Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Cargotten woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Just a warning on this episode, we will be talking
Speaker 2: about sexual violence. If you or someone you know needs help,
Speaker 2: you can call one eight hundred respect.
Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Monday,
Speaker 3: the twenty fourth of July.
Speaker 2: I'm Tom Crowley, I an Nicople and we're standing in
Speaker 2: for Sam and Zara.
Speaker 3: Just for today, the government is scrapping the Rule Nina
Speaker 3: which says failing a university subject makes you ineligible for
Speaker 3: a hex loan. It's just one announcement off the back
Speaker 3: of a new report commissioned by the government looking at
Speaker 3: how to improve higher education in Australia. There's set to
Speaker 3: be a major shakeup to Australia's university sector.
Speaker 4: Reporter says universities need to rethink how they treat their students.
Speaker 4: To improve retention rates and outcomes rich, poor, City, Bush,
Speaker 4: black and white. We need to set up a system
Speaker 4: that's sustainable for the long term that helps all young
Speaker 4: people get a crack at university.
Speaker 3: We'll let you know what the report found and what
Speaker 3: changes we can expect in the deep dive, But first,
Speaker 3: what's making headlines this morning.
Speaker 2: Major fires on the Greek island of Rhodes have led
Speaker 2: to thousands being evacuated, with temperatures across the country hitting
Speaker 2: forty five degree celsius. A number of European neighbors have
Speaker 2: sent firefighting resources to the area. Meanwhile, a number of
Speaker 2: key tourist sites in the country remains shut during the
Speaker 2: hottest times of the day.
Speaker 3: Big W says it will be stopping an in store
Speaker 3: announcement affirming its support for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament,
Speaker 3: which will be voted on in a referendum later this year.
Speaker 3: Big W was playing a message as part of an
Speaker 3: acknowledgment of country across its stores, but it will be
Speaker 3: now taking that message down based on customer and store
Speaker 3: team feedback.
Speaker 2: The Good Vibes Festival in Malaysia has been canceled after
Speaker 2: the lead singer of India banned the nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: Matt Healey attacked the country's leadership over the anti LGBT laws.
Speaker 2: Heally said, I do not see the point of inviting
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventy five to a country and then telling
Speaker 2: us who we can have sex with before kissing beast
Speaker 2: player Ross McDonald. Homosexuality is a crime in Malaysia and
Speaker 2: can attract a twenty year prison sentence.
Speaker 3: And the good news, a possible solution for disposing nuclear
Speaker 3: waste has been discovered by researchers at the University of Houston.
Speaker 3: Molecular crystals capable of capturing radioactive pollutants could be used
Speaker 3: for waste management and other sustainability related applications. All right,
Speaker 3: So Nina, we're talking about universities today because the government
Speaker 3: has released a fairly wide ranging review on the university sector.
Speaker 3: So it gives us a chance to spend a little
Speaker 3: bit of time talking about it.
Speaker 2: A long awaited review as well.
Speaker 3: It was a while coming, and I think, you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes when we get these big reviews, they can be
Speaker 3: a little bit doom and gloom, and there are some
Speaker 3: negatives to come to later on. But I think we
Speaker 3: should start with universities really as a great Australian success story.
Speaker 3: We're coming off decades in Australia where attendance rates at
Speaker 3: universities have increased. The university industry, if you like, is
Speaker 3: a massive export. We have so many international students who
Speaker 3: come to Australia. Australian universities punch above our weight on
Speaker 3: the global scale, and university attendance here at home has
Speaker 3: made a huge difference to the lives of many people.
Speaker 3: But just like any sector, there are issues and this
Speaker 3: government report focused on some of those issues. It asked,
Speaker 3: I guess three key questions that we might focus on today.
Speaker 3: The first of those is how well are universities doing
Speaker 3: and offering opportunities to as broad across section of people
Speaker 3: as possible, and in particular to giving educational opportunities to
Speaker 3: people from disadvantage backgrounds. Then once they get there, are
Speaker 3: they getting a good experience? Are they safe and happy?
Speaker 3: And do they have the supports that they need? And
Speaker 3: then finally, is the way that we're funding universities and
Speaker 3: the way that we're asking students to contribute to them
Speaker 3: is that working. Are there ways that that can be improved?
Speaker 3: So I think they're the kind of three questions and
Speaker 3: maybe that I mean that last one Nina about the funding,
Speaker 3: might be a good place to start, because that's where
Speaker 3: the big headline was.
Speaker 2: The headline that TDA ran with was that the government
Speaker 2: is scrapping a rule which says university students who fail
Speaker 2: more than fifty percent of their subjects currently aren't eligible
Speaker 2: for hecks. So what did the reports say.
Speaker 3: Well, that rule is on the way out, it seems so.
