Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Abbott government's proposed budget for 2014 commits an act of robbery. Thousands of hardworking and capable Australian students seeking knowledge and enlightenment by pursuing their right to higher education will be robbed of the opportunity to fulfil their potential. The young people who drive our development as a nation will soon be stripped of their right to receive the higher education that we have worked long and hard to establish. Women in particular—who are already disadvantaged by a wage gap of 17.5 per cent—as well as those from low-income backgrounds and those from regional areas will be hit hardest, further impairing their already existing struggles in obtaining education. The current government is trying to deny the people to whom we will soon be entrusting the future of this country their right not to be discriminated against on the basis of their financial circumstances. We cannot regress into a system of Americanised education where the ideals of learning are mutated, from an exciting opportunity for everyone to grow and develop their academic potential, into a business-like, exploitative institution that values things as trivial as an individual's ability to pay over their actual capabilities.

All Australians are entitled to play a part in the economic artistic, scientific and all-round advancement of this country. When we remove funding from higher education schemes and thus remove that right, we inhibit our ability to progress on an international scale. So wrote Sophie, who was doing work experience in my office last week from PLC. I think Sophie encapsulates beautifully the angst that many students are going through now at the lost opportunity they face. (Time expired)

See this speech in context