Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is one political test that no politician can ever afford to fail—the test of education. No parliamentarian, no political party, no government should never look back and say that they have made our education system worse. Opportunity in education is a pact between generations; it is a solemn promise to pass on an education system that is better than the one you inherited. By its very nature, education is a generational decision. You do not meddle carelessly with one of the great markers of life—and education is indeed one of the great markers in the line of life. In the line of life, it starts very early—what you think you can and cannot do. Governments can make very big changes to our education system, but they must be undertaken carefully. Remember, education affects people's lives, it affects whole generations. The great Gough Whitlam argued for the best part of a decade about the role of education, before he changed our system. Prime Minister Gillard's great contribution was initiated by a special inquiry first. The best leaders, the real leaders, the genuine article, get involved in the education sector. They argue that position—a position that relies on care, forethought, listening and respect.

But none of the legislation that we are debating today is careful or thoughtful. This government do not know, do not understand, the impact they seek to have on the lives of Australians. The truants opposite do not understand that education is an irreplaceable, essential ingredient of a tolerant, caring, adaptive, growing economy. For Labor, universities are not just research centres—though their research is crucial. For Labor, universities are not just places of teaching—though we revere our educators. For Labor, universities are the foundation upon which we will build a better Australia. For Labor, education goes beyond mere utility. Education is a catalyst for change; it is the provider of confidence, tolerance and hope; and the opportunity of education is an Australian birthright that belongs to us all.

As Prime Minister Gough Whitlam said 40 years ago, people should be free to choose the kind of education they want, but this choice must be one between systems and courses, not between standards, not between a good education and a bad one, not a choice between an expensive education or a poor one. Forty years after Whitlam Labor brought the great, good dream of a university education within reach of generations of Australians, that dream is now in peril. I and many Labor members have been visiting the universities of Australia. In every state, at every campus, our message has been clear—and I repeat it here today in the house of the Australian people: Labor believes in equality of education. Labor believes in affordable, accessible higher education for all Australians. That is why we will vote against $100,000 degrees. We will vote against the doubling and tripling of university fees. We will vote against a real and compounding interest rate on student debt. We will vote time and time again against this government's cuts to university research. We will never consign the next generation of Australians to a 'debt sentence'. We will not support a system where the cost of university degrees rises faster than the capacity of society to pay for them. We will never tell Australians that the quality of their education depends upon their capacity to pay.

Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Dawkins carefully built a sustainable financial future for our university system without imposing up-front fees. This government is trying to tear this remarkable architecture down. The Rudd and Gillard governments extended new opportunities to low-income households and to regional Australia. This government is selling out ordinary Australia and betraying the bush. There are 750,000 students on Australian university campuses today, and one in every four is there because of the previous Labor government. We removed the cap on student places, creating new opportunities for 190,000 Australians. We increased the number of Indigenous students attending university by 26 per cent. We boosted funding for regional universities by 56 per cent. We boosted regional student numbers by 30 per cent. And over 30,000 extra students from low-income families got the chance to go to university because of Labor reforms. We did indeed make record investments in Australia's greatest resource—the creativity and genius of our people.

The University of Western Sydney, which I visited with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the member for Greenway, is living proof of the Labor legacy. At UWS, 65 in every 100 of their current domestic students are the first member of their family to go to university. One in four of their domestic students comes from a poor family. One in three of the domestic students there speaks a language other than English at home, representing the best of 140 different nations. Nearly one in every three of their Australian students is mature age—remarkable, gutsy Australians retraining and acquiring skills to adapt to our modern world. They are who we fight for today.

I have been to see La Trobe University's Bendigo campus with Senator Carr and the member for Bendigo, a university giving young people from the bush and regional Victoria the chance to get a degree close to home and attracting new people to Bendigo. Between 60 to 80 of every 100 graduates from regional university campuses start work in that region. They make a social contribution to the community that has supported them. They give back what they have received. That is what we are fighting for today, to stop the drain of country people to the city. Regional universities and university towns in the bush add to the fabric of our nation.

This Prime Minister, this shameful Prime Minister who knowingly promised no cuts to education, and this so-called Minister for Education—the great pretender who promised not to increase university fees—have used this budget to ambush the people of Australia with one of the most profound economic and social policy shifts in a generation. There was no green paper to discuss the issue. There was no white paper. No public consultation has occurred under the Dawkins changes. These changes that we oppose today are purely the product of private lobbying, personal ideology and the careers of frustrated student politicians.

Labor is always prepared for a constructive discussion about higher education reform. But you would never start a negotiation with our universities by cutting nearly $6 billion—$6,000,000 million—from their teaching and research funding. This shameful minister boasts of apparent university support for his proposals. It is support drawn from extortion. He airily and breezily says that because universities are full of smart people they will work out a deal with these cuts. Why should they? It is as if he thinks the reason they got a PhD was in case they ever had to deal with a neo-Luddite like this impostor. His patrician attack on high-quality public universities threatens the essence of our public higher education system. His two-pronged assault is forcing universities to support rampant deregulation instead of better funding and equity of access. This government is seeking to blackmail our universities and, in doing so, they are robbing a future from a generation of Australians.

Just as the GP tax represents the thin edge of the wedge for this government's destruction of universal Medicare, the introduction of a real and compounding interest rate on student debt threatens our fair and equitable income-contingent student loan system with extinction. When John Dawkins and Bruce Chapman designed the HECS system, they created a piece of public policy genius and art, just like Medicare. Like Medicare, the Australian university system imposes no prohibitive up-front costs, no deterrent. Like Medicare, our efficient higher education system gives us a home-grown source of international competitive advantage. Ours is a classically Australian smart system of manageable student debt and sustainable universities. It lifts the productive capacity of our nation without submitting to the erratic, unfettered forces of a market system.

Like Medicare, this great public policy initiative faces destruction from this government. Tying student debt to the government bond rate will put the burden of student debt back onto families. It is not just future university students who will lose out. Every Australian with a student debt, that is nearly a million people, will have their interest rate retrospectively changed from CPI to the long-term government bond rate. This is a government that rejects the principle of retrospectivity. It is a great Liberal notion, 'We do not believe in retrospectivity'—except when it comes to nearly a million students.

