Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to the Education Investment Fund, $6.2 billion was assigned in the 2007-08 budget for a new Higher Education Endowment Fund, the HEEF, to provide an ongoing revenue source to pay for university infrastructure into the 21st century—an initiative that Peter Costello was closely involved with. Last year the Rudd government added $2.5 billion from the last Costello surplus and renamed it the Education Investment Fund.

The minister has claimed to deliver a $5.7 billion package in this budget for universities, research and higher education generally, but I ask the minister: isn’t it true that to create this $5.7 billion figure the government has had to include $934 million of the EIF, the Education Investment Fund, round 2 projects; $901 million of EIF funding for what the government has called its Super Science Initiative; $750 million of undefined EIF future rounds; and $400 million taken from EIF funds for the Clean Energy Initiative? Isn’t it therefore the case that $3 billion of the government’s $5.7 billion higher education package was in fact appropriated in Peter Costello’s 2007-08 budget? How much of the $750 million earmarked for EIF future rounds over the next three years will be spent on university infrastructure, how much will be spent on vocational education and training infrastructure, and how much will be diverted to programs unrelated to further education altogether?

I could speak at length about what I regard as the manifest failures of the government in respect of education, but I know my colleagues with responsibility for industrial relations, apprenticeships and training, and the member for Indi, who has responsibility for child care, have other questions, so I will leave it at that. I look forward to the minister’s response. (Time expired)

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