Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have really enjoyed the scare campaign about universities put forward by the other side. You would think, for some crazy reason, that all universities are going to close down or that everyone is going to be charged a huge amount of money. The thing that those opposite fail to acknowledge is that it is their own side that originally came up with many of these deregulatory ideas.

Let us look at the contribution of the member for Rankin, who spoke about the accessibility of universities to low-socioeconomic demographics. To start with, we are actually extending what we are doing with trade and apprenticeships—$20,000 is what we are going to give to incentivise people to go in through the TAFE system. I went through the TAFE system and then went into the University of Western Sydney. This is where incentivising people through some of the other types of gateway courses is so crucial. If you look at the University of Western Sydney, which is in my electorate, you would think that, by the deregulation, universities are irresponsible institutions. The fact is that universities are not irresponsible institutions. They are thoughtful institutions. They are institutions that think about their students. They are institutions that think about the future, about how they going to create future leaders. Already because of the scare campaign of those opposite we have had eight universities come out and say, 'No, we're actually going to freeze our fees.' They include the University of Western Sydney, the university from my own electorate; Griffith University, I am sure the member for Griffith would like to know that; Deakin University; Victoria University; Flinders University; Murdoch University; and Edith Cowan University. By freezing university fees they are providing security to students so they know what their fees are going to be. The members opposite are running around trying to scare everyone by saying that university fees are going to go into some exorbitant place. What they are not actually saying is that universities are responsible institutions. What they are not talking about is how we are going to provide more gateway opportunities for people to get university. We are talking about 80,000 additional places. That is what we are doing here.

I will go back to the University of Western Sydney. It is a wonderful institution in my electorate. The University of Western Sydney is once again investing. It invests in health and research. It is looking at how it can grow the education sector in this country. It is also going overseas to places like China. It is seeing how it can be more internationally competitive.

We have a fabulous foreign affairs minister, and with the Colombo Plan and what they are doing with taking university students to China and from China back to Australia we are seeing our universities finally become internationally competitive. Under those opposite we saw our universities drop out of the top 100 universities in the world. This deregulation, together with the Colombo Plan and getting people into universities through gateway programs, will see our university sector once again be international competitive. If we want to have future leaders, if we want to have future thought leaders within our communities we need competitive universities. We need universities that are going to lead by example. We need universities that invest in research and funding. We will be investing in research so that our universities can go out there and find the research projects that will take us into the next millennium.

When we look at what this is all about we will see that this is about providing future leaders. This is about providing university to more people. We want to talk about people in low-socioeconomic demographic areas. Sometimes getting through year 12 is not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, so finding gateway programs that will take people into university is so crucial. If you actually want to help people in low-socioeconomic demographic areas—if you want to provide university opportunities to get the mechanic who has done his trade to become a mechanical engineer—you help him get his trade and then you help him get to university to be able to become a mechanical engineer. That is what I did. (Time expired)

See this speech in context