Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I would particularly like to thank the member for Ballarat for her question. I know just how concerned she is about the impact of this decision on the University of Ballarat in particular, just as the member for Macquarie is particularly concerned about the impacts that the visiting students from Charles Sturt University have told us about today in the House—because we on this side know that the decision of the Senate is going to have a particularly devastating impact on regional campuses and regional universities. But the thing that I would like to point out today is that it is not just we who realise this. Though they have failed to act and once again have toed the Liberal Party line, the National Party themselves know exactly how devastating this is going to be for regional universities.

As I outlined yesterday, Senator Joyce said as recently as November last year that VSU has been a fiasco for regional universities. It is interesting that he also said in 2005 that he believed that universities:

… should have the right to raise a fee to support facilities intrinsically part of a university.

But today I can tell you that Senator Joyce is not on his own on this one; he is joined by his colleagues in the National Party. Just this morning another National, Senator Williams, said on ABC New England radio: ‘In the Nationals we support in principle a levy being placed on students.’ Well, this is one of those occasions when supporting something in principle does not actually amount to anything. It is standing in this place and voting for it which will deliver for regional students. But once again they choose to talk the talk when they are on the radio and when they are talking to regional Australians but come into this chamber and betray them. Now they have to face the consequences of that, because there are almost 150,000 students who attend regional universities and campuses and it is those students who will be paying the price for the National Party’s cowardice.

I would like to draw attention to a couple of those students. One wrote to me last night—Billy, who studies at James Cook University, in the member for Leichardt’s electorate.

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