Thank you, Carolyn.

To you, and Luke Sheehy, CEO of Universities Australia, Chancellors, Vice Chancellors, university leaders, ladies and gentlemen.

Let me begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples and pay respect to their elders past and present.

It’s an honour to speak at the Universities Australia annual conference.

A decade ago, I sat where you are sitting now, as a university executive from Australian Catholic University. I always enjoyed the conference. It is the great annual gathering of the leadership of the sector.

I often quote an aphorism of Professor Glyn Davis, who has returned to his former role as Vice Chancellor of Melbourne University, that all education policy is biography.

And so you should know some of mine.

Biography

I did my undergraduate arts and law degrees at UNSW, and later spent time as a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Immediately before entering Parliament I worked at Australian Catholic University, under Professor Greg Craven, on public policy challenges facing the university and the sector.

I really enjoyed my time as a student and I loved working in the sector.

So I come to this role with real affection for universities, and with a clear view of what they can do at their best: change lives.

I worked in the sector at a time of growth and optimism when the push was on to free the universities from bureaucracy and create more competition to drive excellence and specialisation.

I am a friend who wants to see you be your best selves.

The theme these remarks is “crossroads”, and I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on some key issues where I believe universities have choices to make now.

• About ATEC and regulation
• About international students, and the way forward.
• About redesigning the way we teach and assess students toadapt to the challenges of the future.  

But this conference comes, as it always does, at the start of the academic year.

In the time since students left for their summer break, Australia has changed.

And it would be remiss of me not to start by talking about antisemitism.

Response to Minister’s remarks

Let me start by responding to the Minister’s speech last night, talking about the government’s lack of confidence around antisemitism and university campuses. In my speech I talk about the same issues. So before I get to my remarks let me some what the Minister’s comments mean.

On 17 December last year, a few days after the Bondi attack, my colleagues and I called universities to be accountable for antisemitism on campus. We said we would:

…make universities accountable for combatting antisemitism by amending the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to include combatting Antisemitism as a provider condition; legislate a “no funding” trigger for grants made under the Australian Research Council Act 2001 where the grant produces or supports Antisemitic activities; and establish a commission of inquiry into Antisemitism in universities.

Last night, the Minister announced that same policy—around combatting antisemitism being a condition of registration.

He said what I’ve been saying. Good.

This is a red-light moment for Australia’s universities. 

This is a red-light moment for Australia’s universities. 

Both the Government and the Opposition are telling you today they have lost confidence in you in how you treat Jewish people.

This is an operating risk, a social licence risk and a reputational risk to the sector. It has been a leadership failure across the country.

Fix it.

I have been giving warnings on this topic for more than two years.

The list of warnings is long. You were warned again and again.

Even a Justice of the High Court gave a lecture about the rise of antisemitism before the October 7 attacks.

You chose to ignore it.

Instead of listening, following principles – standing up for students and staff under attack, you hid.

Quislings.

I said after the Bondi attack that antisemitism has been festering with three groups: neo-Nazis, radical Islamists, and the cultural Left.

Think about it: our universities—that  stood up for women’s rights, LGBTI rights, and multicultural access to our institutions—now stand condemned by both the Australian Government and the Opposition for being unsafe places for Australian Jews.

Fix it.

That is my response to the Minister’s address.

Let me go now to my prepared remarks. 

1. ANTISEMITISM

On 14 December last year, Australia experienced the first mass casualty terror event this century.  Fifteen people were murdered in cold blood, on Australia’s most famous beach, targeted because they were Jews observing the festival of Chanukah as Jews have done in this country every year since 1788. Australians are still coming to terms with what this event means for our country.

In some respects, the events of Bondi were so unlikely in a peaceful country like Australia – a place where people have come to make new lives to escape the hatred of the old world – a place which almost uniquely in human history has been good to the Jewish people.

And yet it was entirely predictable.

It came after more than two years of escalating antisemitism:

• Protests here in Australia, at the Opera house, just days after the murder, kidnap torture and rape of hundreds and hundreds of Israelis and before there was any military response.
• Weekly blockades of our city centres.
• Graffiti on Jewish buildings, homes and businesses.
• Intimidation in classrooms.
• Encampments on your campuses.
• Firebombings of cars.
• Firebombings of synagogues.
• Firebombings of a deli and a childcare centre.
• And ultimately, the murder of 15 innocent people—ranging from the father of a two-month-old son, to a ten-year-old girl, to a holocaust survivor.
• And extraordinarily, even after Bondi, the attacks haven’t stopped.

