Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

The premise of the question is false to start with, of course, because Labor are continuing their lies and scare campaigns about the fees that would be charged at universities, which obviously they feel they have had some success with. Why have we reintroduced a Higher Education and Research Reform Bill today? Because it is the right thing to do for Australia, for students, and for the university sector. Labor cut $6.6 billion from our university sector and gave universities no prospects of replacing that revenue. That $6.6 billion cut has damaged the university sector.

The university sector themselves, led by Brenda Robinson at Universities Australia, have said that universities are in decline and they risk stagnation without reform. Every university representative organisation has called on the parliament to pass these reform bills with amendments. Because of Labor's $6.6 billion of cuts we are making the decisions that are necessary to give universities the opportunity to replace that revenue by asking students to pay 50-50 for the costs of their education when they are currently paying 40 per cent and taxpayers are paying 60 per cent. I think that is fair, and I think that most students would be happy to pay 50-50 for the cost of their education.

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