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

for both students and taxpayers. The higher education reforms proposed by the government will deliver fairness for students and for taxpayers. They will do that because, at the moment, taxpayers are funding 60 per cent of the cost of a student's education at university and students are paying 40 per cent. Our reforms, when passed by the House and the Senate, will rebalance that contribution to 50-50. In most people's books, 50-50 is a very fair deal, especially when you consider that the students can borrow every single dollar of their share upfront from those very same taxpayers who are paying the other 50 per cent and at the best interest rates that they will ever get on a loan in their lives, and then they will go on to earn a million dollars more on average than those taxpayers who do not have a higher education qualification. So it is a very fair deal.

Greater leaders than this one understood that in the past—Paul Keating, for example. When he was the Prime Minister he said:

There is no such thing, of course, as 'free' education - somebody has to pay.

In systems with no charges, those somebodies are all taxpayers. This is a pretty important point. A free higher education system is one paid for by the taxes of all, the majority of whom have not had the privilege of a university education. Ask yourself if you think that is a fair thing.

I agree with Paul Keating. I think Paul Keating was right. He knew a little bit about fairness. I am asked about fairness, and today it—it has, remarkably, gone unnoticed by the opposition—the fourth anniversary of the Gillard coup against Kevin Rudd. On 24 June four years ago to this day, Bill the Knife sunk it into Kevin Rudd and made sure that he was no longer the Prime Minister.

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