Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I'm on duty and it gave me great pleasure when I came in here to see the topic of conversation put forward by the honourable member for Indi was national regional higher education. Being a proud regional seat holder myself in Queensland, where the largest contributor to GDP in my electorate is agriculture, I thought it would be fitting that I make a contribution to the debate. Within the boundaries of my electorate is none other than the UQ's Gatton Campus, which produces for Queensland and the eastern seaboard the vast majority of vets going into the agricultural sector for large equines and other large animals. They've got some amazing programs there.

Additionally to that, in Toowoomba we have the USQ Toowoomba Campus, we have the Springfield Campus—which is, again, a USQ campus—and we have the Gold Coast campus. I'm on the border of Griffith and on the border of Bond University, so there's a lot of overflow of my seniors. When I take headshots from my students when I'm speaking to them, I ask how many are going to university, how many are going to trades and how many are going home. Each year I have seen the numbers grow exponentially, from around 20 per cent to now 40 per cent of my senior students taking the position that they will go to university. The reason they want to go to university is that our evidence tells us that those children who are educated in the university system, over their working life, will generate, on average, an extra $1 million. That's a great incentive for them to go to work.

I firstly thank the member for Indi for bringing this topic to the House, because it is such an important issue. I want to share with you some intricacies of my own life. When I left school I had an entrepreneurial flair. I started my own business. I bought some trucks, I bought some more trucks and then I bought many trucks. I had 14 depots around the state and I employed 105 people, so I never had the opportunity to go to university. I was, by any stretch of the imagination, well off in the way of finances, but there was something that burned for me. I thought less of myself because I had not been to university. Recently, whilst I was in the position of Chief Government Whip, I started a masters program. I'm just about on the home straight. It is so difficult to be a member, to work in your electorate, to have the commitments that you have in you life, to be in this place and to study. When everybody else is going home to bed, you're out there trying to bash out assignments. It is a challenge.

I wanted to make a contribution to the debate tonight because I think that university gives you that couple of letters after your name and allows you to make a contribution to a debate where you are seen as an equal. By any stretch of the imagination my balance sheets would've been superior to most in any conversation, but I felt that I was lacking because I didn't have that university degree. I'm out having a crack. I've got a bet with my daughter. She's studying at USQ, doing her environmental science degree. I've got a bet with her that I'm going to finish before she does. I suggest that I probably won't. It'll be an amazing bottle of Penfolds that I have to depart with, along with a trip around the world and 12 months worth of wages. It was a substantial bet.

I will come back to what I alluded to earlier on in my speech, which is that in my electorate the largest contributor to GDP is agriculture. The advances that are coming out of our technology and out of our universities are revolutionising the way that we do business. There is satellite tracking in John Deere tractors. They virtually no longer need a driver, but you sit there so that they've got someone listening to the radio in the cab. Those tractors will do the most perfect line. They will actually do sampling in a paddock and drop the right amount of fertiliser behind you to make sure that you get your optimum yields. Our growers, because they have access to the UQ Gatton Campus, are embracing technology. I would just like to, in my closing comments, thank the member for Indi for bringing this to the House.

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