Kick 'em when they're down: Job-Ready Graduates Bill becomes law

Michael Evans National Organiser (Media & Engagement)

Despite the NTEU's best efforts, the Morrison Government’s Job-Ready Graduates legislation was passed in the Senate by the barest of margins – one vote – on 8 October.

This was after a frenetic few days of last-minute campaigning by members and supporters to win Centre Alliance’s vote, after independent Senators Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick publicly declared they would oppose the Bill.

The campaigning included a giant mobile billboard calling on Centre Alliance (CA) to vote against the Bill, which was driven around CA MP Rebekha Sharkie’s electorate of Mayo over a long weekend, and a snap online action on 2 October where over 300 members, students and supporters around the country sent emails, social media posts and phoned the CA MPs’ offices.

CA Senator Stirling Griff, whose vote was the one that got the Bill over the line, announced a few days before the vote that he would support the Bill, saying that it would provide 'funding certainty' to universities from next year, and end the funding freeze imposed by the Government in 2019.

But the only 'funding certainty' that Centre Alliance has delivered to Australia’s universities is an overall funding cut of $1 billion.

It is especially disappointing that Centre Alliance has chosen to ignore the thousands of constituents who contacted them to oppose the Bill, something that we hope South Australian voters remember at the next federal election.

We also hope that the price that Senator Griff sold his vote for is worth it to a generation of students who will now be burdened with overwhelming debt, or deterred from seeking a university education because of the cost.

The legislation will strip $1 billion of funding from universities, more than double the cost of many courses and in particular arts and humanities courses, and make it more difficult for many students to go to university. It will jeopardise more university jobs, increase insecure employment and the quality of education provided to students.

It is also extremely disappointing that this has been done with the complicity of the majority of Vice-Chancellors who supported the package, and we ask them to explain why they supported a package that will make university even more expensive for their students, while reducing the funding for research and teaching overall.

Thousands of NTEU members, supporters, students and friends, including student organisations NUS and CAPA, signed petitions, wrote submissions, attended online and in-person rallies, posted on social media, and wrote, phoned and emailed politicians expressing their opposition to this unfair legislation, under the banner of the Fund Uni Fairly campaign (see the October edition of Sentry for more details of the myriad of activities we did to convince the crossbench Senators to oppose the Bill).

It’s fair to say that our vigorous campaign was a significant factor in persuading both Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick to vote against the Bill.

This legislation does nothing to address the funding and jobs crisis that is smashing our universities as a result of COVID-19, with over 12,000 jobs lost and a revenue shortfall of nearly $3 billion.

The author of this mess is Dan Tehan and the Coalition Government, which has completely abandoned Australian universities during their worst ever crisis.

Rather than stepping in with a robust support package, the Liberals and Nationals have pushed the cost of the crisis onto students and the university workforce. Livelihoods and careers are being destroyed and irreparably damaged.

This Government has used the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to implement an agenda which sees less funding for universities to teach and research, more debt for students, opens the door to rampant privatisation, and drives up insecure jobs in higher education – its agenda is to cut the heart out of our university sector in what is an ideologically driven vendetta against universities, students and staff.

The campaign to repeal this legislation and win fair university funding will continue and run right up to the federal election and beyond. We need a fair and equitable higher education system where obtaining a degree doesn’t depend on your capacity to pay.