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

My question is to the Minister for Education. It has been reported today that Monash University economics professor and competition expert, Stephen King, says that fee deregulation of universities is a recipe for disaster, suggesting that fees will creep up until Australian students pay about the same as full-fee-paying foreign students. Why is the Abbott government putting the cost of university out of the reach of young Australians?

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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. To answer his final question first, students who go to university in Australia can borrow every single dollar from the Australian taxpayer. So no university course is out of reach to any Australian young or mature age student who wants to go to university, because every single dollar of the fees that they may be charged—or that they are being charged now, for that matter—can be borrowed through the most generous higher education loan program in the world, one that is the envy of the entire world.

Let me explain one thing to the opposition, which they do not understand: in Great Britain, where there are fees in England and there is a so-called free education paid for by the taxpayer in Scotland, the rate of low-socioeconomic status students going to university has increased in England and has dropped in Scotland, so the supposed evidence from the opposition that fees will lead to people of low-SES backgrounds not going to university has been utterly exploded by the evidence of what has occurred in Great Britain. So that is the answer to the final question in his question to me. The fact is that no university degree will be out of reach to anyone, because they will be able to borrow money from the Australian taxpayer.

The first part of the member's question was a quote from one academic. I welcome that, because I would like to quote from a few people as well. The Labor Party are desperately clinging to one academic's comment about our higher education reforms—a small sapling floating past that, like a drowning sailor, they have reached out to grasp. This gives me the opportunity to tell the opposition: ask the Group of Eight, ask the Australian Technology Network of universities, ask the Regional Universities Network, ask Innovative Research Universities, ask Universities Australia, which represents 39 universities.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Ask business leaders like David Gonski—they have gone quiet again—and like Michael Chaney. Ask individual vice chancellors from across Australia like John Dewar from La Trobe, Annabelle Duncan from the University of New England, Warren Bebbington from the University of Adelaide.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

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

The member for Lingiari will desist.

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

All of these people and all of these organisations are saying that there must be reform to universities in Australia, otherwise we will fall behind our Asian competitors and decline into mediocrity.

This side of the House is prepared to make the real, microeconomic reform that Labor squibbed for six years in government. This reform will transform our universities and provide more opportunities for students.