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Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020 Dear Sir/Madam, I

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Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020 Dear Sir/Madam, I Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020 Dear Sir/Madam, I am an historian and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. I am also an honorary senior lecturer in the Department of French and Francophone Studies, School of Languages and Cultures, at the University of Sydney. Although I have a foot in academia, I have not drawn an academic salary since late 1983. Essentially, I have been a full-time writer for almost four decades. I am deeply concerned about the unfair financial penalty that will be imposed on students who wish to study the humanities, if the above bill is passed. It will be against the principal of equality of opportunity for all young Australians. It will also disproportionately affect female students who are more heavily represented among those studying the humanities. The notion that students can offset the increased cost of studying humanities by studying a language, is flawed. To study a language properly, to understand its nuances, etymological roots and cultural references, requires knowledge of the history of the people who speak that language and their culture and literature. This bill will discourage students from gaining this broader understanding. Humanities graduates complete university with valuable knowledge, but also a great many research, analytical and organisational skills that are used in many Australian industries and organisations. One area of national interest that the committee should consider, in examining the future impact of this bill, is defence. Before my brief employment as a teaching fellow at Griffith University in Brisbane in 1983, I worked in the Department of Defence, specifically the Joint Intelligence Organisation (precursor of our current Defence Intelligence Organisation). I am sure I was recruited because I had studied an Asian language and had completed a Ph.D. thesis in Indian Studies. My former boss, Arthur McMichael OBE (1921–1988), was a student teacher in Geelong when the Second World War broke out. I can’t imagine that he ever expected to spend his life in military intelligence. He believed that the best intelligence analysts were chess players, historians and lawyers. He said this, in one of the very few newspaper interviews he ever gave, and I have never forgotten it: Cranston, F., ‘Real-life master spy: No cloak and no dagger in the world of the Joint Intelligence Organisation’, Canberra Times, 24 August 1982, pp. 3–5. Arthur McMichael was succeeded by Brigadier Jim Furner (1927–2007) who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, before working as a school teacher and then entering the army through the first intake of the Portsea Officer’s School in 1952. He ultimately became a career intelligence officer and was awarded the DSM for his service in Vietnam. Later, Jim Furner was the longest ever director of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). For all the self-evident regimentation of the military, senior officers working in intelligence recognised that unusual analytical and linguistic skills frequently belonged to individuals who might otherwise be square pegs in round holes. What made them different, even peculiar, was not seen as a threat; rather it was recognised as valuable intellectual capital. This had been amply demonstrated by the array of mathematicians, engineers and science graduates, but also linguists, classical scholars and even an Egyptologist who worked as code-breakers at Bletchley Park, in Britain, during the Second World War with astonishing success. I would also ask the committee to recognise that the English language is one of our greatest assets as a nation. We could be making far greater use of it as a cultural export through writing, filmmaking and television production. But to penalise the well-springs of these creative industries (the students of literature, history, drama, music, filmmaking and the visual arts) makes no sense. Yes, there is a heavy attrition rate, but we are all enriched by those who persevere and achieve excellence in these fields. The Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020, will make Australia a poorer, duller and less-well equiped country to face the challenges and exciting possibilities of the future. Sincerely, Dr Edward Duyker OAM, FAHA .
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