I went to the funerals.

I sat with the families in their vigils in intensive care and I have comforted thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish Australians who have contacted me from across the country trying to make sense of what has become of our country

For too long people in leadership dismissed the need to take strong measures against antisemitism.

That includes people within the leadership of our universities.

It includes some people in this room.

In November 2023 I made my first calls for a judicial inquiry into antisemitism on campus. I introduced a private members bill to establish that judicial inquiry and repeatedly sought to have it debated.

My job as the Shadow Minister for Education is to ensure that all Australians enjoy an education free of harassment and intimidation.

My job is to ensure the next generation of Jewish students—like all other students—is not discouraged from entering any field of Australian life.

There’s a particular sadness about campus antisemitism which seeks to exclude Jews from the intellectual life of this nation, because the Jewish tradition values education as one of the highest virtues.

Jews are taught to have arguments for the sake of heaven—to arrive at truth through debate and discussion. This is also the essence of a university.

At their best, universities are life-changing places where people get an education and improve their opportunities in life.

It’s the place where the next generation of leaders is formed.

That’s why it’s so important that antisemitism which has now taken hold is pushed back into the dark fringes.

It’s why students need to be taught about the evils of antisemitism. It’s why it’s always important to reject antisemitism, however it manifests. And it’s why it’s not okay to be a bystander.

If we’re not teaching this to the next generation, then we’re setting our society on a course for a future based on conspiracy, not fact; on othering, not personal responsibility; and on social discord, not social harmony.

That is why addressing antisemitism on campus is so important.

What happens on campus today sets the tone for the Australia of tomorrow.

As a parent, I want my children to have the same educational opportunities I did. But I’m concerned about what today’s Jewish students have been telling me over the last few years.

We have seen encampments and protests where Jewish students have been targeted—blocked from buildings, harassed in tutorials, spat on, and taunted with Nazi symbols, blocked and challenged walking across quadrangles, made to feel unsafe in their own dorm rooms.

It is not just students – Jewish staff have also been intimidated and their workplaces defaced, occupied, blockaded, even urinated on.

The message many Jewish Australians have heard is simple: you are not welcome here.

It’s not just students and outside activists who have been propagating this stuff—it’s professors and PhDs.

We’ve seen academics say that Jews don’t deserve cultural safety. We have seen academics deny that the rapes on 7 October even occurred.

Hamas deniers are no different than Holocaust deniers.

But for academics in places of learning and truth to deny the truth of human testimony and history is to make a mockery of their mission.

What we have seen on Australian university campuses is the next evolution of a hatred that has endured throughout human history.

The antisemitism we are seeing on campus is not new. In August 2023—two months before the Hamas terrorist attacks—the Australian Jewish University Experience Survey revealed:

• 64 per cent of Jewish university students had experienced antisemitism on campus.
• 57 per cent of Jewish students had hidden the fact they were Jewish.
• 19 per cent had stayed away from campus because of antisemitism.
• when antisemitism occurred, 61 per cent who made a complaint were dissatisfied with the outcome.

More to do

The encampments may have gone. But that’s where dealing with antisemitism starts, not where it ends.

The most damning aspect of the Special Envoy’s Plan to combat antisemitism was her finding that antisemitism has become “ingrained and normalised” within academia.

And we are now seeing the downstream consequences of failing to deal with antisemitism on campus

I have warned repeatedly that what starts with Jews never ends with Jews. The potential for backlash was obvious and it was inevitable.

We are now seeing the results through the racism@uni study.

The data in that study tell a clear story. The racism on campus that was more acute for Jews than anyone else has now spread to others.

94% of Jews experienced direct or indirect discrimination, but other groups including Chinese people, Indigenous Australians, Muslims and others are all experiencing racism at unacceptably high levels on campus.

The failure to deal with antisemitism has spiralled into broader campus life. This is one of the consequences of leadership failure.

Your conference program indicates that the sector is worried about your social licence to operate.

