Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, may I congratulate you on your election to this high office. Labor are experts at peddling false information about the government's policies. As we know, they will suggest that we have cut things when we have in fact increased the funding. They peddle misinformation in relation to our industrial relations policy. They have a shameless, if not racist attack, on our free trade agreement with China. But perhaps the greatest misinformation, which they have been peddling now for close to 18 months, is this idea that our higher education policy would lead to $100,000 degrees.

That is perhaps the greatest misinformation that they have been peddling, because the implications of what they are saying and what they have been telling the Australian people is that if this higher education package passes through the Senate, then every single degree would cost $100,000 or more. They also suggest that that would be an up-front cost to boot on top of that. Not only is that misleading, not only is that wrong and not only is that factually incorrect but it is actually sending a very poor message to those people who are thinking about wanting to go into higher education. It is destroying their hopes and their aspirations. They are starting to believe that they will no longer be able to afford to go to university. That is the damage that the Labor Party is doing by peddling this falsehood that university degrees are all going to be $100,000.

I would like to go through the facts of what we are actually proposing. What we are proposing—what we put forward through to this parliament—is to deregulate fees. As you probably know, Mr Deputy Speaker, at present there is a legal limit on what the universities can charge students. In essence, we were suggesting that we should remove that legal limit and leave it up to the university councils themselves as to what fee they should be charging university students. They would still be charging it completely through the HECS system—students would have no upfront costs, no fees that they would have to pay before they entered into that degree—but they would have the ability to set the fees, be it that they put them up or be it that they put them down. We would be entrusting the university councils, made up of the best and brightest minds in the nation, to set those fees.

The idea there was that we would get a differentiation amongst the university sector. Some universities which are striving to be the very best in the world, such as the University of Melbourne, or a university like Monash or UNSW, may indeed put up their fees for some courses so that they can offer something very unique in the world. Other universities, for particular courses, may indeed drop their fees under such a model.

But how do we know that Labor has in fact been telling falsehoods, and continues to tell falsehoods even to this very day about $100,000 degrees? How do we know this? We know this because we have been listening to what the universities themselves have been saying. I would actually like to go through this very slowly for the benefit of the opposition, so that they know what the universities themselves have been saying, given that it is the universities themselves who would be setting the fees.

Let's take a look: Queensland University of Technology issued their fee guidelines under a deregulated model on 5 December last year. Let's have a look at the proposed fees. A Bachelor of Nursing, which would be a three-year degree—how much do you think they would be suggesting for that? If you were listening to the member for Kingston and listening to the Labor Party, you would be thinking, 'Jeez, a Bachelor of Nursing at QUT in a deregulated fee environment, oh my goodness!' Let's have a look. A three-year degree: $31,800 at the max, and potentially only $21,400 at the minimum for three years. At the very most, it is less than $10,000 per year.

Let's have a look at the Bachelor of Business, where you are likely to earn more money: somewhere between $32,300 for a three-year degree, with a maximum of $41,400. The most expensive course which they tabled—and they have tabled every single course and every single bachelor degree—is a 5½-year course, which is a double degree for a Bachelor of Business and a Bachelor of Laws, which in total would be between $61,000 and $78,000 at the absolute max. Again, where is the $100,000 degree for any of those courses under this? I would like to table this for the benefit of the Labor Party so that they can see that.

Let me go to the University of La Trobe. It is a university in my great state of Victoria. The University of La Trobe said that in 2015 they are offering a guarantee that their fees will not increase by more than 10 per cent above the regulated student contribution each year of their degree—an increase of only 10 per cent.

You know what Open Universities Australia said? For the benefit of the gallery and of those people listening, they said:

… we are confident that for numerous courses deregulation of fees will … lead to—

wait for this—

a significant decrease in the cost of tuition.

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