Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

When I first saw the topic of today's matter of public importance, my first reaction was that this was going to be a short debate, or it certainly should be a short debate, because the claim by Labor of $100,000 degrees is simply untrue. There is substantial evidence refuting Labor's claims. We know that very clearly and we also know that the higher education sector knows that.

But then I re-read the opinion piece in the Australian in August last year by Vicki Thomson, as the Executive Director of the Australian Technology Network. Vicki Thomson was certainly very direct in her message about deregulation and it is worthwhile, in the context of this debate on the MPI, revisiting her opinion piece. It was titled 'Don't be fooled by $100,000 degrees'. Seriously, Senators, deregulation will not spur such fee hikes. She says in the opening couple of paragraphs:

THE vomit theory is part of the global political lexicon: that it is only when you're so sick of saying something that you want to vomit are the people you are speaking to starting to "get it".

So let me repeat what has been said a million times: the university sector is not looking to introduce standard $100,000 degrees and deregulation won't deliver them.

She then goes on in her opinion piece to say:

A far more realistic estimate of how high fees might rise for a standard degree in a deregulated market is $12,000 to $14,000 a year—rather lower than the $100,000 being yelled from certain rooftops.

This would be in line with undergraduate degrees offered by some of the world's top public universities that already operate in a deregulated market, such as the University of California at Berkeley.

So I am going today, during this MPI, to go through the evidence one more time, clearly refuting the claims of Labor that there will be $100,000 degrees.

Let me just start by putting this into some sort of perspective, setting the scene for what I am going to say, and let me put on the table some figures. Labor cut $6.6 billion in funding to higher education while they were in office, including more than $3 billion in their last year in office alone. In April 2013 Labor cut $2.8 billion of funding to universities and students and capped self-education expenses, which risked leaving thousands of Australian nurses, teachers and other professionals out of pocket. Labor left a complicated and unwieldy mess, with large increases in regulation, compliance, reporting and unnecessary red tape and regulatory duplication applying to universities. This meant universities spent an estimated $280 million per year on compliance and reporting. Labor's poor track record is evidenced by the two independent reviews of regulation and reporting in 2013 that the previous Labor government failed to respond to. But there is more.

Labor cut the sustainable research excellence scheme by $498.8 million in the 2012 MYEFO. Labor made no provision for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the Future Fellowships program for research talent beyond 2015. Labor was happy to let Australia's research efforts fall off a funding cliff.

Importantly, under Labor our share of the international education market dropped. Our status as an education nation fell. Export income fell by billions of dollars from its 2009-10 peak because of Labor's neglect, policy weakness and budget handling of what is now Australia's third largest export and its No. 1 knowledge export. The number of international student enrolments fell by 130,000 between 2009 and 2012. This represents a decline in enrolments of 16 per cent over the 2009-13 period. Clearly, that is bad for our economy and for all those people who work in the education sector and the support services such as the travel and accommodation providers that prop up and help our education services.

Labor left Australia's higher education system in decline and now they are standing in the way of us fixing it. So Labor's approach, as on so many things, is to fiddle while Rome burns. It is to shirk real reform and to avoid the tough decisions that need to be made. Thankfully, our government takes an entirely different approach.

Our package of higher education reforms, which includes amendments we have agreed to following wide consultation, provides the framework to restore our status and deliver great benefits for future generations of our students, and I am very proud of that. Our reforms make possible the world-class education that Australian students need and deserve. They create the largest Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme ever. They provide the Commonwealth's support for tens of thousands of students who do not currently get it. They provide pathways into higher education for tens of thousands of students.

The legislation will abolish unfair loans for FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP students—that is a 25 per cent fee that is abolished in our reforms. That applies to many institutions around Australia, but it particularly applies to Bond University in my electorate on the Gold Coast. I have had numerous discussions with Bond University, with the students there, with the representatives of the students and also with COPHE, the Council of Private Higher Education. They are all saying that what is desperately needed for the private education sector is the reduction of those fees. That is part of our reforms and that is something that I am very committed to delivering to Bond University and other private institutions in Australia.

The reforms that we have proposed have been widely supported by the sector. I think that that is something that seems to pass by Labor members. They do not seem to grasp the fact that the sector quite widely supports the reforms that we are proposing and Labor are standing in the way of the education sector going ahead. Many of the university leaders have stressed that failure to pass these reforms in their amended form would have very damaging effects for Australia's higher education sector. The university sector has embraced these proposed reforms and failure to pass them is certainly going to lead to a backlash from all parts of the sector. I would certainly like to avoid that.

Universities Australia chief executive officer Belinda Robinson said on 28 January this year:

Our appeal to Senators as they return to Canberra is not to ignore the opportunity they have to negotiate with the Government in amending and passing a legislative package that will position Australia's universities to compete with the world's best.

Professor Sandra Harding, the chief of Universities Australia and vice-chancellor of James Cook University, said late last year:

We shouldn’t underestimate the size of these reforms or the need or urgency for these reforms … The status quo isn’t an option.

Professor Peter Lee, chair of the Regional Universities Network and vice-chancellor of Southern Cross University, said in September last year:

… deregulation of student fees [is] the only way that the sector could maintain quality and access and remain internationally competitive, as significant, additional government funding is unlikely, irrespective of political party composition.

I could go on at length. There are absolutely dozens of quotes that are out there. They all agree that deregulation is absolutely vital. But what is Labor's response to this? I think the silence is almost deafening from the other side of the House. Their only response is to talk about $100,000 fees.

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