Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Hotham for her question in question time. It was a brilliant question—a brilliant question about who brought in HECS in Australia. I think it was fascinating to remind the House that it was the Keating administration who first came up with the notion that it was fair, very fair, for a student to contribute to the cost of their education. It is a fair principle. It is a principle that we should seek to reinforce in Australian education today, and this government is seeking to reinforce it. The only thing that could have made the member for Hotham's presentation a little better would have been a glass of chardonnay, because it was chardonnay socialism at its best. This is not about poor students. This is not about people on the breadline. This is about reinforcing the privileges of those upper middle-class kids at uni who are being paid for by poor students who do not go universities. That is what this is about. People who go to universities are subsidised by the rest of our community. They are subsidised by people who never have a prospect of entering university and who, on average, have much lower incomes. We know that, when you get an education degree, it is an economic asset; it stays with you for the rest of your life. It is only fair that you make a contribution to that.

The fact is that this government is expanding this scheme. We are not just expanding the cost incurred by a student; we are expanding access. The MPI that has come up today is really from the D team. There is no shadow minister. Nobody of really any note moved this motion. It is the D team. Maybe it is the F team.

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