SA senator to hold deciding vote on uni job-ready funding reforms after Lambie rejects Bill
Divisive changes on how much students pay to go to uni hang in the balance with an SA senator holding the final vote on whether the reforms go ahead. Funding for SA’s unis are crucial, he says.
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South Australia Senator Stirling Griff will decide the fate of proposed reforms to university fees and funding.
Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie on Wednesday night said the reforms needed to go back to the drawing board.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the vote that tells the country that poor people don’t get dream jobs,” she said in a statement.
Senator Griff, from the Centre Alliance, said his party was still in discussions with the Federal Government and had not settled on a decision.
“We’re still talking to our local unis because the priority for us is that SA isn’t penalised,” Senator Griff said.
Senator Lambie’s rejection follows independent SA Senator Rex Patrick saying the Bill cannot be saved.
The Government needed one of the three senators to vote for the Bill which proposes to increase the number of places but decrease funding per student and funnel students into so-called job-ready pathways by changing fees.
Mayo MP Rebekah Sharkie, the Centre Alliance spokeswoman on higher education, said talks with the Government had been “fruitful” but there were several changes Centre Alliance was pursuing.
SA’s three universities want to be classified as regional which would trigger a higher annual growth rate of 3.5 per cent in funding rather than the 1 per cent under the Government’s plan to call them metropolitan.
“That is a very fair demand because we don’t have very large regional centres and our kids come in from the regions to study at our city campuses,” Ms Sharkie said.
Fixing that would be “a step in the right direction” but not enough to lock in a Centre Alliance vote.
Ms Sharkie also would like regional study centres established and has concerns about the intention to freeze out students who fail more than half their courses.
Students might have extenuating circumstances – such as being affected by a bushfire or a significant personal trauma – that may have disrupted their studies, she said.
Senator Lambie said the reforms favoured wealthy students, including make the some degrees far more expensive for students.
“The only ones getting bullied into doing the course that wasn’t their first choice are the kids who are scared off by having to shoulder a massive debt,” she said.
“If money is no object, it doesn’t matter what the price tag is.”
Also on Wednesday, federal Education Minister Dan Tehan announced an extra $326 million would be allocated to universities in 2021 to create additional 12,000 places.
“We are doing this in recognition of the challenges faced by the Year 12 class of 2020, who
have endured a final year of school like no other, and those who have lost their jobs and who
need to retrain and re-skill to find another,” he said.
Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson welcomed the Budget pledge.