As Associate Professor Jeannie Paterson has said, this is like a bank forcing a mortgagee onto a variable loan after they have signed up to fixed interest rates. Australians who have made responsible decisions about how they will manage their lives will have the goalposts unfairly and dramatically shifted. The people hurt most by these changes will be women who take time out of the workforce to start and raise a family. NATSEM modelling estimates that an increase of just 20 per cent in the cost of degrees, combined with the changes to the interest rate, will mean a woman with a nursing degree is looking at the doubling of her student debt from $23,000 to $46,000. A woman graduate teacher is looking at a debt of $63,000 and 16 years of repayment compared to $32,000 repaid over nine years. A female science graduate will be looking at a near tripling of student debt from $44,000 to $123,000.

The HECS-HELP system also contained a built-in insurance mechanism. Approximately 25 per cent of students start university but do not graduate. They have a student debt but no degree. Tying student debt to CPI protects these people. It means that their debt can never increase in real terms, even if they earn below the repayment threshold for long periods of time. Switching to the government bond rate will mean that people on low incomes, whose debts last longer and accrue more interest, will pay more in absolute terms than the richest graduates.

This is the unfairness of Tony Abbott's Australia writ large. The less you earn, the more you pay. We know this government cannot begin to imagine what life is like for the people they seek to lecture. They have no idea how 90 per cent of Australians structure their lives. Going to university was easy for the minister, it was easy for his colleagues on the front bench, it was easy for the Prime Minister, so they assume it was easy and is easy for everyone. They know nothing, those who sit opposite, of the sacrifices that families and young Australians make to pursue a university education. They know nothing of the panic, the uncertainty, that they have unleashed on parents and children at open days that have just been conducted across this country.

I say to the government: do not turn your back on young people. Instead, for once—just once—put yourself in the shoes of the people your decisions will affect. Respected commentators have warned that the cost of degrees will hit the same level that international students currently pay. That means that a law degree at the University of Adelaide, like Christopher Pyne's, would cost $126,000. Imagine how much that would balloon if you indexed it at six per cent per year. A student doing a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of laws at Sydney university, like the Prime Minister, would be looking at a cost of $175,000. And if that student chose to spend time abroad after graduating, like our Prime Minister did, and then took some time out of the workforce, maybe pursuing a vocation in the priesthood, like the Prime Minister did, then the interest on their debt would continue to compound. It would go up and up and up. If the government gets its way, ballooning debt and decades of repayment would be the inescapable crushing reality for millions of our fellow Australians.

The Liberal plan for higher costs, higher debt and higher interest rates is a trifecta. It is an attack on our past students, on our present students and on our future students; $100,000 degrees will wipe out the expectations and aspirations of a significant proportion of the population right from the outset. The minister says his proposals are about giving Australians a choice. In once sense he is right: the government's plan to double and triple the cost of university education will certainly force the next generation of Australians to choose—choose between university and a mortgage, choose between higher education and owning a home. The government's plan to ratchet up the interest rate on student debt will force women to choose between starting a family and paying for their degree. The minister, in his well-know trademark undergraduate fashion, says, 'I'm not asking students to give up their left kidney.' No, but he is asking young Australians to lower their sights, and in doing so this reckless, cavalier government is jeopardising our nation's future.

They love to talk about productivity, this mob opposite. They are undermining productivity. They love to talk about competitiveness, yet they undermine our nation's competitiveness. It is our productivity and our competitiveness that will determine how Australia fares in the 21st century. Australia can get smarter, or we can get poorer. We will not compete with our region as a supplier of cheap labour. We will not grow and thrive as a crude, low-wage, low-skill economy. There are no winners in this kind of race to the bottom. Labor knows, in its DNA, that the future of Australia, on the doorstep of the fastest-growing region in human history, will be defined by our knowledge economy. In a century of global supply change, it will be the quality of our ideas, the quality of our genius and the quality of our people that will determine our success. It is only upon the expression of education that Australia will fully develop our economic potential, our scientific potential, our artistic potential, our people's potential. But this government's threats of deeper cuts to research will erode the rankings of our universities, and it will grievously injure our third-largest export industry: international education.

It is no wonder that Australia's banks and financial markets are apprehensive about a so-called reform agenda that places at risk an inbound capital market worth billions of dollars every year. With so much of this budget, the government's attacks on university students and their families is not just unfair; it is economically irresponsible. Labor does not believe that Australia has to choose between equity in education and quality of education. They are twins of education—equity of education and quality of education—and neither can exist without the other. But this is the Liberal Party we have come to know so well in the last 12 months. They always seek to profit from the politics of division. Dog whistling is their stock in trade. For months, this cynical minister has been asking the divisive question: why should 60 per cent of taxpayers who do not attend university contribute to the fees of the 40 per cent who do? Let me provide this cynical man with the answer he simply craves: education is not just a private privilege; it is also a public benefit.

University graduates already pay for their education with an economic contribution and a social contribution. It is our doctors who keep us healthy. They went to university. It is our teachers who educate our children. They went to university. Our architects, engineers and town planners, who shape the infrastructure and indeed the face of our nation, went to university. Our scientists, making the discoveries that will determine our future health and prosperity, went to university. This nation that we are privileged to be representing in the parliament is smart enough, generous enough and rich enough to know that the whole nation benefits from a strong, accessible, affordable university system.

And let me tell this minister something else he clearly does not know: there is another reason Australians who did not go to university believe in supporting universities. They do so because they want their kids to go to university. I have never met a parent or a grandparent who did not get the opportunity to go to university and who begrudges their child or grandchild the opportunity to go to university. This divisive man, this divisive minister and his divisive Prime Minister fundamentally underestimate the spirit of Australians when they say that the 60 per cent who did not go to university do not want the 40 per cent to go to university. You are wrong. You are grievously wrong. You are terribly wrong.

The parents and grandparents who did not go to university want the best for their children. They want their children to grow up in a nation and a society where education and hard work are the rewards—not your postcode but how hard you work. They want to see good marks, not the old-boy tie of the school they went to, to determine opportunity. And parents and grandparents who did not go to university want their kids to get the good jobs. They do not want this mendicant government to stand in the path of their children from having a better life than they had. The parents and grandparents of Australia work hard every day. They pay their taxes. They build good communities and they do so so that their children can get a better start in life than they had. And this government has set its face against a natural tendency of all Australians to see this country progress.

