Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like the first higher education reform bill this bill, the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill, represents a broken promise by the government. Before the election the government stood up and said there would be no cuts to education but this bill, just like the first higher education bill, contains cuts to higher education in this country. There are cuts to higher education to the tune of over $2 billion in this higher education reform bill.

This bill shows that the government has not changed. We heard from the Prime Minister this week that things were going to change. 'Good government starts today,' we heard on Monday. Clearly not much has changed because this bill still has those terrible things in it. It still has the $100,000 degrees that will result from fee deregulation. It still has cuts to university funding in it. It will still discourage people on low incomes and people from regional areas of Australia from going on to higher education. Not a lot has changed and you can tell that the government is still not listening and has still not learnt. If they had learnt anything they would have gone out over the break and spoken to their constituents. They would have spoken to students, and to parents who have children in high school, and they would have heard that people are frightened about these higher education reforms. They are frightened because these reforms will hurt them. They will actually cause the cost of degrees to go up.

We have heard some rhetoric from those opposite that they do not think the cost of degrees will go up. What do they base that on? Nothing. There has been no modelling released. There has been no information released about what a degree will actually cost—not from them, anyway. Of course, we have seen some modelling released. We have seen it from Universities Australia; we have seen it from the NTEU; and we have seen it from a whole range of other organisations. What that shows is that the cost of a university degree will go up. That is what it shows: it shows that it will grow up. We know from Bond University in Western Australia that degrees will go up to over $100,000. They will go up to over $100,000 because that is what the modelling that has been released to date shows. If the government has other modelling that shows differently, why have they not released it to the Australian public? Why have they not had an honest conversation with Australia? If they have modelling, where is it and what does it show? Silence. Of course, they do have some modelling; they will have done some, and the department will have some information about what degrees are going to cost. The reason they will not release it is that it shows $100,000 degrees. It will show $100,000 degrees. It will show that higher education costs will go up in this country if this reform gets through.

Labor has said very clearly that we will vote against these cuts to university funding. We have said that we will not support a system of higher fees, which will mean larger student debt, which will reduce access and which will cause greater inequality. Last time I came into this place, I spoke about my own experience and why I joined the ALP. I joined the ALP because I could not afford to stay at school. I could not afford to stay at school, because my parents were too poor. Just this year my daughter went to university. She is the first in my family to go. She and all her friends are terrified about this reform bill. As her friends have discussions, they are worried about the implications of this bill going through.

Mr Palmer interjecting—

They are worried about it, and their parents are worried about it. They are worrying about how they are going to pay off increased loans from this bill. The member for Fairfax is quite right: they should be worried. Sadly, they are. It is causing people to make really tough decisions about whether they should invest in their future education. That is not a decision that people should have to make in a country like Australia. They should not have to make a decision about whether they can go to university depending on whether or not their parents can help them pay off any debt. They should not have to make that decision. People in Australia should be able to go to university if they are capable of going to university. They should be able to if they want to and they are capable. So many people still are having the first in their family go to university—like my daughter. So many families may not get that opportunity if this bill goes through. We may not see people from low-income families get that opportunity if this bill goes through. That is why I am pleased to say that we are voting against it.

Interestingly, in this bill we also have a regional transition fund, which is one of the differences from the previous bill. Of course, the inclusion of that transition fund proves that this bill will impact adversely on regional Australians. That is why those opposite have had to do this. During the debate on the first bill, those on the opposite side came in here and spoke about the advantages for regional students and how great it was going to be. We said: 'No, no, it's not. It's going to be bad for regional students.' They did make one change by having the regional transition fund. The minister said on the day that the original bill was defeated in the Senate that this would be a $300 million fund, but, of course, it is only $100 million, which will not do what it needs to do to encourage enough regional students and enough regional universities, and to have those opportunities for regional students. It is an admission by the government that this reform is unfair and that this bill is unfair. By having the regional transition fund in this bill, they are admitting that it is unfair. They know that their first bill was going to impact on regional students and regional universities, and they still know that this current bill is going to have that same effect. Yet yesterday we heard more members from regional Australia come into this place and argue how great this bill is for regional students—just like they did the first time—when they know that it will adversely impact on regional students and regional universities. They know this. They do know that this bill will have an adverse impact, and that is why they have a regional fund in it. But it is not going to be enough. The bill will still impact adversely on regional students.

