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

Free-flowing debate is a good thing in this chamber and there should be a lot more of it, so I am happy to take the intervention. I can tell the member for Fraser that there are 41 universities in Australia and 40 out of 41 vice-chancellors support the higher education reform bill. They want the bill passed. I have never met a vice-chancellor who wanted to have a cut—never met one!—but I can tell you that I have met 40 out of 41 who support the government's higher education reform bill.

I know the member for Fraser is embarrassed. I would be embarrassed too, if I was a reasonably intelligent member as the member for Fraser is—someone who can put some words together and write a book, and he has written several. He is an intelligent academic. I would be embarrassed, too, if I was forced to eat my words in the humiliating way the member for Fraser has been forced to eat his words over the higher education reform bill. He knows, and John Dawkins knows, and Maxine McKew knows, and Gareth Evans knows—they all know that reform to our universities is required. If we do not reform universities—if we do not give universities the opportunity to be their best selves—they will stagnate, and the member for Fraser knows that. It will be a slow decline into mediocrity. Those are not my words; they are the words of the vice-chancellors and Universities Australia. We will be facing a slow decline into mediocrity if we do not allow reform.

How could the Labor Party come in here and oppose these bills when they know themselves that, when they were in government, they cut $6.6 billion from the higher education system? I have the document here and I am going to table it. Go through the $6.6552 billion of cuts to higher education; that is how much they cut from higher education. Now they come in here and oppose the government which is trying to get revenue flowing back to the universities to replace that $6.655 billion. We are trying to help the universities to gain revenue. How are we going to do that?

We are going to do it by asking the people who get the most benefit from their education to make a slightly larger contribution. At the moment students are paying about 45 or 48 per cent of the cost of their education and the taxpayer is covering the other half—more than half. All we are asking students to do with this reform bill is to pay about half each with the taxpayer—fifty-fifty. At the moment they pay just under 50 per cent of the cost of their education; we are asking them to pay about fifty-fifty. What benefits do they get? They get the lowest unemployment rate of anybody in the economy. They earn 75 per cent more over a lifetime if they have an undergraduate degree. They have longer life expectancies. They have better health outcomes. They get a significant private benefit. There is also a public benefit, and that is why the government is happy—

Honourable members interjecting—

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