Our nation has to choose. The Liberals opposite can vote for $100,000 degrees, a doubling and tripling of university fees, but Labor will always be on the side of students. We will always be on the side of families. We will always be on the side of people who want the great, good dream: that their kids will do better than them. That is the great Australian story. This mob opposite can vote for an unfair two-class education system. We will always vote for the fair go. Liberals can vote for a nation where a university education is the privilege of a few but we will vote for an Australia where the opportunity of education belongs to everyone—town and country, man and woman, mature age and young—regardless of postcode or the wealth of your parent.

On this side of the House we are going to vote for an Australia where it does not matter whether you were born in a commission flat or you live 100 kilometres from the nearest town. You will go to university if you so desire under a Labor government. It does not matter if your children are the children of first-generation migrants or descendants of people who arrived with Arthur Phillip on the First Fleet. We vote for our vision of Australia, an Australia where a child's future is determined by their aspirations and dreams and the hopes and hard work of their parents. We will vote for an Australia where education is a right for all of us and, because of this, we will vote against this legislation. We will vote against it every time it is presented until the defeat of the Abbott government. We will do so with a clear conscience.

We will vote in the knowledge that our Labor generation has kept the faith and when this legislation is defeated, which it surely will be, when these proposals fail, as they surely will, Labor will do what this government is incapable of doing. We will sit down with the universities of Australia. We will reach out to the sector. We will consult with the experts and the teachers, the parents and the students before we release our proposals. Labor believe that the Commonwealth has a role, that it has a responsibility to support our universities. We believe it is a responsibility which must be shared by all. That is why we designed the HECS system. The Labor Party I lead believes in reform. We believe in efficiencies. We believe in productivity. We acknowledge a role for markets but always, ever always, with generous, Australian-style safety nets.

As demand for university places grows, Labor know the challenges to guarantee the right of access without sacrificing quality. Today on behalf of Labor, I give the Australian people this promise. At the next election, when you look for the how-to-vote cards of the competing parties, you will have competing visions of higher education. Labor will make the next election a competition for the best university policy. We are ambitious for this nation. We declare that the game is on for who has the best policy on higher education and we will do so on the basis that when people who care about higher education attend the thousands of polling booths all over Australia, if they care about the dream, aspirations and hope for a smarter, greater nation, they will reach for the Labor how-to-vote card.

We will make the next election a higher education election. We will stand up for young Australians, to give them a voice in the national political debate. We will stand up for mature age Australians, dislocated by economic change, and we will give them a voice in Australian politics. We will keep the pact that we owe the next generation. We will most certainly pass the one political test that no parliament should ever fail. We will pass the test of education.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am proud to speak in support of the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014, which effectively will implement the most significant and historic reform of our higher education system in several generations. This is a very comprehensive suite of reforms, necessarily so. Australia's higher education system, while still strong, has begun to fall behind the rest of the world. I take this opportunity to commend the Minister for Education for his leadership and courage in putting together such a significant package designed to stem the decline and to provide the sector with the flexibility it needs to once again lead the world.

This is not the piecemeal approach that has been such a feature of higher education policy in recent years. The fact is, tinkering around the edges has left the sector teetering on the brink, which is why I implore those opposite and the Senate crossbenchers to resist the urge to cherry-pick these reforms. I will talk more about that later.

I would like to start by dispelling a few myths. These reforms are not about cutting funding to the sector: in fact, higher education and research funding will actually grow by over $950 million over the next four years. These reforms do not make higher education less accessible: in fact, these reforms mean more students will have access to higher education loans, with no repayments until they earn a decent wage. And we are actually removing unfair loan fees that used to apply to some students. Most importantly, these reforms will create the greatest scholarship scheme our country has ever seen, allowing more students from disadvantaged backgrounds to access a university education. So this package really is all about increasing equity and fairness.

These reforms are not about restricting numbers of students in supported Commonwealth places. In fact, it is estimated that over 80,000 more students will be supported by 2018.

There is nothing elitist about these reforms, and I take this opportunity to reject out of hand the glib political line that student protesters and, sadly, some members opposite, have used—that this is in some way about university for only the rich. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a terrible class-warfare tactic that has no basis in reality. I really urge those who persist in this phoney class warfare to stop and listen to what the industry is saying.

The peak representative body, the Group of Eight, which comprises Australia's leading tertiary institutions, has described the reforms as 'logical, coherent, sustainable, equitable and inevitable.' Executive Director of the Group of Eight Mike Gallagher also said:

Unless there is reform we will continue to drift, we will fall behind the emerging universities of Asia and we will fall out of touch with the vital global centres of knowledge.

Professor John Dewar, Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University said, prior to the budget:

… the reality is that something has to give if universities are to serve the national interest effectively … A deregulation of fee setting is an obvious next step …

Just last week, Professor Paul Johnson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia, said:

The status quo is not feasible as it will over time erode the quality of our education and research activities—not a good position to be in when our nearest Asian competitors are investing so heavily in these areas.

And Universities Australia Chief Executive Belinda Robinson has said that failure of the package to pass in the Senate would condemn the university system to inevitable decline.

Editor of The Australian Paul Kelly has said:

In terms of long-run structural reform, this is arguably the single most important budget measure.

And I note that, this morning, the man Labor themselves asked to design their own education reforms, David Gonski, has come out in favour of university deregulation. He has said he believes it will strengthen the sector and make our universities even greater. What is more, he has called on Labor to stop playing politics.

As the Group of Eight's Executive Director Mike Gallagher said of Labor:

It is outrageous that they have washed their hands of responsibility for the mess they created.

As Paul Kelly said:

The nation now faces an extraordinary prospect—the political system, having created an untenable policy structure for universities, threatens to sit on its hands and deny any solution by invoking scares about $100,000 degrees and ideological rejection of fee deregulation.

It is a crazy situation, and I really do implore those in the Labor Party and those in the Palmer United Party and those independents who hold the balance of power in the Senate, to stop, look behind the class-warfare rhetoric, and see why this package of reforms is so vital for higher education.

