Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to use this opportunity to refer to the consequences that the Howard government’s education policies have had for my electorate of Bendigo. This week the Minister for Education, Science and Training announced an additional 605 Commonwealth funded places for Victorian universities. This is a welcome move, but one that goes no way to rectifying the damage the Howard government has inflicted on tertiary education in this country. The major tertiary institution in Bendigo, La Trobe University, was not in a position to even apply for any additional places, because it could not be confident that those places would be filled by prospective students. This is an appalling state of affairs. We are in the middle of the biggest skills crisis this country has ever seen—a crisis that is holding back economic growth and reducing the quality of life for regional Australians. La Trobe University’s predicament is a direct result of the 11 years of neglect and underfunding by the Howard government.

Since 1996, annual Commonwealth funding for universities has fallen by a third, from 0.9 per cent of GDP to about 0.6 per cent today. Commonwealth grants to universities have decreased from 57 per cent of total government revenue in 1996 to 41 per cent in 2004. The Howard government slashed $5 billion from university funding between 1996 and 2002. La Trobe University alone had $227 million effectively cut from its Commonwealth funding. The reason why regional students are not even applying for the current available places is that the cost of university education under the Howard government is spiralling out of reach. Recent surveys by the Age newspaper found that one in six regional students who won university places are choosing not to enrol, compared to one in 15 in Melbourne. The survey found that regional students were put off by the high costs and prospects of having to leave home to pursue those studies. The currently depressed rural economy makes it more difficult for regional students and their families to meet these costs.

It is scandalous that the Howard government has allowed this situation to happen at a time when increased skills and qualifications are vital to Australia’s economic prosperity. It has been more interested in forcing its ideologically driven industrial relations policies on unwilling universities and destroying the student union movement than it has been in improving educational outcomes. The rocketing cost of higher education is making second-class citizens of regional students, and the government appears completely oblivious to the expensive but unfair tertiary education system that it has created.

If the Howard government is re-elected, the costs of going to university will only increase. Labor believes more can and must be done to reduce the costs of tertiary education for regional students. Labor’s comprehensive education revolution will bring equality of opportunity back into university education. It will once again put a tertiary education within the reach of those regional students who are bright enough to earn a place at university. In 1999 the Prime Minister said, ‘There will be no $100,000 university fees under this government,’ but now we have more than 100 degrees in public universities that cost over $100,000. The Howard government broke its promise on full fee paying degrees. It is now out of touch with the expensive and unfair system that it has created.