In that context, let me ask this: what sort of message does it send when encampments and protests are tolerated for weeks and months?  

What message does it send when the associated harassment and abuse are seen as accepted as part of campus life?

What message does it send when you do not terminate the employment of an academic who sprouts relentless antisemitic hate?

If you are genuinely constrained by your industrial laws advocate for reform and do so with vigour.

The average taxpayer has the clarity to see that leadership means confronting people who seek to harass and intimidate people going about their daily lives.

And when you fail to confront people who engage in harassment and intimidation your public standing is diminished.

Three days ago the Antisemitism Royal Commission began its work.

It must give staff and students a chance to tell their story.

It must examine not only complaints procedures, but also what is being taught about Jews in the classrooms of universities—regardless of the number of Jewish staff or students on campus.

The Commission will have failed if it does not put Chancellors and Vice Chancellors on the stand. I urge you to embrace that Royal Commission.

IHRA

But in the meantime – do not wait. The time for leadership is now.

And that starts with adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition with examples in full.

In 2022, Labor MP Josh Burns Independent MP Allegra Spender and I, as co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, wrote to each Vice-Chancellor to ask you to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism is not controversial.

We emphasised, as the definition does, that legitimate criticisms of the State of Israel do not amount to antisemitism under the definition.

That definition has multipartisan support. It is the definition which has been adopted by the Australian government and has been adopted or supported by the governments of the states.

But only 5 universities have signed up.

Many did not even reply to our letter.

If IHRA is good enough for the Australian government, for state governments, and for the Royal Commission, it is good enough for Australia’s publicly funded universities.

I am calling on you to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism in full.

If you don’t do this, we know you aren’t changing.

If you don’t do this, we know you are ignoring the red light. 

If you do adopt it, not only will the country know but the University ranking services should do so to.  Being unsafe for Jews should be a factor impacting university rankings.

I intend to ask Josh and Allegra to join me in writing to you again.

This time, I hope the issue is taken seriously enough to reply.

This time – adopt the definition.

We want to see real adoption of IHRA—as a clear definition to be used by your institution every day.

Not hidden in a footnote somewhere in an appendix to a policy.

The time for “yes but” is over.  The time for “it depends on the context” has come to an end.

Fifteen people are dead.

Their deaths were the tragic and inevitable endpoint of cascading antisemitism.

Its time all of you adopted the IHRA definition in full, including the examples which show how it works in practice.

It is time to step up and lead.

1. MY APPROACH POLICY AND POLITICS

I want to now turn and speak about my approach to the portfolio

When I entered the Parliament almost 10 years ago, the journalist Jacqueline Maley wrote a profile about me in the Sydney Morning Herald. This is what she said:

Julian Leeser is a federalism freak, young fogey, Gilbert & Sullivan tragic and policy nerd who dates his ambition to enter Parliament to about his 10th birthday, for which he asked his parents for a copy of the Australian constitution.

My friends I am sad to say that all of these things are true.

Though I’m sure there is a Classics scholar in the room who will dispute it, I think the Latin term for me is Nerdus Maximus.

I did ask for a copy of the Constitution for my 10th birthday and I do believe in federalism as one of the great liberal principles—a principle that prioritises the local over the centralised, that preserves liberty and encourages competition.

I also believe in good policy—and I know the sector wants policy stability. 

So let me say that while it is the duty of the Opposition to hold the government to account when they get it wrong, I also think it is appropriate to acknowledge where your political opponents get the policy calls right.

That is in the interests of every Australian. 

That is why my colleagues and I supported the Government’s move to improve integrity in international education through the Education Legislation Amendment Act that went through the Parliament last year.

We recognised the importance of the issue, and general direction of the reform, but moved 6 amendments, reflecting serious concerns raised by stakeholders. To Jason Clare’s credit, he accepted all 6. They improved the Bill and as a result it passed with bipartisan support.

It is why I acknowledge Jason Clare’s recent moves to endorse explicit teaching, phonics, the need for knowledge rich curricula in schools.

These are longstanding positions on my side of politics but the reason they are longstanding is because the evidence supports them. I give credit to Jason Clare for recognising that.

