Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to respond to the opposition on this afternoon's matter of public importance. It has been very hard, when listening to the opposition in parliament this week, to understand exactly what they believe in. I have listened to the member for Adelaide. I have listened to her often, and I still do not understand what drives her or what she believes in, in terms of the opposition's agenda for education, particularly the higher education portfolio.

But I picked out a couple of things that she said. She talked about driving up the debt of every student. I want to assure her that we care about the debt of every student, but we really care about the debt on the shoulders of every single Australian—man, woman and child—that this opposition has left this government to deal with. If the member for Adelaide cares about the debts of students she should care about the debts of every Australian.

The member for Adelaide also referred to a globalised knowledge economy. I cannot let that comment pass without making a very strong point in response. The point of the university reforms is to enable our students—our graduates—to operate and work in an integrated globalised world economy. Where are the children of many of the members in this place—the children aged 20-something? Many of them are overseas or are working for overseas multinational countries. Their jobs are linked inextricably with the jobs of every student studying at every higher education institution in the world. Unless we keep up we will fall behind. I am surprised, with the emphasis that Labor often has on quality, that they have not recognised that important point.

We should set the scene, because sometimes when people listen to debates in this place, we talk about money and scarce resources and the allocation of scarce resources—which is obviously what we do—and it is as if the money is there and we are just arguing about how to divide it up. It is as if we have different philosophical opinions on what we do with a certain pot of money. Yes we do, but the point to make here is that the money is not here. We have arrived in government with an enormous deficit that we have inherited from Labor. We have arrived in a position not of strength but of weakness and it is our job to turn that around. We are not competing on the same playing field that Labor imagines it is when it talks about the current budgetary situation, which it has airbrushed away as if it does not exist.

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