Education is currently our third-largest export industry, worth around $15 billion a year. But it is a sorry example of the decline in the sector that, in 2009-10, it was worth around $19 billion. Yes: under Labor's watch, our education exports shrank. We want to build them back up so that we can grow an important export industry. But, most of all, we want to build our education sector back up so that our best and brightest Australian students have access to a world-class education, and so that we have the skilled workforce our nation needs to drive our economic and social success in the future.

That is where the coalition is coming from. That is our motivation: what is in the national interest. And these reforms are undeniably in the national interest.

While much of the debate has centred on deregulation of fees—and certainly that has been central to Labor's big scare—there is so much more in this package, including: expanding the demand-driven Commonwealth funding system for students studying for higher education diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees; extending Commonwealth funding to all Australian higher education students in non-university higher education institutions studying bachelor courses, costing $449.9 million over three years; strengthening the Higher Education Loan Program that sees the taxpayer support all students' tuition fees up-front and ensures that students only repay their loans once they are earning a decent income—over $50,000 per annum, at present—though we have been careful to ensure that no-one needs to pay a cent up-front; removing all FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP loan fees which are currently imposed on some students undertaking higher education and vocational education and training; and securing Australia's place at the forefront of research, with $150 million in 2015-16 for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, $139.5 million to deliver 100 new four-year research positions per year under the Future Fellowships scheme, $26 million to accelerate research in dementia, $42 million to support new research in tropical disease, and $24 million to support the Antarctic Gateway Partnership.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the most exciting aspects of this bill is the opportunities for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds that will open up through the new Commonwealth Scholarships. This will be the greatest scholarship scheme in Australia's history, providing support and incentives for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It will provide opportunities and assistance to those who need it most. Surely that is something to be supported and applauded.

I want to address this idea of a 'free education', which is something we hear bandied about quite a bit—especially by the professional protestors who like to burn effigies in the streets and vandalise private property. Every Australian supports the idea of our children and grandchildren having the opportunity to succeed and access a place at university. Unequivocally, our best and brightest, no matter where they come from, should always be able to access a university education. But education has never been 'free'. I think former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating summed it up best when he said: 'There is no such thing as "free" education. Somebody has to pay. In systems with no charges those somebodies are all taxpayers. This is a pretty important point: a "free" higher education system is one paid for by the taxes of all, the majority of whom haven't had the privilege of a university education. Ask yourself if you think that is fair.'

The education minister has pointed out—but I think it is worth repeating—that Australian university graduates on average earn up to 75 per cent more than those who do not go on to higher education after secondary school. Over their lifetime, graduates on average earn around a million dollars more than if they had not gone to university. University graduates are less likely to be unemployed than those people without degrees, and studies show that university graduates also live longer and enjoy better health. So I put it to the House: is it really unreasonable to expect those who benefit the most to contribute a little more to the cost of their own education?

Under this reform package, we expect higher education graduates will be required to contribute around 50 per cent on average of the cost of their higher education. Currently, students contribute only around 40 per cent, on average, while the taxpayer pays 60 per cent.

With places uncapped, in order for the system to be sustainable in the future it is important that the cost-sharing is more balanced and reasonable. And part of the reason that is so important is that Labor left our country with a huge debt and deficit problem. We have to be responsible with every cent of taxpayers' money because we need to get the budget back under control so that our grandkids are not left with the burden of paying back the debt that Labor racked up in less than six years. To put it in context: we currently pay over $12 billion each year on interest payments alone, just on the debt Labor racked up in those six short years. That is about $3 billion more than the government spends on higher education each year. In fact, Labor's interest bill—just the interest—is about the total of higher education funding and student assistance funding combined. So Labor has absolutely no right to stand in this place all indignant and cry for more funding for higher education. Thanks to them, our country has to waste more on interest payments than we spend on higher education. That is a devastating legacy. While our government did not create this mess, we are taking the responsibility to clean it up. And we will not shirk that responsibility.

This bill exemplifies our readiness to take the tough but necessary decisions, the ones that might not be politically popular but are undoubtedly in the national interest. But I stress once again: the government—that is, taxpayers—will still fund around half the cost of every university degree. What is more, we will also help fund a raft of undergraduate degrees and we will also contribute to degrees undertaken at private institutions. Every student will continue to have access to reduced-interest loans that are only repayable when the student begins earning a decent wage.

We believe students undertaking a wider range of courses deserve support from the Australian government. Currently, only students studying bachelor level courses at universities are guaranteed to have their place directly supported by the Australian government. This means there is currently limited support for students who choose to study for higher education qualifications at TAFE, private universities or private higher education institutions, or for students studying higher education diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees.

They are also qualifications that serve as pathways into university, preparing students for university study. Many of these students come from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, and many are first generation university students. Such pathways have been proven to be very effective in equipping students for university. Often they perform better at university than students with better year-12 results who have not come through pathway programs. Our expectation is that guaranteed support for such pathway qualifications will help to improve the success rate and reduce the drop-out rate for undergraduates.

I also wanted to take a little time in this debate to talk about one of Australia's most successful private universities. Just across the road from my electorate office is Bond University. Bond is a not-for-profit private university which has established a stellar record over the past 25 years for excellence in education. As I mentioned in the appropriation bill debate, Bond University is in fact a shining example of how competition can produce much better outcomes. As a private university that sets its own course fees, Bond has had to provide an excellent product in order to compete with public universities.

The Good Universities Guide2013 gives Bond University the most five-star ratings of any university in Australia for educational experience. Bond received five stars across key performance indicators, including: teaching quality, generic skills, graduate satisfaction, staff-student ratios and staff qualifications. In fact, Bond has the best student-to-staff ratios in the country. Many students are attracted to the accelerated learning, with three semesters a year, which means students can graduate and begin earning sooner.

Bond's success over the past 25 years is a testament to what can be achieved when a university has to be responsive to student, community and industry requirements. And now the Commonwealth will contribute to degrees at Bond—as they do at Southern Cross University, which also has a campus on the Gold Coast.

Students at Bond will benefit from the measure to remove all loan fees for FEE-HELP, meaning equal access to loans for students no matter where they study. This will ensure that students who chose Bond University, or other private providers for that matter, will not be discriminated against in terms of accessing HELP loans.

