Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to place on the record the outrage of the community that I present over the government's extreme, ill-considered and unfair attacks on our higher education sector. Since the surprise announcements in the budget I have been contacted not just by university students but by high school students, by parents and, importantly, by grandparents as well who always thought that this was about making sure that future generations had more opportunities than they had, not that we would close the door on access to higher education.

Just last Friday I had the opportunity with the member for Port Adelaide to spend some time at the University of Adelaide speaking directly with students about these proposals that will impact on them so massively. I would suggest that is something that those opposite might like to try some time. The Minister for Education might like to try that some time as well. What I heard firsthand from students at the University of Adelaide was about the concern but also about the shock. These are students who had been told by this government in its own election policy document:

We will ensure the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding.

Well, hasn't that been shown just to be another utter farce in the long line of broken promises which this government has already delivered? But they were even more specific than that. The now education minister said in August:

… we have no plans to increase fees …

Well, isn't it funny how things change? Now they will not only massively increase fees, they will reduce the threshold at which this is paid back and, to add the triple-whammy, increase the rate that debt accumulates so that students today and students of the future will have debt for years and years, for decades to come, as a result of this government's actions.

If that is not bad enough, we also see time and time again that this government, this Prime Minister and this education minister are making it up as they go along. They do not even know the details of their own policy, as was demonstrated very clearly on Sunday when the education minister said that none of these changes would affect current students. Let's be very clear about this. He was wrong again. These changes will hit now, they will hit hard and they would hit everyone. Past students will pay, current students will pay, even future students will pay as well. Everyone will pay under these changes, although the education minister seeks to deny it.

It is not just us who are talking about how extreme and damaging these changes are. We have heard in recent days from the University of Canberra's Vice-chancellor, Stephen Parker, who said:

I also think it is unethical for a generation of leaders who by and large benefited from free higher education to burden the generations behind them in this way.

Ross Milbourne at UTS said:

I don't support this budget package because it is a badly designed model of deregulation—

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