The government’s capping student places and needs-based funding bill – with considerable spin officially called the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 – won Senate approval on Monday. A total of 43 amendments were made, 32 from the Australian Greens, 6 from the government, and 5 from the Coalition. In some cases, a bundle of related amendments was needed to make a single substantive change.

The amended bill then returned to the House of Representatives for approval. The House made a purely technical change, replacing a Senate equity grant expenditure provision with its own identical amendment. This was due to section 53 of the Constitution, concerning the Senate’s power to amend financially-related provisions. So the amended-but-not-amended bill went back to the Senate and secured final approval today.

This post outlines the major changes to the original bill. It revises an earlier post on proposed amendments. The key changes are: a more secure sector-level floor number of Commonwealth supported places; a higher over-enrolment limit for larger universities; removal of a power to designate courses, which would have let ATEC allocate and cap places for specific courses; a better definition of equity student; and limits on the minister’s power to add conditions.

The Senate also inserted an amendment unrelated to the original bill, moved by the Coalition, to add two new institutions to Table B of the Higher Education Support Act 2003. This achieves more favourable public funding for them and their students. I suspect this amendment also has section 53 issues and will need to be revisited. In the interests of not further lengthening this post, I will discuss this issue in a separate post.

A sector-level floor number of places

On the bill’s introduction the explanatory memorandum indicated a floor number of Commonwealth supported places was intended, but this was not reflected in the bill itself.

In the House of Representatives a government amendment created a ‘core student load’ minimum number of places for public universities, although the amendment does not preclude year-on-year reductions in places.

But there was no corresponding requirement that the minister set a ‘total allocation pool’ of Commonwealth supported places sufficient to cover all the minimum ‘core student load’ allocations.

A government amendment in the Senate ensures that a year’s total allocation pool will be at least the previous year’s level: new section 30-5(1A).

That could still leave continuing student enrolment growth without sufficient places in the total allocation pool, which would force a reduction in commencing places. But overall this amendment improves the bill’s internal coherence.

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