I have been working with Bond, in consultation with the minister's office, to ensure that their voice is heard in the ongoing consultation process. As with every new system there are changeover issues, and these can impact on the interim study year. Bond has some concerns in this regard, and I will continue to ensure that their concerns are heard and taken into consideration. Similarly, Southern Cross University has some concerns about how the changeover may affect them as a regionally-based university, and I am taking these up with the minister as well.

These are historic reforms, and it is understandable that some in the sector may be apprehensive about how they will work and especially about the transitional arrangements. I know that the minister is extremely mindful of this and he will continue to keep the dialogue open with providers in the lead-up to the January 2016 start date. But it is extremely important that these reforms are passed as soon as possible, so that the industry can plan with certainty. So I implore every member of this place, and especially those in the Senate, to put the outdated class warfare politics to one side and to resist the politically-expedient temptation to cherry-pick these reforms.

As the Vice Chancellor of Southern Cross University, Professor Peter Lee, said in recent correspondence to me:

As the debate unfolds in Parliament, there is the potential for unintended policy consequences if a decision about one measure is considered in isolation of other aspects of the package.

A piecemeal approach is the last thing the sector needs.

We cannot afford to extend Commonwealth support to a greater number of degrees without deregulation of the sector. We cannot afford to keep fees regulated if we want the sector to compete and flourish. But, perhaps above all else, we cannot afford to do nothing, which appears to be the policy of Labor, the Greens and even Mr Palmer—if media reports are anything to go by.

But I sincerely hope that good sense will prevail and that all elected representatives will take a close look at what the universities themselves are saying, what needs to be done in the national interest, and how this plan will help make our higher education sector more competitive, more responsive and more accessible to the disadvantaged.

As the Chairwoman of Universities Australia, Professor Sandra Harding said: 'The status quo is not an option'. I commend this bill to the House.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, you will not be surprised to learn that I, along with every member on this side of the House, will oppose the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. These reforms are unfair, misguided, ill-conceived and based solely on the ideology of those opposite. These reforms will destroy the opportunity for higher education for many and will laden others with a large and growing debt that will take decades to pay off.

Education in this country is a great equaliser in society. It has allowed many in previous generations to do better than those that went before them. It allows social mobility and it allows children to get opportunity and realise their potential. This bill, unfortunately, will make it harder for many to realise their potential and get a university education.

Over the break, I have been visiting universities—as have many MPs and senators from this side—speaking with parents and grandparents about what these changes will mean. Unfortunately, the government has not done this and has not listened to the majority of Australians that are incredibly concerned about what this means. The message, time and time again, has been clear from those I have spoken to. An Australian university student should not be condemned to a debt sentence because of this government's budget of broken promises. This is a broken promise.

There was no word of these changes before the election. Indeed, there was a guarantee to the Australian people that there would be no cuts to education. Time and time again the now Minister for Education has made comments varyingly but there has been one clear message. I would like to quote from Sky News Australian Agendaof 17 November 2014, where the member for Sturt said: 'I'm not going to jump ahead of the budget that's in May next year' but 'the education budget as forecast over the next four years will not be cut by the coalition. That's very clear.' On the same program, when asked by Peter van Onselen's whether he would like to raise university fees, he said:

Look, Peter, I am not even considering it because we promised that we wouldn't and Tony Abbott made it very clear before the election that we would keep our promises.

It is not surprising that this government have not kept their promise and pulled out in the budget these regressive reforms that are a surprise and have made many Australians very distressed. These reforms will affect students but also past students—and this is a broken promise to the Australian people.

Australians fundamentally still believe in the fair go—the opportunity to get a university education based on one's ability and not on one's capacity to pay; that obtaining a university degree should not mean choosing between a degree and buying house, choosing between a degree and starting a business or choosing between a degree and starting a family. Through this package the government want to abolish opportunity. They want to quarantine university for those who can afford to pay their way with exorbitant fees. They are saying to Australians everywhere: 'It doesn't matter how smart you are, how talented, how gifted or how driven; if you can't afford the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars for your degree, you can forget about it'.

With this legislation the Minister for Education has abandoned so many communities. He has abandoned rural and regional communities. He has abandoned migrant communities. He has abandoned Australians on low and middle incomes. He has abandoned women. He has abandoned Australians who work in the lower paid sectors of teaching and nursing, and he has abandoned Australians everywhere who still believe in a fair go. A quality, affordable university education is at the heart of what Labor stands for. It was a Labor government who made it easily accessible and affordable to achieve a university education and who made it a reality for so many Australians. I second the sentiments of the Leader of the Opposition who said that Labor still believes in equality of opportunity.

Australians should not be condemned to a debt sentence because of this Prime Minister's and this Minister for Education's broken promises. Our best and brightest should not be forced to pay $100,000 for their degree. Look at what a private education system has done in America—where we have seen student debt equalling around a trillion dollars in private debt. Indeed, many people are confused about why Australia would move away from a sustainable, equitable higher education system to try to follow the American route. Indeed, Joseph Stiglitz, a well-known Nobel economist, has said:

Trying to pretend that universities are like private markets is absurd. Countries that imitate the American model are kidding themselves.

It seems that some people here would like to emulate the American model. I don't fully understand the logic.

He is right. The American model has led to a huge amount of student debt. Those who are able to achieve a university degree and those who are not able to have a significantly different outlook on life. And their university sector is not open to everyone who has the smarts to be able to achieve a university degree.

Looking at this legislation, at the heart of these reforms are education cuts. They amount to approximately $5.8 billion of cuts to Australian universities—cuts which, before the election, the government promised they would not make but they are now bringing them forward—and they are asking the students to foot this $5.8 billion bill. For a government that said that they would make no cuts to education, I cannot believe that they are introducing this legislation with a straight face.

This is not a nip or a tuck here or there; this is billions of dollars being ripped out from our Australia's higher education sector. Indeed, across the board it is cut of approximately 20 per cent. We know that some areas of education will be hit harder. Engineering and science undergraduate degrees and environmental science will see a much bigger cut to their per student contribution from the government, which means that courses in these areas will actually increase more than 20 per cent. This means that this will act as a deterrent for those wanting to study engineering and science—those areas of study which are so critically important to the future of our economy, if we are going to be a smart, productive nation.

