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

I was on this occasion, fortunately, Madam Speaker, in spite of my colleagues' exuberance behind me and across the chamber. I am very happy to get a question from the member for Mitchell about the government's higher education reforms because we are very proud of our higher education reforms. We are very proud that they will spread more opportunity to 80,000 young Australians to go to university, and we are very proud that they will give our universities in Australia the best chance possible to be their best selves and to compete with their overseas competitors, particularly in Asia.

Good oppositions support governments that take on big reform. It is never easy when you take on big reform. Good governments do it because they know it is right, and good oppositions support governments that take on big reform. In the Hawke and Keating period, the Peacock-Howard oppositions often supported some of the big reforms that those governments did. When Kim Beazley was the Leader of the Opposition, it was not unknown for him to support some of the big reforms of the Howard and Costello government.

Yesterday Michael Gallagher, the chief executive of the Group of Eight Universities, had this to say about our reforms. He said:

The 2014 Higher Education Budget reforms are necessary.

Ms Butler interjecting—

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