Speaker 3: It hasn't been around for very long. That rule. It
Speaker 3: was introduced by the Morrison government in twenty twenty and
Speaker 3: it only came into effect last year. And the idea
Speaker 3: was that if students fail more than half their subjects,
Speaker 3: they can't get student loan assistance. So basically they can't
Speaker 3: get a hex loan and they have to pay upfront. Now,
Speaker 3: what this report found was that that disproportionately disadvantages people
Speaker 3: who are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and from regional I guess,
Speaker 3: people for whom there are already barriers to university, and
Speaker 3: particularly in the low sees case, people who are already
Speaker 3: worried about the cost of going to university having this
Speaker 3: additional threat over your head that if you fail you're
Speaker 3: going to have to pay more. It seemed to be
Speaker 3: a barrier.
Speaker 4: At Western Sydney University this year. It has already led
Speaker 4: to one thousand, three hundred and fifty students being forced
Speaker 4: to quit, most of them from poorer backgrounds. More than
Speaker 4: thirteen thousand students at twenty seven universities have already been
Speaker 4: hit by this. Instead of forcing them to quit, we
Speaker 4: should be helping them to pass.
Speaker 3: That's the Minister for Education, Jason Claire, and the report
Speaker 3: recommended acting that rule, Jason Claire suggesting the government will
Speaker 3: follow through.
Speaker 2: So that was the headline that we ran with at TDA.
Speaker 2: What other points were made in this report?
Speaker 3: So they're already really a couple. It was a long
Speaker 3: report that had some really interesting thoughts which we'll get
Speaker 3: to about the broader state of the sector and the system.
Speaker 2: And it is an interim report, right, you still need
Speaker 2: to reap for a final report and recommendations on the
Speaker 2: way forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this I think the Minister is conceiving of.
Speaker 3: This is the beginning of a process. You can call
Speaker 3: it a road map, you can call it a I
Speaker 3: think they call it an accord. You know, you use
Speaker 3: whatever buzzword you like this is the beginning of a conversation.
Speaker 3: But the specific items on the list there were very
Speaker 3: few of them, and they were mostly about this question
Speaker 3: of how do you get people from disadvantage backgrounds into UNI.
Speaker 3: So as well as this fifty percent pass rule, there
Speaker 3: was a suggestion to create more regional university hubs, and
Speaker 3: the idea there was really all about I guess, visibility
Speaker 3: and accessibility across the country rather than just one campus
Speaker 3: in a major city, you know, bringing university education to
Speaker 3: people where they live, to combat regional barriers in particular.
Speaker 3: Then there were also suggestions about how to get more
Speaker 3: First Nation students into university and specifically to guarantee a
Speaker 3: fully funded place for all First Nation students who are
Speaker 3: eligible for their desired course. So that's something that's currently
Speaker 3: in place of First Nation students from regional, rural and
Speaker 3: remote areas. This would broaden it to all First Nation
Speaker 3: students and that was in recognition of the fact that
Speaker 3: although First Nations participation at universities has increased over the
Speaker 3: last decade or more, they still remain underrepresented relative to
Speaker 3: their share of the Australian population in the university population.
Speaker 3: So those were kind of the key action points for
Speaker 3: the government in the shorter term, but there are a
Speaker 3: lot of broader things to say about some directions the
Speaker 3: government might consider going in future.
Speaker 2: One of those other areas that the report brought up
Speaker 2: for consideration was to do with the way the help
Speaker 2: Hex system is currently working. And I did notice that
Speaker 2: when we put up the story on Instagram, a lot
Speaker 2: of the comments related to Hex's debt and the way
Speaker 2: that indexation is occurring. What did the report find.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, it's an issue. I guess a lot
Speaker 3: of our audience probably has HEX debts, and so it's
Speaker 3: understandable that that's a part of the system that they
Speaker 3: focus on a whole lot, this question of how much
Speaker 3: they are asked to contribute to the cost of their degree,
Speaker 3: and in a cost of living context, when people are
Speaker 3: facing a whole lot of financial strain. I think that
Speaker 3: the burden of hextets is something that a lot of
Speaker 3: people have been conscious of. And look, spoiler alert, this
Speaker 3: report hasn't recommended tearing down the HEX system and making
Speaker 3: the whole thing free. And I know there'll be some
Speaker 3: people in the audience who wander about that issue, So
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, it is important. I think to give
Speaker 3: a little bit of a context for why we have
Speaker 3: the system that we have, so I guess Australia did
Speaker 3: used to have free education for a short period of
Speaker 3: time starting from about the seventies. The reason that we
Speaker 3: moved instead to this hex loan system was basically the
Speaker 3: idea that university graduates make a lot more money across
Speaker 3: their lifetime than non university graduates, and this was the
Speaker 3: government at the time suggesting that they should then make
Speaker 3: a contribution to part of the cost of their degree,
Speaker 3: so we don't pay for it all. The government funds
Speaker 3: a portion of our degree that we don't even see.
