ºÚÁÏÀÏ˾»ú

***Check against delivery***

Thank you to the National Press Club for giving ºÚÁÏÀÏ˾»ú this opportunity to address the nation today.Ìý

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal People on whose lands we meet, and I pay my respects to Indigenous people with us today, including leaders in the university sector.Ìý

I also pay my respects to the 23,000 Indigenous students currently studying at our universities, preparing to become the healthcare workers, teachers, engineers, artists, businesspeople, public servants and community leaders of tomorrow.Ìý

I also want to acknowledge some other important people in the room today:Ìý

• Parliamentarians, diplomats and leaders of peak bodiesÌý

• senior public servants, including the Secretaries of the Departments of Education and Foreign AffairsÌý

• Australian Tertiary Education Commission and Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Commissioners, the CEO of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, and the Chief ScientistÌý

• Chancellors, Vice Chancellors and industry leaders, andÌý

• my husband Stephen and parents Tess and Terry.Ìý

Today, I want to talk to you about the potential of Australians.Ìý

In particular, the untapped potential of people across our country and the role our universities are and must continue to play in helping them create a better future for themselves, their families and our nation.Ìý

Speaking so soon after the Treasurer’s economic reform roundtable, it is inevitable that we immediately think of the economic returns, the productivity lift, that such a change could bring.Ìý

And I absolutely want to speak about this – about the individual and national prosperity that can be driven by our universities working in partnership with other key institutions.Ìý

But I also want to speak of broader and deeper understandings of what it would mean if we could, as a society, help people to use their talents to the full.Ìý

The university I have the privilege of leading, Griffith University, held graduations a few weeks ago.Ìý

As I walked through the corridors, I saw proud parents and grandparents supporting our younger graduates who took the traditional route from school to university.Ìý

I saw older graduates with partners and children – sometimes even grandchildren – of their own. All of them and their supporters were beaming with pride and joy.Ìý

And I know that by undertaking a degree, the data shows that each of these graduates has increased their chances of employment and a good income.Ìý

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, university graduates are still earning a median income 63 per cent higher than people without a non-school qualification.Ìý

But the benefits go deeper than this.Ìý

These graduates have a chance to work in professions that have meaning for them.Ìý

Some have the chance to be a role model for communities under-represented in higher education.Ìý

They’ve had the chance to make new friends and be challenged by new ideas, learn life lessons in student organisations and clubs, perhaps simply experience the joy of learning and understanding the world better – all elements that can be lost when we reduce education to a mere transaction aimed only at enhancing someone’s economic potential.Ìý

Yet these stories of tens of thousands of lives changed for the better disappear in dominant public narratives around universities.Ìý

The exceptional research and its impact on countless lives likewise is diminished, as is our work in our communities.Ìý

Instead, in a complex, challenging environment for higher education around the world, we increasingly hear only the negatives alongside seductive arguments about simple solutions.Ìý

Yet the moment in which we live presents us with both substantial opportunities and very significant challenges for our country that we must tackle in a sophisticated way.Ìý

So today, I want to focus on the way in which some changes in setting from universities, industry and government could help Australia to thrive in a volatile and complex environment.Ìý

As I know, it is always easiest to focus on the flaws of others, so let me recognise up front that universities have needed to face some of the ways that we have fallen short.Ìý

There are issues of governance being raised in a number of quarters with the government having commissioned an Expert Council on University Governance.Ìý

We as a sector are engaging constructively and we will in good faith engage with its recommendations.Ìý

Importantly, we have already seen changes to governance arrangements emerging with chancellors and vice-chancellors recognising the need for more transparency and public benchmarking of remuneration.Ìý

Changes are being made at a number of universities to ensure that student and staff elected members of university councils are treated as equal and respected members.Ìý

And councils are taking greater responsibility for oversight of proper payment of wages and for strategies to prevent and respond to gender-based harm.Ìý

ºÚÁÏÀÏ˾»ú has been working with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency to combat all forms of discrimination and make our campuses safer.Ìý

And we will shortly be building on this through a process to help develop guidance on the complex intersection between academic freedom and free speech with discrimination and hate speech.Ìý

If we as a sector are not prepared to recognise, accept and work to overcome our shortcomings, I accept that we will struggle with public trust.Ìý

But I would also add, that if we as a society only focus on the shortcomings of universities, we will miss the opportunity to work with the higher education sector to drive better results for all Australians.Ìý

