Sarah Henderson, is with us. Sarah, good morning.
Senator Henderson: Stephen, a very good morning to you.
Stephen Cenatiempo: This is a pretty good start. Student–first, I mean, what a novel approach.
Senator Henderson: Well, it is a very good start but it’s a very important premise of our publicly funded universities that students are put first in everything that universities do, I have been concerned for a long time that there hasn’t been enough focus on students, whether it’s on completion rates, student satisfaction, whether it’s on the quality of courses, teaching excellence, and frankly, the universities do need to change. I think it’s been a pretty grim couple of years where they’ve lost a lot of community trust. Of course, that has been very much driven by the Albanese government, Stephen, because there’s been absolute chaos with university policies, whether it be on international students, whether it be on things like trying to provide support to students and lots of other chaos with various policies that just haven’t landed. So we are very focused on getting back to basics, getting our universities back on track and putting students first and foremost.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Do you think it’s possible to reform this sector without some sort of wholesale overhaul? Because I believe the university sector started to decline under the Hawke government, when they decided to create all of these new universities and and try and convince people that if you didn’t go to university, you were a failure. We’re now seeing a skill shortage in the trade sector because of that, and universities pumping out a whole bunch of useless degrees. Do we need to maybe reform the kind of degrees that universities can provide as well?
Senator Henderson: Well, I think Stephen, in contrast to the Albanese government, we don’t believe that universities are the panacea. Many Australians have fantastic choices to do all sorts of things when they leave school, and that, of course, includes pursuing a trade or pursuing some other sort of study or some other sort of qualification that does not involve going to university. But we are really concerned also about some of the modeling that the government has not, for instance, made public. So they’re saying that we need another million students in universities by 2050 we haven’t seen any evidence of that, because as we know, when it comes to building anything in this country, our engineers are important, our architects are important, but so are our welders and our boilermakers. And I really think that this government has lost sight of that, and you’ve made a really good point that we’ve been talking about for quite a long time, our trades are critical, and we really need to elevate the standing of trades in our community. And of course, Sussan Ley, the Shadow Industry Minister, is also doing a fantastic job in that regard as well.
Stephen Cenatiempo: What about research? We often hear stories about ridiculous PhD programs and research programs on things that matter to absolutely nobody, but there’s public funding being poured into these things. How do we resolve that?
Senator Henderson: Well, Stephen, one of the things that the government has done, which I think was just so foolhardy and so irresponsible, was that they abolished the ministerial discretion in relation to the Australian Research Council Research Program, which is about a billion dollars every year that is spent on research. Now, if there are rubbish research projects being funded, the minister must have the right to step in and say, ‘that is not good enough’. And we did that on a few occasions when we saw some really inappropriate research projects which would not advance us as a nation, and if we are using taxpayer-funded research dollars, every single dollar is precious and that’s the point that I have made. And I was pleased under the new chair of the ARC last night, Professor Shergold, he gave some very good evidence in estimates where he emphasised the importance of spending taxpayer dollars wisely. So I was very heartened by that. But this government has lost sight of that mission. That is not good enough, and we have announced that we will reinstate ministerial discretion, because if a research project is, you know, Tanzanian goats in the 1920s or if it’s decolonisation on a flat earth, or whatever some of the rubbish things that I’ve seen, then the minister must have the opportunity to step in and make sure that every single research project is in the national interest.
Stephen Cenatiempo: You’ve talked about safety on university campuses, and we saw it right across the country, and in no small part, here at the Australian National University, these pro-Hamas and Hezbollah encampments that were set up on university campuses where we had Jewish students afraid to go to school, Jewish academics afraid to turn up the classes, and a lot of that’s got to be sheeted home to the government’s lack of leadership on this anti-semitism issue. But our university leadership has been complicit too?
Senator Henderson: Well it has. We have seen a terrible weakness of leadership from both the Albanese government and the Education Minister, Jason Clare, and also our university vice chancellors, and some 16 months after that terrible day on the 7th of October 2023, Stephen, I think at least some of our university vice chancellors are looking back and regretting the decisions that they made. They took no action when they should have acted. So, of course, when you’ve got an education minister who did nothing about the encampments, he did nothing about the building invasions, there were two Israeli academics who were barricaded in a room that he never spoke about. He did nothing about the academic who encouraged children to chant terrorist slogans. And of course, there were members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which is an extremist group in this country, and it’s, of course, a listed terrorist organisation in other countries. He did nothing to throw the book at the universities and to say this is absolutely unacceptable, I mean, we asked for the police to be called in. There were unlawful activities happening on universities. Jewish students and staff were being terrorized. They were being menaced and this government did nothing. And so we are determined to have a zero tolerance approach to antisemitism on Australian university campuses. That’s why we’ve announced a special code that we will introduce. We’ve announced that we will also implement the IRA definition of anti-semitism. We are going to leave no stone unturned. I have to tell you, Stephen, I am so angry about this. I look at the pathetic leadership that we have seen under this government for the last two and a half years and it is not good enough. As I say, we need to get our universities back on track and fixing student safety, making sure campuses are a safe place to be for everyone, is absolutely at the centre of our plan.
Stephen Cenatiempo: You’ve got a big job ahead of you. Senator, good to talk to you this morning.
Senator Henderson: Wonderful to talk to you, Stephen.