✦ Plain-English Summary

Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019

What it does

This law gives TEQSA (the tertiary education regulator) the power to crack down on essay mills and assignment-writing services that do students' work for them. It defines "academic cheating services" as when someone does assessment work that students are supposed to do themselves, and makes preventing these services part of TEQSA's official job.

Why it matters

University degrees are supposed to mean something—they should reflect what you actually learned. When students can buy essays or get assignments done by third parties, it devalues everyone's qualification and undermines the integrity of the whole system. This gives authorities actual tools to pursue the dodgy online services that profit from academic fraud.

Key details

• Definition: "Academic cheating services" covers assignments, essays, exams, presentations, projects and other work students are required to do themselves
• TEQSA's new role: The regulator can now collect and use information about who's using or providing these services to take action
• Start date: The law came into effect the day after receiving Royal Assent (so immediately)—no phase-in period

Official Description

Amends the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to: create a new criminal offence of providing or advertising an academic cheating service on a commercial basis; and broaden the role of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency to include the prevention and minimisation of the use and promotion of academic cheating services in courses provided by higher education providers.

Committee Referrals

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights; Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

No votes yet.

No votes were recorded for this bill.