So today, I want to focus on the positives – how universities with some help from our friends can help create a better future for Australia.Ìý

In particular, I will look at the role of universities in supporting prosperity, security, fairness and adaptability.ÌýÌý

Let me start with prosperity and its important partner – and flavour of the month – productivity.Ìý

Universities play several roles here.Ìý

The first and most obvious is through teaching which provides people with the skills and knowledge that they need for the jobs of today and the deeper education and understanding they will need to adapt in a workforce that is rapidly evolving and likely to do so in an accelerated way in the age of AI.Ìý

A recent Australian Industry Group report tells us that more than one in five jobs are expected to be fundamentally changed by 2030 due, in part, to technological advancements.ÌýÌý

Furthermore, the Government’s projections suggest our future economy will be more heavily reliant on highly skilled people – including people educated at university.Ìý

This transformation not only requires more school leavers going to university; it will also require significant reskilling and upskilling of existing workers to help them adapt to the evolving job market over the course of increasingly longer careers.Ìý

The university sector is developing modes of education that recognise that learning is lifelong and needs to be responsive to this changing environment.Ìý

Microcredentials, undergraduate and graduate certificates, executive education, degree apprenticeship and the provision of professional training in partnership with employers are some examples.Ìý

It is worth considering models from other countries which have adopted lifelong learning entitlements to support and encourage workers to invest in learning that will allow them to keep up with the skills needed in their current jobs as they are transformed by AI, and also to take on new roles when certain jobs disappear.Ìý

We could further incentivise employers to support upskilling for their employees by changing the rules on fringe benefits tax so that it is clear no employer has to pay FBT on education and training for their staff.Ìý

As Ministers Clare and Giles have recently announced, we could unleash further productivity if we worked towards greater harmonisation of the university and vocational education sectors.Ìý

We welcome the work that the Australian Tertiary Education Commission has been commissioned to undertake in this area and look forward to contributing to the Advisory Committee, with our dual sector universities being particularly well-positioned for this work.Ìý

While making it easier to move both ways between universities and VET is an important first step, there are also opportunities to better measure and credit the experience of Australians in the workplace and of those who have come from overseas, who may be very experienced professionals but who struggle to have their experience recognised and used.Ìý

The second major way in which universities can help to drive productivity is through research and innovation.Ìý

The recent focus on productivity is an important reminder of how critical innovation is to our future prosperity.Ìý

We can and should improve productivity by taking roadblocks out of the way, but true step change is driven by innovation.Ìý

It’s true that Australia invests significant amounts of government and university money into R&D but still spends well below the OECD average with, in particular, nowhere near as much from the private sector as happens in more innovative countries.Ìý

Despite our gross domestic product being comparable to countries like Canada and South Korea, Australia’s business expenditure on R&D is significantly, and stubbornly, lower.Ìý

In 2024, Australian businesses invested $24.4 billion in R&D, about 40 per cent less than Canada and 85 per cent less than South Korea.Ìý

While we welcome the recent uptick in business spending, it remains low as a percentage of GDP.Ìý

It is telling, maybe even a little troubling, that the single biggest source of research funding in Australia is the R&D tax incentive, yet the private sector, especially big business, under-invests in research and tends to focus investment on implementing global developments in Australia.Ìý

There is nothing wrong with bringing the best international practice into Australia, it is a relatively safe and sensible way of improving productivity.Ìý

We should do more of it.Ìý

But Australia should be far more ambitious than that.Ìý

Australia is home to some of the world’s best and brightest minds.Ìý

Our researchers were critical to the development of penicillin, Wi-Fi, the cochlear ear and the human papillomavirus vaccine.Ìý

Just this year, a company spun out from the University of Queensland sold for over a billion dollars potentially revolutionary molecular clamping technology that has the power to enhance millions of lives – a technology, incidentally, that was rejected by venture capital and investors in Australia but snapped up in the United Kingdom.Ìý

We should celebrate this legacy of globally leading research and innovation, but it’s imperative that we build on it if we want to protect both the sovereign capability and future prosperity of this country.Ìý

Let me outline several ways in which we could lift our game.Ìý

The first is relative cheap and relatively simple.Ìý

Let’s consolidate the 150 federal research programs down to a couple of dozen and have the overall research strategy of the Commonwealth overseen by a research and innovation council made up of government, industry, universities and research bodies.

