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

I think the shadow minister's opening remarks were not so much a question as they were a political statement. But I will pick up some of the things that she said in her speech. I am sure then that members of the coalition might want to make a contribution and I will respond to those as well.

The shadow minister asked a series of loaded questions. Let me explain a little bit about the education package in the budget. First of all, there are no cuts to education in this budget—none whatsoever. Over the next four years, higher education increases every year to the point where we will have $900 million more in spending over the next four years in higher education. And there are some elements of the new spending proposals that the shadow minister did not touch on. Obviously, we were met with several funding cliffs when we came to power. The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy was one of those funding cliffs where Labor had extended the scheme for 12 months and it was an ending program. We were faced with letting that program end or finding the money in the budget to continue it because of the very good work that NCRIS does. I am sure that the member for Adelaide would agree that NCRIS is a very worthwhile scheme to support research infrastructure. I and, I am sure, the member for Adelaide, have visited some of the outstanding examples of where NCRIS is making a difference to research in Australia.

Well, we found that money and we continued to fund NCRIS into the future. We did the same thing with the Future Fellowships program, a program that typically is for mid-career researchers, to ensure that once they have passed through the early stages of being a researcher we do not lose them overseas, poached by excellent universities around the globe—that we can continue to use the skills that they are developing here in Australia. Anyone who attended the Prime Minister's Science Awards at the end of last year would note that a number of the winners were mid-career researchers who had benefited under the Future Fellowships scheme.

Labor again—

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