April 28, 2026
Opening statement to Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee Inquiry by Dr Matthew Brown, Deputy Chief Executive, The Group of Eight
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee on behalf of the Group of Eight and to make a short opening statement.
The Go8 educates nearly 80,000 domestic students enrolled in humanities, arts and social sciences courses - not including education - many of whom are subject to Job Ready Graduate fee hikes.
The Go8 supports serious and past time reform of the failed Job Ready Graduates policy. The Go8 has never supported this policy and the flaws that were obvious back in 2020 when the legislation was passed have been fully realised: little meaningful change in student behaviour, punitive fees for many humanities, arts and social sciences students, and an incoherent funding system for higher education. The only way in which the JRG design has been "successful" is in its intent is in cutting funding for universities by 6% per student on average or over $250 million a year for Go8 members alone - weakening the overall funding base for teaching.
It has undermined equity in the system - with HASS degrees a common entry pathway into higher education for members of underrepresented groups - and cruelled the aspirations of young Australians looking to contribute to the nation through their passion in HASS disciplines.
So, this bill addresses a genuine problem, it is responding to what almost everyone - including the Government itself - agrees is a substantial policy failure.
The practical question for this Committee is not whether Job‑ready Graduates failed – it did – but whether it is sound policy to fix student fees in isolation while further weakening the funding base of the system.
In that light, the central concern of the Go8 is that this bill reduces student fees without replacing them with Commonwealth contributions – reducing the university funding base below even JRG levels. The Go8 estimates that this will reduce per student funding by a further 9% – an additional cut of nearly $400 million for the Go8.
That means the cost pressure removed from students is transferred directly onto universities. For institutions already under financial strain, that has consequences for teaching quality, student support, workforce capacity and long‑term sustainability. It will also further erode support for academics to undertake research to inform teaching and drive the nation's well-being and productivity.
Weakening the teaching funding base at Australia's most research‑intensive universities ultimately undermines the skills, research capability and civic contribution the nation relies on.
Student affordability cannot be delivered by hollowing out the funding base of the system.
In the current fiscally constrained environment, we cannot put the JRG genie back in the bottle and must look for a new way forward. This cannot be through further piecemeal change to a funding model that is already fragmented and incoherent. The JRG irrevocably broke the link between costs, contributions and outcomes and fixing one element in isolation risks entrenching that break.
The Universities Accord report identified the JRG as a policy failure and also recommended an Australian Tertiary Education Commission or ATEC as a steward for the system - which has been legislated by the Parliament. The ATEC needs to take a system-wide, evidence-based approach to funding reform, otherwise the entire Accord project will be an unsustainable edifice built on sand.
The ATEC is here now, and the start of the 2027 academic will mark six years since the introduction of the JRG. No more kicking the can down the road it's time to reform the system once and properly.
The Go8's recommendation is straightforward: that Government formally task the ATEC, working with the sector, to develop a comprehensive and durable response to the failures of Job‑ready Graduates – including student and Commonwealth contribution settings.
Thank you.
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