At present our system is disconnected, doesn’t create a clear pathway from fundamental research through to translation and commercialisation, and is not well linked to national strategic priorities.Ìý

Let’s spend our current money better.Ìý

Second, let’s take the administrative savings from doing this and combine it with the annual unspent portion of the Medical Research Future Funds to increase the block grant with an aim over time to increasing it to fifty cents in the dollar.Ìý

Third, we know that when the private sector partners with universities or other publicly funded research institutions it is far more likely that the research will generate new intellectual property.Ìý

This makes a compelling case for a 20 per cent collaboration premium in tax relief for such research recommended now by an alliance of almost 30 groups led by the Business Council of Australia and supported by ºÚÁÏÀÏ˾»ú.Ìý

This could be cost neutral if there was reduced tax incentives for less valuable R&D.Ìý

Fourth, let’s try to ensure that great Australian innovations can be funded in Australia and create jobs here.Ìý

In many countries, patient venture capital has been unlocked by governments and universities working together to create what the University of Melbourne has called a Fund of Funds which has substantial capital and a sufficiently large pipeline of intellectual property to attract private investors.Ìý

Fifth, let’s invest in our existing innovation precincts and have a strategic national plan to develop others, including in our regions.Ìý

Innovation precincts bring together universities, other research institutions, major public institutions like hospitals, and innovative industries which are all engaged in specific research priorities.Ìý

They often include homes for Cooperative Research Centres or Trailblazers.Ìý

If precincts were properly funded, they could include training and support for businesses in adopting and adapting cutting-edge technologies and research, which we know is particularly valuable for small and medium businesses, as well as driving Australian sovereign research and development.Ìý

A scheme of this kind creates platforms for sustained university, government and industry connectivity, contributing towards better economic outcomes but also improved outcomes in areas of national need.Ìý

Let me turn then to security, particularly in a world in which the geopolitical landscape is rapidly changing, universities have an important role to play – again, in both education and research.Ìý

There are multiple ways that universities can and do work to protect national security and there will be a greater role in the future.Ìý

AUKUS will require more people with degrees in physics, engineering, IT and project management, including at doctoral level.Ìý

Universities will be critical to educating this workforce and there are significant opportunities to partner deeply with relevant government and industry partners to improve our outcomes in science and maths – which are in need of significant improvement – and to create pathways into employment.Ìý

We also need to recognise that our research relationships must be oriented towards deep work, particularly in technology rich areas, with our allies.Ìý

Joining Horizon Europe would be a modest investment in not only expanding and accelerating our country’s research capacity but would also deepen ties with like-minded liberal democracies.Ìý

Europe has recognised that innovation unlocks productivity growth and social and technological progress – let’s join with our allies to share in that progress together.Ìý

But in the rush to focus on defence and hardware in defending Australia’s sovereignty, the roles of the humanities and social sciences cannot be overlooked.Ìý

We need people with extensive expertise in the language, culture, history, economics and politics of both our allies and our adversaries.Ìý

We need skilled diplomats, people who can help businesses with overseas trade opportunities, intelligence officers, aid workers and cultural partnership leaders to represent and protect Australia’s interests in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment.Ìý

We need to stop publicly diminishing the humanities and recognise that in an AI age, the critical thinkers, cultural creators and thoughtful philosophers will be needed more than ever.Ìý

It is also worth recognising that the education of international students has been a distinctive and beneficial part of our soft power.Ìý

We have been remarkably successful as a country in educating the political, business and social leaders in many of our neighbouring countries, creating a repository of goodwill and understanding and in some cases direct economic investment.Ìý

The original Colombo Plan was a strikingly farsighted scheme, and the New Colombo Plan has been transformative in getting more young Australians into our region.Ìý

While it is the government’s prerogative to determine international education policy and international student numbers, it’s important that we continue to recognise the significant value of international students in connecting Australia to the world.Ìý

Which brings me to the creation of a fairer Australia.Ìý

The increased participation in education has been a huge driver of social mobility and economic opportunity in our country.Ìý

The highly skilled workers our universities produce underpin a higher standard of living for all Australians, regardless of whether they have attended university themselves or not.Ìý

This is why it is at the heart of the Australian Universities Accord and of the government’s policy priorities that more Australians should enjoy the benefits of higher education and that that growth should come from educating more people from backgrounds that have traditionally not been included.Ìý

