Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister inform the House of how the government's higher education reforms will fairly share the cost of tuition fees for education between the taxpayers of Australia and students in regional Australia, particularly in my electorate of Lyons.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyons for his question. I can tell him the government is proposing far-reaching reform of higher education in Australia. Because of Labor's failure to arrest the decline in the higher education sector over the six years of their—

Ms Collins interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Franklin will desist.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

government, this government is reforming higher education so that young people from all walks of life will get the opportunity to go to university, the same opportunity that I had to go to university. I am asked about fairly sharing the cost of education between taxpayers and students.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There will be silence on my left.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the moment, 60 per cent of Australians do not have a university degree yet they are asked to pay 60 per cent of the cost of the tuition fees for students at university. Those self-same students will go on to earn a million dollars more than those people over a lifetime, on average. So they are getting a very generous arrangement from the Australian taxpayer.

Our reforms will mean that, on a $30,000 HELP debt—if it rises that high—graduates will be asked to pay $3 more per week for one extra year to repay their HELP debt. If they have a HELP debt of $40,000—and remember, the current average is $16,800—we are going to ask them to pay $5 more a week for two years to pay off that debt.

Most people would regard that as a very fair exchange, when you consider that those students will go on to earn a million dollars more than Australians without a university degree over their lifetime, on average. The point was made well by our old friend the member for Fraser—and he is holding up a book—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Fraser will desist.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not the book I was about to quote from. I was going to quote from Imagining Australiabut he would have to share the royalties with the other authors of Imagining Australia, which is why he is holding up his own book, Battlers and Billionaires. He said:

A deregulated or market-based HECS will make the student contribution system fairer, because the fees students pay will more closely approximate the value they receive through future earnings.

He is absolutely right. But why is it that the member for Fraser knows this but the rest of the Labor Party does not? I lit upon it the other day.

The Hawke-Keating government of the eighties understood that economic credibility is central to being in government—we understand it—Hawke and Keating understood that if Labor was to govern for any length of time they had to have economic credibility. And the member for Fraser is the only one who shares that legacy. Everyone else in the Labor Party, all the trade union hacks on the other side, think that economic credibility does not matter; they have shredded it in their response to this budget and the public will never vote for them until they get it back.