Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a knowledge tax on the students at Edith Cowan University, it is a knowledge tax of the students at Curtin University, it is a knowledge tax on the students at the University of Western Australia and it is a knowledge tax on the students at Murdoch University, let alone the University of Notre Dame. You tell us you've got these really bright people. You get vice-chancellors to come and serve in this parliament. You've got people who've got one, two, three or four arts degrees. And what do you do for those students? You increase their fees by 113 per cent. It is outrageous.

Not only are you content with reducing at the end of this year the income support for students and the income support for parents who might be working hard to study and get ahead for their family; you instead have gone and whacked a huge tax on students. You have left universities behind this year. You have 100 per cent ignored them. They said they needed JobKeeper, and you said, 'La, la, la—cannot hear it.' They said they needed support for research, and you said, 'Sure, sometime later.' And, in their soft, gentle, diplomatic way, the universities said, 'We need you to not pass this legislation,' and instead what happened? You're trying to whack it through. I sat in here when you whacked it through this parliament. You sent it up to the Senate.

I've got to say I'm disappointed in some of the South Australian members of parliament, who have enabled this legislation to go through in the Senate. There is no longer any difference between Centre Alliance and the Liberal Party when it comes to university policy. There is no difference when it comes to whether they actually stand up for students or just use them to fix this government's bottom line.

I think about Edith Cowan University in my electorate. Edith Cowan is a fabulous university. I note that I have in this chamber right now the first graduate of Edith Cowan University to serve in this place: the fabulous member for Cowan. She is from Edith Cowan and she represents Cowan. She is Cowan through—

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