To support this, the government has set a national target of 80 per cent of the workforce having a tertiary qualification by 2050 which, if achieved, could add $240 billion in additional income to the economy over that period.Ìý

This is an important and worthy goal – one that universities share and work towards every day.Ìý

It will not, however, be easy and reaching some of these potential students and supporting them into and through university will not be achieved by business as usual.Ìý

Life is financially tough for many Australians, and we are seeing increasing numbers of students in financial distress.Ìý

When I talk to students who have received one of Griffith University’s scholarships, I am frankly in awe of the way that so many of them juggle study, multiple jobs and often carer responsibilities.Ìý

But it doesn’t take much to tip such students out of education – a broken car, a child’s illness – and for many potential students, we are increasingly hearing concerns about the debt they may incur.Ìý

I do want to acknowledge and welcome the government’s recent support for students, most notably through changes to the Higher Education Loan Program and the introduction of the Commonwealth Prac Payment and elements of needs-based funding.Ìý

These reforms will make a real difference in the lives of students.Ìý

But I want to urge the government to keep going, particularly in light of Australia’s critical need to open the door to university for more Australians.Ìý

In pursuit of this goal, the logical next step must be setting new and fairer fees for students.Ìý

Changes to student fees under the Job-ready Graduates Package were, and remain, inherently unfair.Ìý

Under current arrangements, students studying business, law or arts pay seventeen thousand dollars a year while the government contributes a miserly thirteen hundred dollars to the cost of the degree.Ìý

Meanwhile, students studying agriculture or forestry pay only four thousand six hundred dollars and the government generously chips in thirty-two thousand dollars.Ìý

From the introduction of the JRG until 2023, domestic undergraduate enrolments declined six per cent for medium and high SES students but 12 per cent for low SES students.Ìý

In the same period, law and business, which are in the highest payment band, declined 22 per cent for low SES students.ÌýÌý

Indigenous students, nearly a third of whom are enrolled in society and culture degrees, have also been particularly hard hit by the increased fees.Ìý

I welcome the government asking the Australian Tertiary Education Commission to prioritise a review of the cost of teaching in Australian universities, but this is a complex process that will take time.Ìý

In the short term, I would encourage the government to deal with the worst excesses for current students by eliminating the highest level of student contribution and replacing it with the second highest tier.Ìý

This would theoretically cost $770 million a year but it is giving money back to students at a time they need it most.Ìý

Besides, some of this debt is unlikely to be repaid anyway.Ìý

It would be a serious downpayment on a fairer funding system for students, helping open the door to university for more Australians.Ìý

According to independent research by Mark Warburton, Job-ready Graduates and other changes to higher education funding also cut around $1.7 billion in real terms out of higher education compared to 2017 which came on top of the abolition of the Education Investment Fund, which was worth almost $4 billion at the time of its closure.Ìý

These changes too have led to a lack of fairness – staff workloads have increased, class sizes have grown, our classrooms and labs are being run down, and expectations of universities have increased while funding has decreased.Ìý

We are being asked to do much more with far less and that’s not fair on staff or students.Ìý

Our regional universities play a particularly important role in driving fairness, as they do in supporting regional prosperity.Ìý

Regional universities are often anchor institutions, one of the largest employers in their area, providing facilities to whole community, undertaking research that is relevant to their region, helping people from regional areas to access a university education and increasing the likelihood of graduates working locally.Ìý

Yet, the current funding model lets regional universities down badly and, in so doing, lets down the people of regional Australia who are entitled to thriving educational institutions in their communities.Ìý

Despite great hopes, the new regional funding model unfortunately does not appear to do enough to change this situation, and it is unclear what its evidence base is.Ìý

There has absolutely been progress and a commitment by the government to do more – I recognise this, particularly given the many demands on the public purse.Ìý

But the current settings will not be sufficient to achieve the goal of the Accord to increase the number of graduates by increasing participation in equity groups.Ìý

Let me turn finally to agility – which perhaps sits a little strangely alongside the more conventional other three.Ìý

Yet, the only certainty we have about the future is that the pace of change is unlikely to slow and that we will almost certainly be wrong in our predictions about some critical elements of it.Ìý