But it is not only undergraduate degrees that are being cut by this government. The government is also, for the first time, introducing the ability for universities to charge fees for higher research degrees—with a 10 per cent cut in funding, universities will be able to charge up to $3,900 for PhDs and masters by research. This shows the short-sightedness of this government when it comes to our intellectual capacity in this nation. The Prime Minister talks a lot about infrastructure; but what about investment in our intellectual infrastructure. With this legislation, he is putting in a deterrent for those to contribute to higher degree and PhD research, which contribute significantly to the overall ability of our nation to be competitive around the world.

Together with these significant cuts, the government also has a plan to deregulate tuition fees for undergraduate students—signalling to Australian universities that they can feel free to charge whatever they want. This will lead to fees rising significantly—doubling, tripling—and fees of around $100,000. Despite the opposition saying that maybe fees will go down, they have provided absolutely no evidence. When asked in Senate estimates whether the government had done any modelling on where fees might rise, they said, 'No, we haven't.' This policy has been introduced on a whim and a hope. But of course experts in the area know that fees are going to go up significantly.

Program Director at the University of Melbourne's LH Martin Institute, Geoff Sharrock, said:

Most universities will raise fees to at least offset their loss    of income from government subsidies. Many will go further to boost the total level of income they'd receive above-2014 levels. Either way, the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debts will balloon.

So it is clear that it is not just Labor saying that fees will increase. While the government chooses not to do modelling in this area, those that have said this will lead to higher fees—no doubt about it.

It is not just the deregulation of university fees, it is not just the cuts to education that were promised would never happen but it is the introduction of real interest rates that will have a significant impact on many people. The government is also proposing to change the interest rate applied to HECS and HELP loan students. This is unfair legislation. Students will be facing the 10-year government bond rate capped at six per cent. Anyone who has had a credit card or a loan knows how this system works. Interest is compounded not only on the original loan but on interest charged so the real interest rate, the real size of debt grows and grows. As a sneaky part of what the government plans to do, this will not only affect new students but will affect anyone who has a HECS debt on 1 January 2016. If that is not a broken compact with the Australian people with a HECS debt, I do not know what is. This will have a significant impact on those that can least afford it.

The government have said time and time again that they believe that education will be accessible as a result of their changes. I have got news for the government: when I talk to people, they are looking at the interest rates, they are looking at the higher fees and they are saying, 'Maybe university is out of bounds for me.' This is a sad situation in a country that prides itself on egalitarianism.

It will be those on lower incomes that will have ballooning debt. Those teachers and nurses that go to university to contribute back to society will have ballooning debt. Indeed, it will be women that will be most negatively affected. While I have been saying to people 'every student will be worse off under this legislation', women will be hit hardest because often they work in the lower- and middle-income sectors. There is still a pay gap between women and men so it will take women longer to pay off a debt, especially as their debt grows in real terms.

Women often take time out to have a baby and go back to work part-time. It will be during this time, when they may not be earning any money, that their university debt will continue to increase. I am quite surprised that the Prime Minister, who is also the Minister for the Status of Women, has not identified this, has not considered the impact that this legislation will have on women. Quite frankly, I think it shows he is not up to the job of being the Minister for the Status of Women.

Independent modelling has backed this up. Modelling by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling has shown that the length of time for a female science student to repay her student loan would increase from 8.4 years to 13.9 years, with a total repayment figure increasing from $44,228 to approximately $97,000. That will have a significant impact on so many people. There are many people this is going to affect.

I have been speaking not only to students and university teachers but also to parents and grandparents who are particularly anxious about this legislation and who have been confused about the government's motivation except to price them and their children out of the education market—that is the only conclusion they can come up with. We on this side of the House know it is an ideological bent: those on the other side do not recognise that education is a public good, not just a private good. It would be good for those on the other side to wake up to this.

We are at a fork in the road here with this legislation. Do we want our country to be a fairer place, a place where those who are smartest can get the opportunity to achieve their dreams? Or do we want to go down a user-pays system where only those that can afford to go to university can do so? This is bigger than just the changes in front of us. This is a question of what we want our country to be.

Labor will fight this legislation because not only is it unfair but it also means that we will go down the road of not being a smarter nation but a dumber nation, and that is of great concern to all those on this side of the House. I implore the government to reconsider this position, to not break their election promise and ensure that Australia remains a fair place to live.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are several reasons to progress these reforms that have been proposed by the government. I think there is one reason for caution; however, the minister and the government have exercised caution and have considered that reason, which is what I would like to focus on in my contribution to the second reading debate of the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. There is one issue that Labor and a number of students are correct to raise and it is worthy of consideration and analysis. It looms as a potential but not an actual reason as to why you might not proceed or proceed very cautiously. The reason for caution and the issue that is legitimately raised is whether an even modest potential fee increase and/or a slight increase in the share of total costs that a student is required to contribute could lower the overall number of lower SES students or the percentage of SES students of the total. That is the single hurdle that you must consider before engaging reforms of this type.

There are a number of clear benefits to these reforms but you need to consider that hurdle. That is a question that warrants analysis. In some respects, Labor's position is to answer that question in the resounding affirmative and then move seamlessly from the proposition that lower numbers or a lower percentage of SES students will be involved in education to a conclusion that the sector should be somehow quarantined from reform of the type being suggested.

The problem with Labor's analysis is this: in all of the public debate—so far the contribution by the member for Kingston and the Leader of the Opposition—in every single utterance that has been made publicly there has not been one single, credible piece of evidence to show that these reforms, based on any historical or empirical analysis, will decrease the number of lower-SES students or their percentage of the total involved in tertiary education. If there were genuine, correct and authoritative research to that effect, that would be a reason for concern, but there simply is not.

In focusing on this one issue I want to just have a look at the only two pieces of evidence that I have seen raised regularly by Labor or, indeed, by student protesters in recent times. The first is a report by Deloitte Access Economics—and I must say, that is an authoritative and well-researched piece of work. It is worth considering, but ultimately it answers the wrong question. In fact, I think it was the member for Kingston herself who raised that particular piece of research.

The second piece of 'research'—and I am being generous to it—was work that was quoted very recently in an article in The Guardian that relays work by:

… a group of mathematicians from the ANU’s Mathematical Sciences Institute …

who 'built a model' to help understand the effect of the reforms. I want to deal with that second piece of work reported in The Guardian first, because when the member for Kingston talks about 'authoritative, independent and empirical analysis, this is the sort of stuff that is being thrown up in debate.

