Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance. I found it quite surprising that the member for Kingston would try to lecture us on waste when the Labor Party were delivering us overpriced school halls. That was their contribution to the education system in this country. I must say that when it comes to higher education Labor's legacy is $6½ billion in cuts. They try and claim the high ground on higher education, but in fact their legacy is a legacy of $6½ billion in cuts. From the 2011-12 budget to the 2013-14 budget, Labor hacked $6½ billion from higher education. They made cuts to grants. They increased fees. They cut discounts for paying your HECS debt up-front. Labor cut the Sustainable Research Excellence scheme by some $498 million in the 2012 MYEFO. Labor made no provision for the Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the Future Fellowships program for research beyond 2015. Labor were happy to let our research efforts fall off a funding cliff.

Under Labor, international education went backwards. Export income fell by billions of dollars from its 2009-10 peak, because of Labor's neglect, Labor's policy weakness and Labor's bungled handling of what is one of Australia's largest exports and our 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 2009-2013 period. It is bad for our economy, it is bad for our education system and it is bad for the industries that depend on the income that education revenue produces.

Who could forget Labor's shameful treatment of country kids when it came to their access to higher education. Who could forget Labor's shame? Labor locked thousands of regional students out of higher education through their shambolic changes to Youth Allowance. This saw some kids miss out on going to university simply because they lived on the wrong side of a line on a map. Labor have no credibility in higher education, and Labor have no credible plan for the future of Australia's higher education system.

Let's get some facts straight. There is no support for Labor's scare campaign. We have weeks and weeks of scare campaign when it comes to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. We have months and months of Labor's scare campaign when it comes to their false claim of $100,000 university degrees. Let's look at some of the comments out there. The fees announced by the University of Western Australia and the Queensland University of Technology debunked this scare campaign: it was simply dishonest. I quote the member for Fraser. He is one of the more knowledgeable members of the frontbench—a far cry from the member for Kingston. He said:

There is no reason to think that it—

deregulation—

will adversely affect poorer students.

In a Senate submission, the University of Sydney said:

In our view there has been widely exaggerated claims—

member for Kingston—

by the opponents of deregulation about degrees costing more than $100,000.

…   …   …   

In our view the market will not sustain such exaggerated degree prices … it is vital that we keep tuition rates down …

That was the University of Sydney. But Open Universities went further. They said:

… we are confident that for numerous courses, deregulation of fees will also lead to a significant decrease in the cost of tuition.

I will repeat that for the benefit of the House. Open Universities said:

… deregulation of fees will also lead to a significant decrease—

not an increase but a decrease—

in the cost of tuition.

We had Labor in government cutting $6½ billion out of higher education, and then persisting, when in opposition, with an endless scare campaign on this issue of the cost of degrees, going forward. I note that my colleague Senator Birmingham announced on 1 October that university funding arrangements for 2016 will be the same as for 2015—indexed, of course—while he consults on a sustainable funding basis for a world-class higher education system for students. When it comes to their own policies, Labor cannot even get their costings right. In relation to the alleged cancellation, or proposed cancellation, of HECS debts for maths and science students, Labor had three different costings over a period of 24 hours, and all of them were wrong. For all of the three versions of the policy that they created, probably on the back of an envelope, the costings were all wrong.

Having a world-class higher education system is vitally important. We on this side of the House know that if we are going to grow our living standards into the future, if we are going to be a knowledge economy of the future, a high-class, world-class higher education system is a vital part of that. Our universities are the key to developing a smarter, more agile economy. Our higher education sector generates, as I said, substantial export income. And the international education sector is a major employer. Our higher education sector and the international sector support some 130,000 Australian jobs.

The reality is that universities are entering an increasingly competitive global environment where they will be competing not just with Australian universities but with the very best universities around the world. So it is vital that our higher education system will have the resources that it needs and be sufficiently flexible to meet the world competition that it faces now and will face increasingly into the future. We need a funding model that supports a high-class, world-class higher education system.

All the credible experts on higher education agree that reform is needed. We are consulting widely about exactly what the best way is to reform the system. But there seems to be one organisation in this country that denies the need for reform and that wants to be stuck in the past and, in fact, wants to go backwards, and that is the Australian Labor Party. We had Senator Carr—good old 'Comrade' Carr—suggesting that he may go back to the future and reintroduce caps on university places. That would lock thousands of students out of university. It is quite surprising that Labor cannot even get the costings right on its own policies.

We on this side of the House understand the importance of higher education. We on this side of the House understand the importance of all facets of education, be it school education, education through the VET system or higher education. We on this side of the House understand the importance of having a high-quality VET sector as well as a high-quality higher education sector. We understand the ability of education to lift the wellbeing of all Australians, to transform the lives of disengaged kids, to allow people to strive to be the best that they can be. We on this side of the House are committed to a quality higher education system into the future that will be world class, that will compete on the world stage and that will generate export dollars for this country in increasing amounts each and every year. We are about supporting higher education. The members opposite are merely stuck in the past.

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