Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The previous contribution just showed how out of touch the country MPs—the Liberals and the Nationals—are with what working people in the bush actually care about, because what the cleaners and the council workers want is for their children to have the opportunity to go to university. They are people like Gamal Babiker, who came here as a refugee, who took on a job as a cleaner. He said that these reforms are the worst decision of this government to date. He said these reforms are the worst decision because he wanted his kids to have the opportunity that he did not have when he first arrived in this country. He wanted his children to be able to go to university. He is the proud father of three children, two of whom did decide to go to university under the current system, where they ended up with a small HECS-HELP debt that was affordable for them to pay off through the taxation system.

Another absolute furphy of the other side is the suggestion that working people are paying and subsidising the elite to go to university. When people go to university and they get a job and they earn more money, guess what? They pay more taxes. They pay more taxes to this government so this government has the resources to then fund the next generation of university students. We still have a progressive tax system in this country, and that is how we ensure that those on the higher incomes help out those on the lower incomes.

So there are two furphies that we have seen put forward by this government in this debate, the first being that working people do not want their children to go to university—a furphy—and the second being that people who go to university and then earn the extra dollars do not contribute towards the tax paying the next generation of people going to university.

The third furphy is the suggestion that Labor cut $6.6 billion out of higher education. ABC Fact Check has come out and said that the minister was wrong, incorrect; he lied. But, of course, why would we believe the ABC? They are only the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, who are here to make sure that we are held accountable!

Higher education is fundamental in this community, and access to higher education is key. It should be a goal of any government to ensure that demography is not destiny, that your background and the circumstances of your birth are not a barrier to excellent education. Which university you go to should be about your ability and not your ability to pay. It should be about your mark and your brain and not the size of your bank account or your willingness to get into debt.

The final point I will make today is about the fees and the absolute denial of this government, the denial of the members opposite, about the fees going up. When you put on the table, as you have, a 20 per cent cut in student funding, guess what happens? The fees go up. If you deregulate university fees and cut funding for those student courses, fees will go up. If we are serious about having the next generation of engineers to build the Bushmaster; the Hawkeye, if you ever sign the contract; and the next LAND 400, the tanks, if you ever get to signing that contract—if we want to have the engineers to be able to do those manufacturing contracts—we need to get the students and give the best and brightest students, not the ones who can afford to pay, the opportunity to go to university.

One-hundred-thousand-dollar degrees will occur if these reforms go through because this government is cutting funding and giving the universities at the same time the opportunity to increase fees to make up the difference from the funding that this government is cutting. If good government started this week, start by dumping this toxic reform. Listen to the crossbenchers. Listen to your community. Listen to the people working in the universities. Listen to what they are saying about the students that are enrolling. It is time that the students were put first. It is time that young Australians were put first so they are not the first generation to be saddled with generations of their own debt and not to have the opportunity to go to higher education.

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