Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The only revolutionary thing about Labor’s education policy is that it continues to go around in circles. This is a classic case of ‘black is white’ or ‘the earth is flat’ from the Labor Party. The fact is that Labor is stung because the coalition has delivered a stronger education budget than Labor had planned to deliver itself. I am sure that they have been scratching around in the backrooms for the last two days trying to up the ante, but this is no doubt a stronger education budget than they had initially planned themselves. Their view that they are superior on education issues has been seriously undermined by the budget on Tuesday night—a view, I might say, that is as wrong as many of the other delusions they hold. Let us leave their fairyland and look at the facts regarding education funding.

The first fact is that the budget includes a massive boost of $3.5 billion in education spending. And despite the nonsense we have heard from the other side, it is worth pointing out that education spending in Australia as a percentage of GDP has grown from 5.5 per cent to 5.8 per cent over the past 10 years—a growing proportion of a rapidly growing GDP. We are spending far more than Labor were spending when they left office.

This $3.5 billion boost in education will lift standards right through the spectrum from primary to higher education, help all young Australians achieve their potential, continue to encourage young Australians into technical education and help our universities become world leaders in research and teaching. In the higher education sector, in addition to the recurrent and capital funding, the main feature of this budget is the $5 billion that will go into the Higher Education Endowment Fund—a fund that will be added to year after year as the government delivers surplus after surplus.

It is worth pointing out that there would have been no way in the world that Labor would have been able to establish an endowment fund, because they could not run surpluses. And if Labor is returned to office, there is no way in the world that they would be able to continue to add to the endowment fund, because they would quickly turn the budget from surplus back into deficit. The only way this fund is made possible is by the running of the surpluses that are a result of this government being able to correctly and competently manage the economy.

The other thing worth pointing out is that this endowment fund will attract private sector investment as well. So it will very quickly grow because of continued commitments by this government and the private sector. It will steadily grow to the point of being able to provide a real boost to capital funding for our universities.

This announcement has been warmly welcomed right across the higher education sector. I could quote vice-chancellor after vice-chancellor but, to sum up, the President of the Australian Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, Professor Gerard Sutton, said, ‘The university sector is thrilled with the budget,’ which met the committee’s three requests: student support, dollars per student and the establishment of an endowment fund for university capital works. He also said, ‘This is spectacular for the university sector.’ He did not say, ‘It’s adequate,’ or, ‘It’s a bit better than we expected,’ or ‘It’s okay.’ He said, ‘This is spectacular for the university sector; there’s no doubt about it.’ Notwithstanding everything we have heard from the other side, this is spectacular for the university sector. There is no doubt about it.

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