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

I am happy to tell the member for Lindsay that the University of Western Sydney is a great asset to her in Western Sydney and to the people of Western Sydney. People like those in Western Sydney will be big winners from the government's higher education reforms that we are introducing through the budget. They will be big winners because we are expanding university education to 80,000 more students around Australia, many of which will be low socioeconomic status students and first-generation university goers, just like many of those who go to the University of Western Sydney in the member for Lindsay's electorate. We are expanding and creating Commonwealth scholarships. We are lifting the cap on diplomas, which the University of Western Sydney specialises in, as pathways for first-generation university goers. And we are opening the Commonwealth Grant Scheme to non-university higher education providers, which will create competition and a bigger market for students in the University of Western Sydney, giving more young Australians the opportunity to get a higher education qualification.

We have a plan in this budget to re-energise higher education as a sector in Australia in the future. That stands in stark contrast with the approaches taken by the Labor Party, because the Labor Party is no longer the working class party; it is the whingeing party of Australia.

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

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