The article is written by a member of the ALP, but there is no harm in that. Everyone is entitled to their view. This is Mr Mansillo. The article relays that a group of mathematicians examined the education minister's completion of a law degree. Their analysis was this: they looked at the present education minister, they assessed that he did a law degree some time ago, they estimated an annual fee for law degrees after the reforms that we are proposing, they assumed a starting salary, they applied and interest rate to repayments and then calculated how long it might take to pay off that law degree.

I just have some observations about this independent piece of analysis. The first is: seriously? This is a calculation you could do in three minutes, probably without a calculator. Possibly you might need one of those big solar powered calculators you buy from Kmart—the ones with the big buttons that my grandma used to use. I mean, a group of mathematicians at ANU? That is absolutely absurd! Modelling? Come on! This is something a year 9 student could do using long division. It is just fundamentally wrong. How many mathematicians at ANU does it take to change a light bulb? A group, apparently! Someone has to hold the light bulb and the others have to do the long division over the course of several hours, it appears. How utterly ridiculous!

And the research is based on this absurd assumption about how much a fee charged by universities for a law degree would be. In fact, at ANU the estimate that this research has given is twice what the ANU's Professor Ian Young suggested would probably be the kinds of fees that university would charge—double! It then has an interest rate which is far higher than the 10-year bond rate is currently. It has an assumption about the starting salary that is absolutely ridiculous and which is plucked from thin air. In that case it assumes that the starting salary for a lawyer would be $42,000. Public sector lawyers earn far more than that—considerably more than that—in their first year of service as a lawyer. Indeed, commercial lawyers who graduate from universities earn up to double that amount, well in excess of that starting point.

I note that the present minister did spend some considerable amount of time on the backbench, and perhaps his earlier career arc was not exactly what he wished it would be, but the reality is that, like most lawyers, there is a tendency to go on and earn large yearly incomes, with much larger yearly increments in income. This article went on with another absurd assumption, which was to assume a five per cent salary increase for lawyers. This is the point; this is precisely the point: like it or not, men and women who graduate with law degrees go on to earn on average much larger incomes at much larger yearly increments than those people who do not graduate with law degrees, or who do not graduate from university. We have heard the figures that the average university student earns a million dollars more in their lifetime income stream than the average person who has not graduated from a university.

So with this type of research being relied upon, the argument in opposing these reforms is precisely this: that the tradespeople of Australia—the middle-income earners contributing to the tax base—should pay more rather than less for the education of people who graduate with law degrees and other tertiary education students who graduate and who go on to earn considerably more than the average contributor in the tax base. That is a silly proposition. At the moment it is the case that the tradespeople are part of those six out of 10 Australians who have not gone, or who are unlikely to go to university, and yet they presently foot the bill for 60 per cent of the cost of a bachelor degree student. Tax is supporting only the other 40 per cent of the cost of that degree. It is eminently reasonable to ask any tertiary education student to cover half of the costs by a low-income-deferred loan for their degree when we consider that they go on to earn considerably more—a million dollars more on average—in their income stream than a non-tertiary educated person.

The difficulty with this debate and following it as it has been run and contributed to by the opposition is that it is solely run on emotion. There are words like 'abolishing equality'—this sort of utter nonsense which fails to get to the heart of the matter and which fails to deliver anything resembling empirical evidence of what is a proposition that deserves analysis, which is to say: will lower-SES students be somehow disadvantaged by these reforms? There has been an absolute absence of that evidence. As I said, I have heard two things raised: the first was that article that I have just spoken about and the second was a report by Deloitte Access Economics.

What the overwhelming preponderance of research—peer reviewed academic research; qualitative research in this area—shows and states is that there is a very high, if not an immense, inelasticity of demand to fees when you have a deferred HECS-style system. In an article, 'Australian higher education financing: issues for reform', Bruce Chapman from the Centre for Economic Policy Research says—and he is talking about the Whitlam era:

The abolition of university fees at this time had no discernible effects on the socioeconomic composition of higher education students, …

Of course, that does not fit neatly into the methodology that we have all been given and the emotion put in this place, but that is independent, qualitative, peer reviewed research. The reason is twofold, as the article further says:

First, only a small proportion of students (20-25 per cent) paid fees, since the great majority had either Teacher's College or Commonwealth Scholarships.

So we know that scholarships are very important in driving equity into the system. Further:

Second, because secondary schooling retention rates … were very low at the time—

much lower than they are now. So those Whitlam changes did not, as a matter of empirical fact, do what is repeatedly suggested by members opposite that they did.

Then the next series of evidence occurs during the 1990s—the period whereby there were great changes with respect to fees under the HECS system. We went from a system of part-deferred user pays from the Whitlam-free system, with many scholarships before that. The National report on higher education in Australia 2001 released by the Department of Education, Science and Training, the DEST report, found that HECS repayments by students during the relevant period of the report over the 1990s increased nearly eightfold to $900 million and during that same time higher education enrolments in Australia grew by 30 per cent from 400,000 to 525,000. The empirical evidence, the actual math of this situation, shows us that where we have asked students to make a greater contribution through a deferred loans system that has had the effect of growing the overall number of people involved in tertiary education.

That then leads us to the third phase of analysis. Inside that growing number, which is high-, middle- and low-SES income students, has the proportion of lower SES students decreased? Has the increased payments that we have experienced consistently post Whitlam decreased the percentage of lower SES students? The answer is no. Fascinatingly, the number of low-SES students has remained unbelievably constant during all the increases in fees at around 14½ per cent. Many people have researched this and almost all wished that there was a different answer, that the HECS system had destroyed SES lower income participation—but it simply has not.

The article 'Social justice in Australia higher education policy: an historical and conceptual account of student participation' by Gale and Tranter, concludes:

Figure 1 illustrates that the proportion of students from the lowest quartile of SES has remained remarkably stable over the last two decades at around 14.5 % (compared to a population reference value of 25%) …

So in the general population, low-SES people of that age would be about 25 per cent; in the university population, notwithstanding very considerable increases in fees, some instigated by the members opposite during the 1990s post Whitlam, the percentage has remained incredibly steady. There is no empirical evidence to the opposite. If you have some evidence raise it, but I know as a matter of diligent research that it does not exist. If you had it, you would have raised it by now. The cards would be on the table.