Speaker 3: It just funds universities directly, but Australian university graduates are
Speaker 3: asked to pay for a portion. They're able to take
Speaker 3: out a loan, and that loan, as I'm sure many
Speaker 3: people know, is income contingent, so you only have to
Speaker 3: start paying it back once you earn above a certain level.
Speaker 3: Currently that level is about fifty thousand. And the idea
Speaker 3: there again is that it's you know, once you start
Speaker 3: earning money out in your career that you have to repay.
Speaker 3: The debt doesn't follow you when you die. There's no
Speaker 3: interest on that debt. It does get updated to match inflation,
Speaker 3: so there are some complications there, but the idea again
Speaker 3: of this system is that university graduates, you can almost
Speaker 3: think about it like a tax on unigraduates in reflection
Speaker 3: of the higher earnings that they're expected to have.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the context what has actually been recommended
Speaker 2: in this report moving forward.
Speaker 3: So, like I say, the review didn't recommend, you know,
Speaker 3: tearing the whole system down, but it did point to
Speaker 3: some I guess quirks of the way the system is
Speaker 3: structured that might be a little bit unfair to a degree,
Speaker 3: no pun intended. So for example, one of them, and
Speaker 3: an issue that we've certainly talked about on this podcast
Speaker 3: is indexation. So your hex det gets updated every year
Speaker 3: in line with inflation, and that's not something we've had
Speaker 3: much cause to notice until recently, when inflation has been
Speaker 3: quite high and a lot of people got a big
Speaker 3: bill shock on their HEX debt in the last year
Speaker 3: or so. The review acknowledged concerns about the way that
Speaker 3: is structured and the way that that's calculated, and whether
Speaker 3: there might be fairer methods. Again of nothing specific for
Speaker 3: the government at this point, but a recognition that might
Speaker 3: be one to look at. And the other one is
Speaker 3: this idea of repayment cliffs. So it comes back to
Speaker 3: I said before, it's roughly fifty thousand dollars is the
Speaker 3: level where you have to start repaying. And the way
Speaker 3: that's structured is a little strange, because if you earn
Speaker 3: a dollar below the amount, you pay nothing, and then
Speaker 3: if you earn a dollar above the amount, you suddenly
Speaker 3: have to pay hundreds of dollars. And that's applied in
Speaker 3: an uneven way that can actually create these weird circumstances
Speaker 3: where sometimes you could get a pay rise at work
Speaker 3: and actually be worse off because you trigger one of
Speaker 3: these extra repayment thresholds. And so the review also recommended
Speaker 3: taking a look about whether that structure is fair, whether
Speaker 3: that structure's sort of distorting people's financial situation. So a
Speaker 3: couple of of kinks in the system that it recommended
Speaker 3: ironing out on the HEX front. But if you're hoping
Speaker 3: to see an end to the HEX system, certainly this
Speaker 3: review hasn't gone there.
Speaker 2: Tom One of the reasons I was really keen to
Speaker 2: see this interim report is that a little while ago
Speaker 2: on the podcast, Zara interviewed Shanna Brenner from end REAP
Speaker 2: on campus. They've been calling for reform in response to
Speaker 2: sexual violence at universities. Did we see anything in this
Speaker 2: report to address those concerns?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a little bit. It did touch on,
Speaker 3: I guess, a range of issues about the human experience
Speaker 3: of going to university because I think, I mean, we've
Speaker 3: been talking a little bit so far about I guess
Speaker 3: the transactional nature of universities, you know, getting as many
Speaker 3: people in as possible, getting them degrees, and then how
Speaker 3: do you make them pay for it? But universities aren't
Speaker 3: just transactional. They're not just conveyor belts to a job,
Speaker 3: you know, they're places where people have their formative years.
Speaker 3: I suppose people do a lot of growing up at university.
Speaker 3: They spend a lot of time there building contacts that
Speaker 3: will last them for a lifetime, thinking about what they
Speaker 3: want to do with their lives. It's really important to
Speaker 3: make sure that universities are a nurturing and welcoming environment
Speaker 3: and of course a safe environment. And I think that
Speaker 3: that was definitely a theme of this review and something
Speaker 3: that Education Minister Jason Clair acknowledged in his press club speech,
Speaker 3: basically suggesting that he was going to raise this issue
Speaker 3: with state and territory ministers.
Speaker 4: Don't underestimate the seriousness with which I take this or
Speaker 4: my willingness to act. Recommendation here is that this is
Speaker 4: the way to do it, and I want to implement
Speaker 4: that recommendation.
Speaker 2: Tom will definitely be keeping an eye on this one,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure we'll get you back on the pod
Speaker 2: when we know more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got the road map. Time to start driving
Speaker 3: down right.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Speaker 2: The Daily Ohs. As always, we really appreciate it. If
Speaker 2: you're listening on Spotify, there's a little box that you
Speaker 2: can tell us what you're thinking if you liked the episode,
Speaker 2: and any feedback you might have. Sam and Zara will
Speaker 2: be back tomorrow. Until then, have an excellent day.