Greens pitch higher education reform to Canberra’s 20% students, staff and researchers

On ANU Market Day, the Greens are releasing analysis of 2016 Census data showing that the new seat of Canberra leads Australia in the proportion of voters involved in higher education. The new seat contains all five university campuses in the ACT.

The analysis compares the new seat of Canberra with comparable inner-city seats in other states that also host university campuses. It demonstrates that:

• 17969 people - 14.23% of people living in the new seat of Canberra - are tertiary education students, higher than comparable seats like Grayndler (home to University of Sydney, 7.44% of people) and Brisbane (QUT, 11.05%) and behind only Greens-held Melbourne (19.23%) among seats surveyed.
• 1354 people in the new seat of Canberra are tertiary or vocational teachers, the highest proportion of any seat surveyed - 1.07% of all people.
• The new seat also came first in seats surveyed in terms of proportion of researchers in the natural sciences, including medical researchers, biologists and geologists (0.81%), and people employed in scientific research services (0.65%).

If all the higher education students and staff living in the new seat of Canberra are correctly enrolled to vote, more than 1 in 5 voters in the new seat will be directly affected by higher education policy. Their votes will be crucial in deciding the seat.

Leader of the Australian Greens, Dr Richard Di Natale, said "Our plan to transform higher education will be a core part of our election campaign in the ACT".

"For too long, education has been treated as a piggy bank by both the Liberal and Labor parties. As a result, higher education looks more like a business with students as customers, rather than as a way to build skills and knowledge to solve the problems of tomorrow. The Greens believe that education is for everyone, not just the wealthy, and we have a plan to make that a reality,” Di Natale said.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens higher education spokesperson, said: “The Greens Plan to make universities and TAFE fee free, increase funding to universities and expand income support payments for students is transformational. It will change forever how we think about education. Whether you are starting out, have student debt already or are thinking of going back to study, the Greens plan will help you," Dr Faruqi concluded.

Before entering politics, Dr Faruqi was an Associate Professor and Academic Director at UNSW.

Tim Hollo, Greens candidate for Canberra, said: "Liberal and Labor governments have spent decades treating universities as factories, with academics as replaceable moving parts, churning out students as widgets. It doesn’t need to be that way. With enough Greens in Parliament, we can to pull the other parties towards properly funding universities and supporting students and staff to learn, teach and research."

Dr Penny Kyburz, the Greens' ACT Senate candidate, said "I want my students to start their professional lives without crushing debts and I want my research colleagues to have the resources they need to lead Australia into the future."

"Higher education is for everyone, not just the wealthy few, and our future depends on preparing our students and supporting our researchers. Supporting people in higher education is one of the main reasons I'm running for the Senate," Dr Kyburz concluded.

The Greens' ACT Senate candidate Dr Penny Kyburz is an academic in computer science at ANU with a PhD in artificial intelligence. Dr Kyburz' academic CV is available upon request.

ACT Liberal Senator Zed Seselja quit his frontbench role in research portfolios on 23 August 2018 to support Peter Dutton to become Prime Minister.