Push to expand commonwealth assistance for university students
Caitlin Cassidy
In Sydney, a public hearing is taking place into the education minister’s higher education support amendment.
The amendment seeks to legislate the urgent recommendations of the Universities Accord interim report, including improving university governance, expanding commonwealth support to all Indigenous Australians, not just people in regional areas and abolishing the former government’s controversial 50% pass rule.
The rule, introduced as part of the Coalition’s job ready graduates scheme, removed commonwealth assistance for students who failed to pass 50% of subjects and disproportionately impacted disadvantaged students.
Vicki Thomson, CEO of the research intensive Group of Eight (Go8) universities said the body “strongly support[s]” the legislation while adding it must also deliver outcomes in success – retention rates and future employment.
She said targets and places were “not the barrier to participation” among disadvantaged cohorts, pointing to UNSW’s policy to make an offer to every Indigenous student who applied.
Additional government support is needed … this doesn’t just start with universities, we need to build aspiration and prepare our students for study while they’re in secondary … and primary school … we’re less interested in headlines than we are of results.”
Just 15 of Australia’s 39 universities have met or exceeded the target of 20% students to be from low socioeconomic backgrounds. None are the Go8 universities, and the vast majority are in regional areas.
Key events
Caitlin Cassidy
University group chief calls for move to improve disadvantaged student outcomes
The head of the Group of Eight universities, Vicki Thomson, has called for a national data equity institute to improve access and outcomes of disadvantaged students in the tertiary sector.
Asked whether universities should better publicly account how students are performing, Thomson said: “Universities are accountable and transparent.”
She pointed to reporting requirements from the federal government and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, including three different definitions of low SES and two definitions of regional and remote students.
There’s not even coordinated reporting back into the department … we’re all reporting differently … how we’re asked to report is fairly muddled … We need to understand the scale of the problem because what we have is a lot of anecdotal commentary.
ACCC wants Qantas hit with $250m penalty if guilty
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has clarified that it wants to see Qantas hit with a more than $250m penalty – twice the current record penalty – if its legal action alleging the airline was selling tickets already cancelled flights succeeds.
Speaking on ABC Radio National, ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb noted the current record penalty for a breach of Australia’s consumer law was $125m – issued to Volkswagen in 2019 for deceiving customers over diesel emissions – and said she was hopeful that, if found in breach of the law, Qantas should face a fine significantly higher.
Sarah Basford Canales
Pharmacy lobby group welcomes move on next agreement
Some more details on the change allowing patients to receive 60-day prescriptions for some medicines has come into effect from today.
The federal government has said the changes will save up to $180 a year per medicine while concession card holders will save $43 per medicine.
But not everyone’s pleased. Pharmacy lobby group the Pharmacy Guild has been running a campaign railing against the changes without offering additional support to pharmacies it says are footing the bill.
The guild, however, has said it will suspend the campaign for now in good faith after the federal government agreed to bring forward the next community pharmacy agreement by more than a year. The meeting will now happen on 1 March 2024.
The Pharmacy Guild president, Trent Twomey, told reporters in Sydney today:
When a two-for-one policy is announced, it sounds great at face value, until you realise that it’s actually the independent pharmacist behind the counter who’s covering the cost of that second box.
So whilst this policy may have good intentions, and I do not doubt that it has good intentions, the way in which it has been rushed, has created unintended consequences and that’s exactly why we need to bring forward the next negotiation of the agreement.
And I’m happy to say we’ve agreed we’ll start that on 1 March next year.
Teachers need to be ‘paid properly’, Barbara Pocock tells SA rally
Greens senator Barbara Pocock is at a rally being held outside Parliament House in South Australia today by teachers who’ve walked off the job in demand for better pay and conditions.
Pocock said in a video filmed at the rally:
This is about the future of our children, which is about the future of our country. Teachers need to be paid properly, and the state government needs to up their offer [so] teachers can return to the classroom with the awards that they and our children deserve.
The Australian Education Union said 80% of its members voted in favour of the strike – which has seen hundreds of schools close across the state today – after the government’s “insulting” 3% pay rise offer.
Caitlin Cassidy
Universities putting measures in place on student safety, group head says
Vicki Thomson, CEO of the research-intensive Group of Eight (Go8) universities, has been asked asked who universities have engaged with on their student safety policies, including the leading body End Rape on Campus.
She replied that “certainly our universities would have”.
All of our universities have put in place significant processes, policies, procedures … That’s not to say that we can’t do better.
My point …. was we are putting in place measures. We are concerned about the issues students raise, and staff.
Thomson said the data on sexual harassment on campuses needed to be interrogated in a “calm, rational way”, adding there shouldn’t be a “prevailing view” that universities were any more safe or unsafe than other places in society.