There are many reasons why this is a good reform, but there are a few in particular that I want to focus on here. Firstly, the reforms will for the first time ever see the Commonwealth provide direct financial support for all students studying for higher education diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees. And what type of income quintile students do we think they might be? Lower SES students will share a greater proportion of that diploma, advanced diploma and subdegree market than any other income quintile of student. Secondly, financial support will also be extended to all Australian higher education students in registered nonuniversity higher education institutions studying bachelor degree courses. Again, this will expand the opportunities for more Australian students every year to receive tertiary education, building to support over 80,000 new students a year by 2018. There is no guarantee necessarily that that 14.5 per cent participation figure for lower SES students will increase, but history suggests that it will not decrease. And by growing the pool of students involved in the system, the sheer number of lower SES students will benefit.

The third reason that this is going to be a positive thing for lower income SES students is that the package compels universities to invest 20 per cent of additional revenue into scholarships for disadvantaged students. The history of tertiary education in Australia has been that over the last two decades costs and fees have risen and that has been because of an agreement on both sides of politics that it is and was inequitable to have tradies paying for 60 per cent of the education of tertiary educated people, who go on to earn much more than them over a lifetime income stream.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened attentively to the member for Pearce and his erudite denunciation of mathematical researchers at the Australian National University. A compelling case was built around the incomes of lawyers. Apparently they earn a bloody lot of money—heaps of it. You would expect, therefore, they would also pay a higher rate of tax. If they are earning $1 million more, as has been argued by the member opposite, then he would understand that it is quite likely that as a group they would each pay over their working life probably $300,000 to $400,000 more tax. I suspect that that is what we would all want out of people who earn higher incomes. If you are fortunate enough to earn a high income in this country, you should pay higher taxes, as part of the progressive taxation system that we have here.

Let there be no doubt about what this Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014 is about. It will saddle current and future generations with an unfair and inequitable higher education system, one where your background, family circumstances and where you live will be the key determinant of accessing higher education. If a young person or indeed an older person living in regional Australia—I say that as someone who lives in a relatively small but fairly isolated community—wants to study for a degree, they have limited choices. They could choose to attend Charles Darwin University's campus in Central Australia and access a very limited number of courses. They could choose to do their courses by long distance education or, as most do, choose to relocate to other places.

What this bill is doing is saying to the people who live in regional Australia, such as those in my community, 'The possibilities for you are going to diminish because of the affordability of access.' Let us not be too cute about it. I have a good income. My wife and I have four children. They have all left Alice Springs to go to university and we understand that we have an obligation to assist them in that process. But, sadly, not all people are on my income. When the member for Pearce talked about tradespeople bearing the burden of the current generation and future generations of people in the higher education system, I think he should have given some thought to the aspirations of those tradespeople's children. Because, when I speak to people in the community, those very same tradespeople feel compelled to tell me that the aspirations for their kids are that they attend higher education institutions and, if they are fortunate enough, access a degree. So quality, affordable education where individual family and community aspirations can be met without crippling debt is what Australians want.

We heard the shadow minister talk about Joseph Stiglitz and the downsides of adopting the US model. We know that, in the context of Australia, if the model which is being proposed in this legislation were to pass, then we would end up with a US model of education and we would see massive disincentives for people who live in rural, regional and remote Australia. I say that also in the context of another group of people who this piece of legislation has clearly overlooked. I want to refer to the Charles Darwin University, which has its headquarters in Darwin. Like all other institutions in this country, higher education institutions will suffer severe cuts as a result of these measures. It estimates it will lose $50.4 million as a direct result of these cuts. What these cuts do not do, though, is understand the profile of the student population at Charles Darwin University where 75 per cent of its student body are mature age students—that is, people of a mature age, 25 or older in this case. That means of course that many of them will have already had a job—they may even be a tradesperson—and they are seeking to improve themselves by going to university. A very high proportion will have a family and will already have debt as a result of a mortgage.

What this piece of legislation is telling those very people is that you will need another mortgage to pay for your education. It is a massive disincentive for those people and I can tell you that, almost as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, many of those people who would have been looking at making a choice about going or not going to university as a mature age student will defer that decision. Many may take the decision to go to university and cop the debt, but many may also decide they will not proceed at all. Let us be very clear. If you are on a reasonable income, say, on 70 or 80 grand a year, you are a mature age student with two or three kids and you live in a place such as Darwin where the median house price is around $500,000 and you have to pay the mortgage for that housing loan, where are you going to get the rest of the money to pay the mortgage for this degree?

The government are compounding a debt situation with an even higher debt situation. It is a massive disincentive. They know it but are not prepared to admit it. The member for Pearce spoke about all sorts of mathematicians. He pinpointed a couple of Labor mathematicians at the ANU and gave them a bit of a going over. But let me say to him that, if you are an aspirant to be a mathematician and you are the son or daughter of a working family, which want you to go to university, they do not want you to be burdened with the costs that this bill will burden them with. That is very clear. Working Australians understand what this means for them, their children and future generations.

I thought that the Leader of the Opposition made it very clear in his contribution to all of us as to why we cannot comprehend or indeed countenance these proposals. 'Education is the foundation on which we will build a better Australia,' he said. And he is right. The opportunity of education is an Australian birthright that belongs to us all. And he is right. This opportunity will be removed for many as a direct result of this legislation. I say to the government: there are many ways in which you can make changes, but these changes will impact adversely and, in many respects, more adversely on people who live in rural and regional Australia than on people living in urban communities like Sydney or Melbourne, as most members opposite do.

Any member in this chamber—and there are a lot of them in the opposition—who have a reasonable university in their electorate or who live in a country town or a country area will know what I am talking about because they have had representations from their regional universities about the impact of these cuts upon them and the potential for those students. We know that to be the case. And this bloke up here is trying to tell me they all want it. Well, I beg to differ.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would have a Bex and a good lie down, if I were you, because very clearly there are issues which confront us. I am conscious that in about 10 seconds I am going to be told to sit down, so I look forward to continuing my contribution after question time later this afternoon.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted. In accordance with standing order 43, the debate may be resumed at a later hour. The honourable member will have leave to continue his remarks when the debate is resumed.