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

The member for Moreton needs to understand that all his shouting does not get on the television, if he thinks everybody is listening. It does not actually make it. My comments get on the telly; yours do not. You cannot be heard, so you are just wasting a lot of time and energy. Belinda Robinson, the head of Universities Australia, said on 23 September:

Why is it that a consensus of Australian universities are calling on Senate crossbenchers to support and amend the Government's higher education reform agenda?

The short answer is because the existing funding model is not sustainable and a new approach is needed.

She went on to say:

If the Government's package is opposed outright, the quality of the things that our great universities do so well—teaching and research—could be jeopardised. It is simply not possible to maintain the standards that students expect or the international reputation that Australia's university system enjoys without full fee deregulation.

Sadly for the Labor Party, the university sector wants reform. Do they want amendments? Sure, they do. Do the crossbenchers want amendments? I am talking to them about that subject as we speak, and what I have said all along is the government is entirely open to suggestions from the Senate, from the crossbenchers, even from the Labor Party or the Greens. The sad thing for Labor is that you have dealt yourself out of the conversation. You are irrelevant. You are policy light. You are utterly irrelevant to the debate, and when a reform passes the Senate either now or in the near future, Labor will be proved, yet again, to be standing on the sidelines just whistling Dixie.

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