The latest national student safety survey, released in 2021, found one in 20 students had been sexually assaulted since starting university, and one in six had been sexually harassed.
Universities Australia, the peak body for the sector, has confirmed it will hold another national survey next year after ongoing lobbying from advocacy groups.
Qantas should be fined ‘hundreds of millions’ if guilty to send message to companies, ACCC says
Earlier we bought you news that Gina Cass-Gottlieb, chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, told RN Breakfast she wanted the Qantas case to deliver a new record penalty for consumer law breaches to scare other companies who had stopped fearing such fines.
Guardian Australia has approached the ACCC to clarify how much the consumer watchdog would be seeking.
Speaking on ABC Radio National, Cass-Gottlieb noted the current record penalty for a breach of Australia’s consumer law was $125m – issued to Volkswagen in 2019 for deceiving customers over diesel emissions – and said she was hopeful that, if found in breach of the law, Qantas should face a fine significantly higher.
Host Patricia Karvelas asked Cass-Gottlieb: “Are you talking over $300 million?”
Cass-Gottlieb replied: “We would want to get to more than twice that figure.”
The ACCC has been approached to clarify whether Cass-Gottlieb meant more than $600m – double the figure Karvelas suggested – or more than $250m, which is twice the current record penalty.
More on this story from my colleague, Elias Visontay, here:
Caitlin Cassidy
Claims universities aren’t addressing student safety are ‘insulting’, Group of Eight head says
The CEO of Australia’s prestigious Group of Eight (Go8) universities, Vicki Thomson, has rubbished claims universities aren’t doing their bit to address student safety on campus.
The topic has been in the spotlight in recent weeks after education minister Jason Clare announced the convention of a working group to consult with advocacy groups and offer immediate actions on student safety.
At the time, Clare said actions universities had taken to address sexual assault and harassment on campuses to date had “not been good enough” and university governing bodies “must do more”.
Some 275 students are assaulted on campus every week, according to the latest data, published in 2021.
Speaking at a public hearing in Sydney on Friday, Thomson said it “goes without saying” the Go8 universities had zero tolerance for sexual assault or harassment on or off campus.
All universities … have policies and procedures in place to ensure our university community offers safe and respectful university environments for student and staff … This is an issue Go8 staff … take seriously and personally.
There’s no doubt that we can and all should do better but to suggest somehow that we don’t care or we’re not trying is frankly insulting … What we would seek is a constructive discussion in pursuit of our shared goal of safety for all.
Push to expand commonwealth assistance for university students
Caitlin Cassidy
In Sydney, a public hearing is taking place into the education minister’s higher education support amendment.
The amendment seeks to legislate the urgent recommendations of the Universities Accord interim report, including improving university governance, expanding commonwealth support to all Indigenous Australians, not just people in regional areas and abolishing the former government’s controversial 50% pass rule.
The rule, introduced as part of the Coalition’s job ready graduates scheme, removed commonwealth assistance for students who failed to pass 50% of subjects and disproportionately impacted disadvantaged students.
Vicki Thomson, CEO of the research intensive Group of Eight (Go8) universities said the body “strongly support[s]” the legislation while adding it must also deliver outcomes in success – retention rates and future employment.
She said targets and places were “not the barrier to participation” among disadvantaged cohorts, pointing to UNSW’s policy to make an offer to every Indigenous student who applied.
Additional government support is needed … this doesn’t just start with universities, we need to build aspiration and prepare our students for study while they’re in secondary … and primary school … we’re less interested in headlines than we are of results.”
Just 15 of Australia’s 39 universities have met or exceeded the target of 20% students to be from low socioeconomic backgrounds. None are the Go8 universities, and the vast majority are in regional areas.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian government increases funding for community sector
The Victorian government today has announced a new set of standards and an increase in annual funding for the community sector, in an effort to provide organisations working in areas such as child protection, family violence, homeless and mental health with more certainty.
In a statement, the minister for child protection and family services, Lizzie Blandthorn, and the treasurer, Tim Pallas, announced the increase in annual indexed funding – worth about $260m over four years – for 800 community sector organisations.
In addition, a new code has been created to ensure organisations comply with all applicable employment, industrial relations and workplace health and safety obligations, foster workplace equity and diversity and constructive relationships with their respective unions.
The code will apply to organisations that receive direct funding of more than $2m a year from the Victorian government to provide community services and will come into effect from August 2024. It was finalised in consultation with the Victorian Council of Social Service, the Australian Services Union and other sector representatives.
Blandthorn said:
The Community Services Fair Jobs Code will help ensure job security for this critical workforce that tirelessly serves the most vulnerable members of our community.
