Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. Will the minister explain the opportunities offered by the Education Investment Fund and the support the fund has received from the higher education and vocational education and training sectors?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his question. A responsible question about government policy stands in stark contrast to the performance of the Liberal Party, which obviously thinks question time is now for clutching bottles of alcohol and hurling over the dispatch box abuse about important social issues like binge drinking. I am sure the member for Moreton is also very interested to hear that the government’s Better Universities Renewal Fund will deliver to his local university, Griffith University, $16.2 million, an investment in a world-class education system—an education revolution. The government has to deliver an education revolution to make up for the more than a decade of neglect of our education system by the former government, by the Liberal Party and by the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition when serving as ministers for education in that government.

Amongst our major initiatives in this budget is the Better Universities Renewal Fund to deliver $500 million to universities by the end of this financial year. But we are also creating the Education Investment Fund of $11 billion, a fund which will enable the renewal and renovation of both the higher education sector and the vocational education and training sector. These institutions have been allowed to languish as a result of more than a decade of neglect. The Education Investment Fund is composed of $6 billion coming from the former Higher Education Endowment Fund and a new investment of $5 billion. The money is all about improving higher education and vocational education and training.

The Liberal Party have criticised this fund, as they have criticised all of Labor’s investments in the future. But on these criticisms they show themselves to be out of touch with the thinking of those that care about the future of Australian education. In that regard, I refer to ANU Vice-Chancellor, Ian Chubb, who has remarked in relation to the Education Investment Fund:

Allowing us to draw down from the capital will make an enormous difference to the size and scope of the projects we do. We go from spending on maintenance to being able to plan for a world-class future.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition interject that someone like Ian Chubb, the Vice-Chancellor of ANU, ought not to be making such remarks, but he has endorsed the structure of the current fund. The Vice-Chancellor of ANU has endorsed the Rudd Labor government’s structure of the current fund and rejected the structure of the Higher Education Endowment Fund.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition may be interested that the Higher Education Endowment Fund board chairman, Phil Clark—the board chairman appointed by the former government, when the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was the minister for education—has welcomed the new broader endowment structure and the end to the inflexible reliance on earnings. He argues, as reported in the Australian:

The $11 billion is good but the totally integrated framework (of the new fund) is the real winner; most people will miss that.

Clearly, amongst the people who have missed that are the people sitting on the opposition benches, the members of the Liberal Party.

The endorsements for the new fund, as reported in the Australian, go on. Mike Gallagher, the Executive Director of the Group of Eight universities, has said that the way in which capital can be spent is ‘a major shift’. He goes on to say:

Otherwise it would just be this drip ... over many years, a couple of hundred of million a year.

He noted that we are ‘billions behind the rest of the world’. The flexible nature of the fund will obviously allow the government the discretion to provide funding where it is needed most.

The endorsements of this new fund go on, endorsements not understood by the out-of-touch Liberal Party. TAFE institutes have welcomed the Education Investment Fund. The CEO of TAFE Directors Australia, Martin Riordan, has hailed the new fund as great news for students and stated:

It will boost TAFE capacity to meet growing demand for 21st century technology training by industry.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members—Boring!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that members of the Liberal Party are bored by education because they care nothing about it, and I understand that they are out of touch with the thinking of those that care about Australian education and its future. But these endorsements show that the education community understands that the Rudd Labor government, through its budget, is committed to the future of Australian education, committed to delivering an education revolution and committed to overcoming the legacy of neglect left by a decade of Liberal Party rule and, in particular, the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.