The impact of AI, robotics and other advanced technologies cannot easily be predicted even over the next couple of years. The longer term is even harder to confidently foresee.Ìý

One of the ways of dealing with this is reinvesting in the idea of meaningful education.Ìý

There is a lot of clamour for universities to roll out students ever more quickly, programmed to meet the skills needs of the day.Ìý

As I mentioned before, universities are responding to these needs, particularly when it comes to upskilling people already in the workforce.Ìý

But let me sound a note of caution here.Ìý

Narrow qualifications focused on immediate skills needs of particular industries will have ever shorter used by dates.Ìý

While I am dismayed at how often universities are left out of the skills discussion when every single one of our degrees has substantial skills elements, I am also concerned about the opposite push – to try to reduce a university education to training in job skills for today only.Ìý

Universities are institutions for education, at their best when supporting students through contextualised frameworks of knowledge, encouraging independent and critical thinking, and developing the intellectual depth that allows people to deploy their talents in changing environments.Ìý

These capabilities will endure when digital disruption changes specific jobs and particular skills.Ìý

Those who are graduating today will still be in the workforce in the 2060s or beyond.Ìý

We should give them a quality foundational educational experience.Ìý

That does not, of course, mean that we can simply keep teaching what we have always taught, in the way in which we’ve always taught it, to the types of students who have always gone to universities.Ìý

Universities too are having to be responsive to new ideas, technologies, social and employer needs.Ìý

We need to recognise when student interests have shifted and look at how disciplines can change, grow and become more relevant.Ìý

And this brings me to regulation.Ìý

Appropriate regulatory frameworks are important – they assure quality, limit danger to students and our society, and weed out those who bring a sector into disrepute.Ìý

Regulation, however, comes at a cost and our sector has seen a growing thicket of regulations and regulators.Ìý

Concerningly, there are no indications that this trend will change in the foreseeable future with multiple new regulators created or on their way.Ìý

There is a literal cost here – the cost to the taxpayers of the regulators, the cost universities take on as we need to divert more resources into responding to regulators and compliance.Ìý

In an increasingly strained financial environment where every bit of expenditure in one place has to be made up for in another, this means – to put it bluntly – that we are sucking money out of the classroom and students and into Canberra and compliance.Ìý

We need to cut back regulation, ensure that the increasing number of regulators work in a coherent and consistent way, and commit to reducing the existing regulatory burdens.Ìý

Because it is not just money that is the problem with over regulation – it is the impact on culture and ambition.ÌýÌý

Too many people are wasting too much time and effort on tasks that minimally reduce risk and which wears them down – filling in forms, chasing down data, creating reports, undertaking compulsory annual trainings.Ìý

This makes it much harder to be innovative or agile – the risk from regulators is much reduced if you are doing the same thing that you have always done; the same thing that all the other universities are doing.Ìý

As the Treasurer’s economic reform roundtable has recognised, over-regulation is a serious problem for us as a country.Ìý

We must not be so emersed in minimising risks that we never seize opportunities.Ìý

We must not focus so much energy on regulation that we kill innovation and ambition.Ìý

And so, let me return to my starting point with those students graduating this year.Ìý

We often hear that university is not the same for them and we are undoubtedly facing some complex decisions.Ìý

How important is face to face learning?Ìý

What sort of digital enhancement helps rather than hinders learning?Ìý

How do we protect the integrity of degrees in a time of AI?Ìý

How do we deal with the mental health concerns of students in a way that respectfully builds their resilience?Ìý

What we sometimes forget is the extraordinary opportunities that now exist that did not in earlier times.Ìý

Many people – indeed most people – including all Indigenous people, were excluded from universities in the past.Ìý

What a shocking waste of talent.Ìý

International travel as part of a degree was once something that only a handful of students experienced, but today almost a quarter of Australian university students study abroad.Ìý

When I was at university, connections with industry or employers were largely left to individual students outside the health and education areas.Ìý

Now they are ubiquitous.Ìý

And more students are studying in universities which are producing globally leading research of which they can be rightly proud.Ìý

Australia is facing more and more complex challenges than ever before.Ìý

Our universities stand ready to partner to help face those challenges and to create a future that is prosperous, safe, fair and capable of adapting to a quickly changing environment.Ìý

Working with government, employers and civil society, we can help ensure that graduates and researchers are using their talents to the full for the benefit of the future of our country.Ìý

Thank you.Ìý