Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, Mr Speaker, Labor ought to wake up to the fact that you cannot create a $5 billion endowment fund out of a budget deficit. Then the member for Perth was out there saying, ‘The federal government has just discovered that universities need capital—they have never invested in universities before.’ Wrong. The member for Perth needs to do his homework. Since 1996 this government has invested almost a billion dollars in capital works alone for our universities. In fact, last week I announced a further $62 million for capital for our universities. This is on top of the $32 million for capital I announced in January, this is on top of the $1.7 billion that the Treasurer announced in the higher education package on budget night; this is on top of the $5 billion endowment fund.

The member for Blair will be interested to know that Queensland universities benefited from the $62 million announcement. In particular, we are assisting the University of Southern Queensland to build an education building at the Springfield campus, a health building at the University of the Sunshine Coast and a science building at Griffith University. In New South Wales we are supporting Charles Sturt University with a clinical science teaching facility and the University of Western Sydney with a nursing hub; in Western Australia, a science and engineering building for Murdoch University; in South Australia, at the University of Adelaide, a new building for engineering, computing and mathematical sciences; and, in the Northern Territory, allied health infrastructure for Charles Darwin University. Thirty-four capital works projects have been supported by the Australian government this year alone. I tender the list of those 34 projects that are receiving funding.

This is what a decade of strong economic management can deliver: it can deliver a billion dollars to universities for capital infrastructure alone and it can deliver a $5 billion endowment fund. Once you have paid off Labor’s $96 billion debt and once you operate in budget surpluses, you can provide for the future and invest in our universities.

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