Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too would like to make a contribution in respect of the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. I am one of those on this side of the House who are very, very concerned about the passage of this legislation. These amendments are not only destructive for the future of young people looking to pursue a tertiary qualification but, to any of us who have any understanding of economics, they are destructive to the long-term economic and social development of our nation.

Higher education is an issue very near and dear to the hearts of many parents and students in my electorate, as I would expect would be the case for any member here in the House of Representatives. I know that parents in my electorate place particularly high importance on a university education for their children, as they see that a tertiary qualification is important to succeed in a society like Australia's. Part of that probably comes from the fact that it is a very multicultural community, but it is probably more entrenched because mine is also a community that has significant pockets of disadvantage.

I ask members here to recall that, before the last election, Tony Abbott promised that a Liberal government would not make any cuts to education. Just let me quote from what the Prime Minister said. He said this: 'I want to give the people an absolute assurance: no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, and no changes to the GST.' In that very short list there are probably not many promises that have not been broken so far. But, for the purposes of this debate, I want to concentrate on that promise that he made on education.

Now, a year on from the election, we see this conga line of broken promises and, as to education, a $5.8 billion cut to the higher education sector. We see the slashing of funds from the Commonwealth supported places in undergraduate degrees by 20 per cent, the reduction in indexation arrangements for university funding to the consumer price index, the cutting of almost $174 million from the Research Training Scheme, and the introduction of PhD fees. But one of the things that really concerns a lot of people in my electorate, just judging by the phone calls and emails I have had of late, is the introduction of the real rate of interest for HECS debt.

We have seen education come under attack from this government time and time again. We have seen the government backflip on school based education. Those opposite do not have to take Labor members' views on this; they only have to make contact with New South Wales Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli, who will probably confirm for them that Gonski is gone—that the whole basis for an education revolution in this country, the whole basis of giving this country the opportunity to compete with the best and smartest minds in the world, has been undermined by this government. They should stop to think of what the impact of these so-called reforms is going to amount to—but, particularly for this debate, they would not need to go any further than thinking about what they are proposing to do to students striving to gain a tertiary qualification. I am not just talking about young people graduating from high school and going to university. You yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, raised, in question time the other day, the issue of a mature-age student, a father of four, in your electorate, who was holding down a part-time job—

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