It is why I welcome Jason Clare’s recent call for the curriculum to teach Australian values in schools, which he reportedly defined as “freedom, democracy, the rule of law and a fair go”.

If that sounds familiar, it should. In 2005, in the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools, the Howard government listed a set of values for Australian schooling. The framework said this:

These shared values such as respect and ‘fair go’ are part of Australia’s common democratic way of life, which includes equality, freedom and the rule of law

Subsequent Liberal Education Ministers – and I am thinking in particular of Christopher Pyne and Alan Tudge – have made similar points.

Their views were not always welcomed at the time, but circumstances change and I welcome Jason Clare’s acceptance of the point.

The road to Damascus is long, but in this case the destination matters more than the journey.

It is also why I welcome Jason Clare’s positive initial response to my call for an inquiry into boys’ education.

The evidence on the need for action in that space is real and compelling.

As the sector knows, the decline in outcomes for boys and young men is being felt at every level of the education system.

In 2015, there were 168,000 young men started their higher education journey.

By 2024, that number had shrunk to just 158,000.

Australia’s population grew by 3.4 million over the same period.

I hope that the inquiry can progress soon, on the basis of agreed terms of reference.

Now you might think it odd to hear a Shadow Minister talking about where the government gets it right.

Maybe it comes across as an unseemly outbreak of civility.

But it underscores the point that where we differ, it is for good reason.

And the ATEC legislation is a case in point.

1. ATEC

I’m for less regulation and more competition. This was the sector that I remember from a decade ago.

Fast-forward 10 years, and no one in the sector is telling me that you are underregulated.

Western Sydney University makes the point that you each need to operate under more than 300 pieces of legislation and regulation, describing your operating environment as a “thicket of regulation” and a “Frankenstein system”.

ATEC will be at least your 15^th regulator. And make no mistake, it is a regulator.

It is a 1950s solution for a 2030s economy.

ATEC is a “Quango”: a Quasi-Autonomous Non-Government Organisation.

It duplicates the functions of the Department.

Every dollar spent on the ATEC is a dollar not spent on educating a student, paying a lecturer or contributing to the research that drives innovation and productivity.

It is money you could have had but will not get.

With the money set aside for the ATEC, I could give a million-dollar research grant to every provider in this room and still have millions left over.

When your grand vision for sector reform is just another Quango – you need a better plan.

We cannot regulate our way to innovation and growth. There is no Quango-led recovery.

The alternative is clear.

If a Coalition government is returned to power after the next election, I will make it a priority to cut the red tape and compliance burden that is tying down not only the public universities, but Australia’s higher education sector as a whole.

The thicket of regulation needs to be cut back. Taxpayer dollars are just too precious to waste.

1. INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Let me now turn to the issue of international students.

The Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor has been very clear: Australia’s migration program must be designed to restore our standard of living and protect our way of life.

Our migration settings must be appropriately balanced against the capacity of our housing, our infrastructure and other services.

Currently, the pressure on infrastructure, services and housing – particularly in our cities – is being felt acutely across the board.

International students make up the largest component of Net Overseas Migration. 

In any attempt to address the NOM, international students will play a part.

But I want the sector to hear me when I say I know international education is good for Australia.

International education makes a significant contribution to the Australian economy and is the fourth largest export for Australia—behind iron ore, coal and natural gas.

Done properly, there are benefits for both Australians in having international students in the classrooms and research labs, and for international students in having a high-quality Australian university experience

We will want to make changes to the settings around international students, but I want the sector to know that we want to work closely with you to develop these policies and announce them in due course.  

And with respect, the Government has been less than clear on these issues. They have been signalling that they are cutting international student numbers at the same time as they are increasing allocations to providers – from 270,000 last year to 295,000 this year.

Putting those things to one side, there is a greater focus on international students today not merely because of infrastructure concerns in the cities, but because of the experience of domestic and international students who come to Australia for their education.

On 2024 figures, three metropolitan universities, one in Sydney one in Melbourne and one in Perth had international students making up more than half of their enrolled student cohort.

There are thirteen other universities for whom the cohort was more than a third.

In Victoria in 2024, 43% of enrolments were international students—202,660 international students compared with 268,249 domestic.

In 2024, 94% of the enrolments in the higher education sector in New South Wales were in the Capital, Sydney.

