Just out of reach : access to equity in Australian higher education

Abstract

This paper provides an account of access and equity in Australian higher education across the period of recent Federal Labor governments and specifically of the discourses and practices surrounding A Fair Chance For All: Higher Education That\u27s Within Everyone\u27s Reach, Labor\u27s latest policy on equal access to Australian higher education. The paper positions such an account within Australia\u27s changing national and global economic condition, and the influence of New Right ideologies that proffer efficient and effective public sector management practices and market freedoms that have witnessed a privatisation and peeling back of the welfare state. The paper argues that while Federal Labor has clearly established social justice on the agenda of Australian higher education, it is a justice mediated by particular economic and managerial practices which tend to limit equity to issues of access and place broader equity concerns for higher education just out of reach