Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The issue of debate before the House today is really one of those that encapsulate the lack of vision that the coalition government has for our nation—the short-sightedness, the smallness of ambition. When the Prime Minister challenged the member for Warringah for the leadership of the Liberal Party, he promised a new style of leadership that explained the challenges facing our country and how to seize the opportunities that were open to us. The Prime Minister promised advocacy, not slogans. Instead, this week he's given us name-calling and buck-passing on energy policy, and billions of dollars of cuts from our universities.

These cuts are dumb cuts. There's almost $4 billion of cuts from universities over the next five years in a bill before the parliament this week, including nearly $40 million in cuts over four years from Victoria University in my own electorate. Almost $4 billion is being cut from university infrastructure funding from the Education Investment Fund. And this government's billions of dollars of cuts to our universities represent a double whammy for Australia's economic growth prospects, as they undermine the future of one of our strongest performing export industries and sabotage an engine of economic opportunity for young Australians.

Education is one of Australia's strongest export industries. In fact, in the 2015-16 financial year it was worth about $21 billion—seven per cent of our total exports and about 30 per cent of our services exports. It's one of the few non-commodity bright spots in Australia's trade performance in Asia. But this is an export industry that's built on quality; it relies on Australia's brand as a prestige provider of higher education services, as a high-value exporter of university education. We should not be complacent about our ability to maintain this brand in our region. Australia is already facing increasing competition on this front. The top five source countries of international students in Australia last year were all Asian nations: China, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Vietnam. Yet these are the same nations that are investing heavily in their domestic higher education institutions and they are making significant strides. In 2007 there were just eight Asian universities in the QS World University Rankings, formally the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Ten years later, another four Asian universities have joined them and entered the top 50. Now eight of these top 50 Asian universities are from those five largest source countries for international students at Australian universities. Competition is accelerating for this important export industry. Indeed, just this month we saw Tsinghua University in China move past Melbourne University in these rankings. Unless we invest in the quality of this important sector, our competitors in the region and our biggest export customers will quickly close the gap. Indeed we have already heard warnings from the sector that the government's cuts are a wrecking ball which threatens to demolish one of the best university systems in the world. We cannot be complacent about this golden goose of Australian services exports.

These cuts are also a blow to the important engine of economic opportunity for Australian kids. I feel this acutely as a representative of an electorate containing the University of Opportunity and Success, a Victorian university that has specialised in bringing through those first-generation members of families to attend higher education. These are the students who are most easily dissuaded, the most easily deterred by increases in upfront fees. That's why Labor will oppose the increases in fees being proposed by the government. We will also oppose the Liberals cutting the number of Commonwealth supported post graduate places and the changes to the payment thresholds.

But I want to draw particular attention to probably the meanest proposal in this package—that is, to increase the four enabling courses that are currently free but after these reforms, if they're implemented, will cost students $3,200 a year. These enabling courses are often taken by some of the most disadvantaged people, the most vulnerable trying to get their foot on the higher education ladder to give them the skills they need to go to university. As I say, I have spoken to many of these families in my community; it's not easy. It costs more. They need extra help, but the whole nation benefits when we succeed. The whole nation benefits when we expand access to higher education to more Australians. And that's why I'm extremely proud the previous Labor government got 190,000 more Australians into university.

When last in government, we on this side invested in the sector. We lifted overall investment in universities from $8 billion in 2007 to $14 billion in 2013 and this is the approach we will need if we are to secure the sector into the future. (Time expired

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