Fake culture wars a distraction from fee hikes, cuts & chaos

Jake Wishart Communications Organiser (Digital)

As Dan Tehan took to the podium at the National Press Club on June 19, our sector was in crisis: a $16 billion revenue black-hole predicted for 2023-2024; a workforce locked-out of JobKeeper three times; 30,000 people projected to lose their jobs. In a pandemic-recession wreaking havoc, Australia's higher education sector was looking for leadership from the Minister .

Instead of announcing what was desperately needed – a real support package to save jobs and an injection of new money to 'build a bridge' to the other side – what we heard was a recipe for fee hikes, funding cuts and chaos for university courses. Rather than bridge building, the Government is more interested in blowing up bridges in a fake culture war pitting the humanities against STEM, and socalled 'pro-job' vs 'no-job' degrees against one another.

As NTEU Monash Branch President Ben Eltham observed in The Guardian, these false dichotomies are a distraction. The reality is that the Tehan scheme is a threat to the idea of accessible, quality education in Australia – and it must be defeated by our union in the workplace and in the Senate.

Behind the spin and the reheated culture wars, Tehan’s scheme amounts to a 15% cut in funding per student, with many degrees more than doubling in price. The scheme would see a significant reduction in the proportion of government funding going to higher education as a whole, with a fall in total CGS funding of between $800–$900m per year at current enrolment levels.

For those degrees fortunate enough to see a fee reduction, the resources available to teach those courses will be similarly slashed. As usual, staff are being asked to do more with less.

The impact on students isn’t much better. For many it will mean deeper debt and harder choices – particularly for those who might be more sensitive to a huge HECS price tag. We know who those students are: women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, mature age students, students from low SES backgrounds. The very people who tweeted up a storm when we asked about being the 'first in family' to attend university.

For a Government that is fond of banging on about the national debt, it’s apparently relaxed and comfortable about saddling the next generation of students with even deeper debt for the benefit of a decent education.

Encouragingly, Tehan’s scheme has been met with widespread alarm and concern – and not just from the usual suspects. In Senate hearings the Government’s own education department officials revealed, shockingly, that they had conducted zero modelling on the effect the fee hikes will actually have on student course choices.

This revelation only serves to underline the concerns expressed by Former Liberal Deputy Leader and ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop when she said the scheme would have the opposite effect to the Minister’s stated policy objectives.

Crucial crossbench Senators have also flagged reservations about cost being used as a blunt instrument, and the unfair treatment of degrees like social work which are being whacked with huge hikes, despite giving back to some of the most disadvantaged in our community. Most remarks were diplomatic versions of Guy Rundle’s more direct observations in Crikey: 'The Government's university fee hike is a sloppy, rushed proposal which will achieve the opposite of what it proposes.'

So far, the NTEU's #FundUniFairly campaign has seen thousands of community members sending messages to key crossbench senators. We will continue to work with members and supporters to communicate our concerns to decision makers.

In addition to the air war, we need to organise in our workplaces. All too quiet in this whole mess have been the Vice-Chancellors, who thus far have failed to cut through the noise on behalf of their institutions and the sector. God knows they are paid enough to be better advocates than that.

We understand the Minister has telegraphed his desire to keep a select few VCs 'in the tent' as he seeks to ram these changes through. Part of the Union's job will be to ensure VCs are not sitting around enjoying tea and biccies while the sector gets shredded.

If you haven’t done it already, we encourage you to sign an open letter to your VC calling on them to oppose the changes. Stay safe and see you on the campaign trail. •