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

I thank the member for Dawson for his question. In the break I was pleased to be in his electorate, and also the member for Capricornia's electorate. I was hosted by Michelle Landry, the excellent new member for Capricornia, at the University of Central Queensland at the launch of the newly-emerged Central Queensland TAFE and Central Queensland University into a dynamic new institution led by a dynamic vice chancellor, Scott Bowman. He wants to grasp the opportunities that higher education reform will bring in the budget. In fact, at the launch with the member for Capricornia, Scott Bowman said, 'we are licking our lips about higher education reforms, because we are a lick-smackingly good university.' That is the kind of attitude the government is looking for from the university sector—to grasp the opportunity for freedom this government plans to give them.

The previous government were incompetent in government and are irresponsible in opposition. Under the previous government there was a declining university sector. When we won power last September we saw there were declining results for our universities around the world—in fact on the Shanghai Jiao Tong index, most of our institutions were falling behind, some were flatlining and one or two exceptions were doing better than they had before. The government was faced with the prospect of our universities falling behind in a slow decline, like our manufacturing sector.

Ms Butler interjecting—

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