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. Yesterday the minister lauded the United Kingdom's university changes as his inspiration, but the minister's own regulation impact statement found that the fee deregulation in the United Kingdom resulted in a trebling of student fees at most institutions. Why does the minister want to treble university fees and saddle young Australians with a debt sentence?

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

Apart from the Leader of the Opposition's trying to verbal me from my comments yesterday, I would refer the Leader of the Opposition to these articles in the The Guardian newspaper, hardly known to be a great supporter of the coalition, in May this year. What I was pointing out to the House yesterday and I am happy to repeat it today was that in fact, in Great Britain, where fees were introduced for undergraduate degrees in England but in Scotland there is ostensibly free education—in other words, the taxpayers pay for the students' tuition fees—in England the percentage of low SES, low socioeconomic status, students going to university has increased and in Scotland it has either stagnated or declined. In fact, the introduction of fees in England actually improved the uptake of higher education amongst low-socioeconomic-status students. Labor would rather just rely on myth than the facts. Myth, sadly, is running the Labor Party's policy agenda. They would rather try to create a scare campaign, they would rather make things up, they would rather pretend that the so-called Whitlamite free education—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order on direct relevance. The question repeatedly referred to the tripling of student fees.

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

There is no point of order. The minister has the call.

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

The question was full of rhetoric. If the opposition cannot get their questions right and tight enough to be able to hold a minister to them, I am not going to help them to do so. The member for Grayndler should perhaps give some tips to the Manager of Opposition Business, because it was a very broad question full of rhetoric.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I recognise the Leader of the House attempted to give a ruling on the point of order, but could we hear a ruling from you before he gets the call.

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

I said there is no point of order. The minister has the call.

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

I was saying that the Labor Party still try to hold to this Whitlamite myth that somehow free education in the early 1970s led to an increase in students from low SES backgrounds.

Mr Champion interjecting—

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

There is too much noise. The member for Wakefield has one chance left.

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

Everyone knows in the education sector—including people like Paul Keating and Bob Hawke, who I will quote in a minute—

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

Just because I am generous today.

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

that all 'free education' meant in the seventies was a redistribution of wealth from the poorest Australians to advantaged and privileged Australians who were going to university anyway or who would go to university and were happy to pay for it. In fact, Bob Hawke said, 'You've got to get rid of the idea—it's absolute BS—that there is, ever has been, or ever could be free education'. He said, 'I see no problem with the concept of paying back this investment when they are in a financial position to do so.' He said, 'There is no such thing as free education; it's a question of who pays and how it is paid for.'

What the government are doing through our reforms is spreading opportunity to 80,000 more students from low-SES backgrounds to take up a place in university, first-generation university-goers, disadvantaged Australians. Remarkably, Labor is opposing that reform.