In 2024, there were at least 8 universities for whom the proportion of international students enrolled in information technology courses exceeded 80%.

I am for international students. With Julian Hill, I used to chair the Parliamentary Friends of International Education.

I want people to come here, to learn about Australia, to receive a world-class education.

But I invite universities to reflect on whether the patterns we are seeing are consistent with the expectations of the Australian community.

Whether the variations in distribution, and concentration in areas, in aggregate, put pressure on services in a way we cannot sustain.

Because the things that really matter are not the numbers. It is the student experience on campus, it is the quality of teaching, it is the impact on housing affordability and services and infrastructure.

When those impacts are not well-managed, and spill out beyond the campus, they risk eroding your standing in the community. So we will approach this issue with sobriety, balance, and in consultation with the sector. 

• THE NEED TO ADAPT

The final issue on which I wish to reflect goes to the utility and value of university degrees, which are being challenged relentlessly on multiple fronts.

Around three weeks ago the Weekend Australian Magazine revealed that six senior academics in three states estimated 80 per cent of students are using ChatGPT or similar AI engines to cheat assignments, essays and exams.

Students who were interviewed put the rate at 90 per cent or more.

There is a place for crackdowns, of course, and for enforcement of academic integrity standards.

But we are sorely in need of a rethink of the way we do assessments and the way we teach our students. 

Getting rid of Group Assignments

Well before we even get to the challenges of AI, let me reflect on a current and longstanding issue that is raised with me consistently by students.

Wherever I go around the country, whenever I ask about their degrees, about what works and what doesn’t, they raise the issue of group assignments.

They hate them.

There is always that student who does the work, and that student who reaps the benefit. It diminishes the role of the individual.

In most cases, there is no compelling justification.

I understand the need for employers to have graduates who can collaborate in the workplace. But these are soft skills which should not be the subject of a university assessment system.

This is not a small thing. It is the real-life experience of students at your institutions.

Students feel, instinctively, that in many cases it is deeply unfair to assess them individually based on others’ work.

It cheapens the degree.

I am calling on you to rethink assessments by focusing on whether we are truly and fairly assessing individuals on the basis of their individual performance.

Unless there are compelling reasons or exceptional circumstances, I am calling on you to get rid of group assignments.

Start buttressing the credibility of your degrees against future challenges with the promise that every student will be assessed honestly, and as an individual.

Rethinking assessment tools

But let me move on to the broader question: how can universities engineer teaching strategies and course curricula to refocus on the core business of teaching and learning.

Should assessment tools be re-designed more broadly?

Do the rules around attendance and delivery need to change, to avoid the circumstance where, as some have reported, attendance is as low as 7%?

Do we need to go back to in-person attendance and invigilated assessments, as Dr Alan Finkel and Terry Budge suggested?

These are good questions. The options should certainly be on the table.

Because otherwise, how can a degree program retain its worth when it is not reflective of intellectual effort on the part of the student?

• CONCLUSION

Can I conclude by speaking about the promise that universities can and do offer Australia.

It is best seen through the prism of my other portfolio of Indigenous Australians.

In Australia an Aboriginal boy is more likely to go to jail than university. For a moment let me put aside the human tragedy and cost of crime and incarceration. I want us to focus on something that we can all grasp and that is the financial cost.

I have said previously that the cost to the Australian government of educating a student at university is somewhere around $11,000 a year. This compares to the cost of incarceration of $148,000 a year. If it’s a juvenile, that number rises to $1 million a year.

Let’s imagine for a moment the life of a young Indigenous person who graduates from university. On graduation, that Indigenous graduate will earn at least on par with a non-Indigenous graduate.

And after 10 years in the workforce, the incomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous are in effect level. Put another way, the gap closes.

The universities of this country can and are doing something remarkable – they are changing the course of individual lives, communities and our country.

And I wanted to finish with that note of hope.

There is a clear pathway forward.

Universities that retain an unwavering focus on their people, their students, and their place in society are remarkably resilient, and have something extraordinary to offer.

I ask that you put your faith and your focus in your people, your students, the fundamentally human experience of education, and your contribution to our community.

Reflect.

Take the long view.

And I have no doubt we will be continuing these conversations for years to come.

Thankyou.