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

My statements are perfectly consistent. My point is this: we have created the Higher Education Endowment Fund with $5 billion from this year’s surplus. My point that the Labor Party could only dream of creating such an endowment fund refers to the fact that the Labor Party operated budget deficits—and you cannot create an endowment fund out of a budget surplus if you operate budget deficits.

So the creation of this fund means that $5 billion in capital has been set aside. It will be invested. The dividends over time will then be distributed to universities—we anticipate on an annual basis. As the budget papers show, we have already anticipated that $304 million is an estimate of the funds that would be available to distribute over the three years from 2008. That would mean an extra $912 million. That is in addition to the funding that exists under the Capital Development Pool program. The Capital Development Pool program currently exists to provide funding for new universities and for regional universities, and the guidelines are quite specific. The point I made is that over time, as the Treasurer has indicated, the Australian government will continue to put budget surpluses into the Higher Education Endowment Fund so that that capital base increases. It will be a perpetual growth fund for our universities. Therefore, as that increases—and, presumably, the guardians of the Future Fund invest it wisely—we will have an increased distribution for our universities. The larger the capital fund, the larger the dividend.

We have a number of funds and programs that provide capital to universities, including the Capital Development Pool program. What I was suggesting was that, over time, it might be possible to roll some of the funds into the Higher Education Endowment Fund—so not decrease funding but actually increase the pool that is invested for distribution. But that is a matter that we would look at down the track. For example, this year we announced the new Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund. What that fund will do is absorb the previous Collaboration and Structural Reform Fund. I am keen to streamline the opportunities for universities to apply for funding so that they do not have to apply for too many different programs but rather have the opportunity to apply under broader programs with broader guidelines. So the two statements are entirely consistent and are certainly not mutually exclusive.

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