Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and I thank you in particular for being so tolerant before and just warning me. Your forbearance is much appreciated. So I can give this speech on the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014, a bill that is an assault on the middle class.

Mr Tudge interjecting—

It is an assault on the middle class, and if you want to debate it across the chamber I am more than happy to have a spirited debate in this chamber about this bill, which has $100,000 degrees and an assault on social mobility and the middle class at its core.

This is about values, and it is about an assault on Australian values. We hear the parliamentary secretary opposite asking about other opinions. He should know this: we will oppose this up hill and down dale every inch of the way, because what it is, as I said before, is an assault on the middle class, an assault on social mobility and an assault on the idea that you can go to university, get a degree and then, with that public investment that has been made in you, pay it back in taxes by starting a business, by owning a home, by starting a family, by joining the middle class and by contributing to society that way. It is a very good model. It has been going on for decades. We know that education is the key to social mobility.

We have seen the austerity that the government have visited on the Australian community through the GP tax; they said one thing before the election and they did another afterwards. We have seen it in pensions: saying one thing before the election and doing another thing afterwards. We have just seen a debate on the minimum wage, overtime and penalty rates. We know they will say one thing today and they will do something else tomorrow. That is what we know about the government. You cannot trust their words, you cannot trust the word of the Prime Minister and you cannot trust them on education. Look at their 'Our plan—real solutions for all Australians' document. No doubt a lot of members would have gone to the election clutching this document, and of course there is much about education in it, but there is nothing about $100,000 degrees. There is nothing at all in here about $100,000 degrees. This is the election manifesto with which the Liberal Party went to their communities and said, 'Trust us.' They elevated that issue of trust to a level perhaps unwise for politicians, because of course they have said another thing and they have done another.

In this area of higher education, of course, it is a terrible blow to do this, because we understand that education is key to social mobility, productivity, innovation and having a trained workforce. Most other nations around the world are going the opposite way. They are not making it more expensive; they are making it cheaper. They are investing in their middle class. They are investing in their workforces because of those key advantages.

It is little wonder that, when we talk about overseas, we see an article by a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations in Asia Unbound, titled 'Tony Abbott has to go'. I know, Deputy Speaker, you will say, 'How is that relevant?' I will quote from the document:

Abbott also does not seem to think it necessary to even discuss policy proposals with his top ministers and other leading members of his conservative coalition. His lack of consultation has made it harder for him to pass some critical legislation. In addition, he appears to have one of the worst senses of public relations of any prime minister in recent Australian history.

That is what a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations says in a damning sort of article, which I will no doubt refer to again in the future at this dispatch box.

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