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

We had to choose between doing what Labor did—which was just to keep kicking the can down the road, being incompetent and now irresponsible—or grasping the opportunity to do something about higher education in Australia. Grasp that opportunity we did—and we want to give our university sector the freedom that they need to be able to compete globally against our Asian competitors. We are going to give them the freedom to put a value on their best courses, so they can keep doing the things they do well, and do them even better and invest the extra resources they gain into research. We will give them the freedom to make the decisions about what they do well, and what they do not want to continue to do into the future. We want to give them the freedom to draft their own scholarships fund so they can have packages that attract the best and brightest students from around Australia of low socio-economic status and to give them the opportunity to get a higher education qualification. The difference between us and Labor could not be more stark. Whereas this side of the government wants to spread opportunity and give the universities the chance to compete globally, Labor wants to keep being irresponsible. Just as they were incompetent in government, they are irresponsible in opposition—it goes on and on.(Time expired)

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