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

This is not about the Australian government reducing funding for universities. I mean, let us get real. We have just announced a budget of an additional $1.7 billion in funding for universities plus the creation of a $5 billion endowment fund. The point I was making was that universities currently access a range of programs and one of them is for capital, specifically the Capital Development Pool program. I have no intention of reducing the capital that is available to universities. My point was merely of an administrative nature as to what would be easier for our universities to access and how that could be done in a more streamlined fashion. I will certainly take advice from the Higher Education Endowment Fund on the guidelines that they suggest should exist in relation to the application of dividends from that fund. The Higher Education Endowment Fund is expected to provide a dividend of over $900 million over the next three years. That is set out in the budget papers. In fact I think it is specifically $912 million. That is our expectation.

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