No campaign politicians’ ad spends highlight need for law reform: Steggall
Independent MP Zali Steggall has said Guardian Australia’s revelation this morning that Coalition no campaigners are spending four times more on Facebook ads than other parliamentarians showed why “Australia desperately needs to reform political advertising laws”.
Liberal MPs & Senators are using taxpayer money to push Advance Australia’s misinformation on the Voice Referendum.
A clear example of why Australia desperately needs to reform political advertising laws.
Let’s put an end to #fearandsmear!https://t.co/sj0yIFHcdS
— 🌏 Zali Steggall MP (@zalisteggall) September 1, 2023
You can read more on this story from my colleagues here:
Queensland hospitals vaccine mandate to be scrapped
News via AAP:
Healthcare workers without the Covid-19 vaccination will return to Queensland hospitals as the government begins consultation to scrap a pandemic-enforced rule.
The state’s health minister, Shannon Fentiman, said the decision to enforce Covid-19 vaccination requirements for Queensland Health and Queensland Ambulance staff no longer applies due to high jab rates and natural immunity in the community.
It is estimated about 1,100 health workers resigned in the state during the pandemic, some of whom were not compliant with the vaccination mandate.
Caitlin Cassidy
ANU staff secure 18.5% pay increase over five years
Union members at Australian National University have voted in favour of an enterprise agreement that will make employees the highest paid in the nation.
The agreement offers an 18.5% pay increase over five years, including 3.5% paid this February followed by 2.5% each six months to mid-2026. It’s the highest total pay offer in the sector and second behind UNSW on a per-year basis.
A spokesperson for ANU said the university was pleased to reach the “significant milestone” in the bargaining negotiations of getting the backing of the NTEU:
ANU is committed to building and maintaining employment arrangements that attract and retain world-class staff, especially in the face of current challenges faced by the university and sector more broadly.
We want our staff to feel supported and valued and proud to work at our leading University. We are confident this agreement delivers on that commitment and promise.
The proposed agreement will give casuals paid sick leave for the first time, and all staff will have 20 days of gender affirmation leave.
An all staff vote is likely to take place in mid-October.
Pharmacists shelve medicines campaign as talks begin
A peak pharmacy body has shelved its campaign against 60-day medicine dispensing and agreed to talks to iron out an agreement that will not jeopardise the viability of local pharmacies, AAP reports.
The Pharmacy Guild president, Trent Twomey, hopes negotiations with the federal government will ensure pharmacies are remunerated fairly for medicine dispensing and can continue to operate sustainably under the new scheme.
When announced, the changes were met with fierce opposition from the peak pharmacy bodies, with concerns some pharmacies would have to close.
But bringing forward negotiations on the next community pharmacy agreement by more than a year has convinced the guild to suspend its campaign.
Twomey said:
We thank the prime minister and the health minister for hearing our concerns, and 60-day dispensing, along with other reforms, will now be dealt with in the normal way under a community pharmacy agreement.
Pharmacists are ready, willing and able to step up and provide more care and services to patients, at a time when the health system is under significant strain, and we look forward to those opportunities within the eighth community pharmacy agreement.
Josh Butler
‘If Not Now’: Paul Kelly’s new song in support of the Indigenous voice
Australian music legend Paul Kelly has released a song in support of the Indigenous voice to parliament, days after he called on voters to back the referendum.
Titled If Not Now, Kelly released the song online this morning.
The lyrics talk of “a feeling something’s missing”, “business that’s unfinished”, “a simple proposition” and “a chance to make our country larger in its soul”.
“How long can we keep walking with this stone in our shoe? If not now, then when? If not us, then who?” he asks, repeating a phrase used commonly by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in advocating for a yes vote.
“Too many falling far behind, shut out of the deal. If you called and no one heard you, imagine how you’d feel. This land was never given, it was taken and then sold. But its ancient songs and stories are a gift greater than gold.”
Kelly this week shared a statement online, outlining his reasons for a yes vote, including the “huge and stubborn gap” in health and life outcomes for Indigenous Australians.
“That yawning gap is unfair and diminishes us all,” he wrote.
Josh Taylor
Thread’s new features
Meta’s Twitter rival Threads is testing search functionality in Australia and New Zealand exclusively.
The search function will now allow people to search for specific posts, and Meta has said it will be extended to other English-speaking countries after testing is done and feedback obtained in Australia and New Zealand.
While more than 100 million people initially signed up to Threads in a bid to find something to replace Twitter, which has people turning away under the ownership of Elon Musk, the lack of features meant that the estimated active users has dropped to just a fraction of that 100m.
Meta said that the launch of Threads will pave the way for trending topics, which will bring in more Twitter-like features. The site is still missing a direct messaging function, and hashtags. Threads launched a desktop version last week.
