Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the hard work of the member for Griffith, Terri Butler, who joined me in Darwin just a little while ago and who has been a champion in the fight against the government's cuts to regional universities, including ours in Darwin, the Charles Darwin University. The member for Oxley, the previous member, rattled off about four or five universities. We understand that there are many universities in the larger capital cities of our nation, but for our northern capital there is one—Charles Darwin University. I guess that for this side, universities are not just research centres and places of teaching but part of the foundation on which we want to build a better nation. That's certainly true for us in the Territory. Charles Darwin University, our university, is so important for building the foundations on which we're going to build a better Territory. Education is one of the keys to preparing our society, especially our kids, to understand, anticipate and shape change, not just react to it. We want to build a northern future that really grasps the potential of the north and the massive markets further north.

Unfortunately, the current federal government, under Prime Minister Turnbull, has cut $30 million from our university, which represents a decline of 8.1 per cent in funding. Unfortunately, regional universities are disproportionally affected by the government's decision to cut higher education. We might ask where their priorities might be: if regional universities are missing out, who might not be missing out? Of course, the $17 billion handout to the big banks becomes unconscionable. If they're serious about developing the north and developing the human capacity of Australians then why would they cut funding to universities, particularly to ours?

CDU is ranked in the top two per cent of universities in the world. CDU makes a range of social and economic contributions to the Northern Territory. These things are sometimes hard to quantify, but there are things like improved opportunity for social mobility and cohesion across the north. As all members should know, these cuts place our university's future in jeopardy, which makes no sense. Darwin is on Asia's doorstep and Asia is increasingly hungry for the quality educational opportunities we provide. It should be our No. 1 export. CDU offers a unique chance to study in one of the world's most diverse and spectacular natural and cultural environments, and for many in the tropics to our north, where there are billions of people living, it has a tropical environment where they would feel very much at home when studying with us. Today over 1,500 international students from 50 countries call CDU campuses home. This, obviously, presents huge opportunities for CDU and other regional universities to service the growing education demand—as I said, from Asia in particular. We should be investing heavily in the human and capital infrastructure across our education system to realise this massive opportunity.

Without a viable, active university, our young people often seek to go elsewhere for their education. They'll increasingly do this if CDU isn't properly funded. As a smaller university, like other regional universities, CDU doesn't have the financial depth, flexibility and contacts with the same level of philanthropy as do some of the big sandstones we see in the southern capitals. So we are, without a doubt, disadvantaged in this regard. We've also got a small population size. Many people want to study part time and move in and out of education. This model that CDU uses is a high-cost delivery model, so it makes it challenging financially. So, in case you haven't picked it up yet, we can do without $30 million in cuts to our CDU.

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