I wanted to talk a little bit about my home state of Tasmania. We had the member for Lyons in here speaking on this bill yesterday, and he spoke on the previous bill, as did some of the other Tasmanian members. The University of Tasmania is the only university in the state of Tasmania. We know that this higher education reform that the government has put out will adversely impact on the University of Tasmania to the point where the vice-chancellor has said that they will be worse off to the tune of $37 million per year under this bill. We are talking about a national $100 million transition fund; we are talking about one university in my home state being $30 million a year worse off.

The vice-chancellor has actually said that they will not be able to raise fees high enough to be able to recover all that money; they may be able to recover some of it. He is obviously admitting (a) they are going to increase fees, (b) they will not be able to get the money back to cover that gap and (c) therefore the university will be worse off to the point where the Tasmanian members and others talked about a special package for Tasmania, for the Tasmanian university. A special package that was only on the table if Tasmanian senators in the Senate agreed to this bill. That is what they said. They said: 'We know this is going to adversely affect the University of Tasmania. We know it so much that there will be a special package for the University of Tasmania, but you won't get it unless you support our bill.' They know that this bill is going to adversely impact on my home state to the tune of $37 million per annum, and yet they will not accept that this bill will affect all regional universities and all regional students and the transition fund is only $100 million over three years.

We know that will not be enough. We know that children from regional families in regional Australia will still have to make what we have heard from those opposite is the difficult decision about whether or not they or their children can afford to go to university. Of course, for regional students it is in some cases a much tougher decision to make because some students do have to relocate because courses may not be offered in regional Australia, and we know that situation could get worse under this bill. So regional students, despite all the rhetoric from those opposite, will not be better off because of this bill, and the fact that there is a regional transition fund shows that those opposite know it will hurt regional universities and regional students. We know that that would happen.

This bill is the second iteration and, as I said before, people on the other side clearly have not been talking to their electorates about what is contained in this bill. Clearly they have not gone out and listened to what the people in their communities are saying because this bill is a broken promise from the government. This bill is unfair. It is unfair for students in regional Australia, is unfair for students from low-income families and it is unfair for students right across the board. It is unfair because it will lead to higher fees, it will lead to $100,000 degrees; it is unfair because it will cut funding to universities, including research funding that we know is so critical to those universities that are excelling at the moment in research, such as the university in my home state of Tasmania. We know that is the case.

We have also heard a little bit from those opposite about this scholarship fund they are going to have. This scholarship fund is going to make all the difference, but we do not have any information from the government about just how this fund is going to work, how big it is going to be, what the modelling on it is, where the students who are going to be able to access it are going to come from. We do not have any of this information because of course the government has not released that either. We do not have any information on the cost of degrees coming from the government, they have not released any modelling. We do not have any information about the scholarships and how they are going to work because the government has not released that information either. We do not have any information about the size of the fund or how many students there are, other than the minister's claim that the biggest scholarship fund in Australia's history is what it will be. He has not yet defined that, so goodness only knows what that means. I am sure that he knows, but perhaps he should share it with the Australian public given the types of reforms we are expected to be debating in this place and in the other place in coming weeks.

I am pleased that Labor has said we will not be supporting this bill a second time because no information has been shared with the public that should be shared about how it is going to impact on students. The government is saying that this reform is necessary, that this reform has to happen or the higher education system is going to be in crisis. Perhaps the government needs to go back, as governments should, and look at what actually needs to be done here: go and consult with the sector a bit more about what the real issues are and how it needs to be resolved. They should also be talking to their communities, to the students, to the parents who use our higher education system and ask what they want because at the moment I do not think the government is actually listening to the students, to the parents or to the community about their expectations of higher education in this country. I am pleased that Labor is opposing this bill.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is painful to follow the member for Franklin in relation to this bill because this is one of the most important reforms to the higher education sector in many years. In opposition, the coalition took the view that if the government put forward sensible reforms that would benefit the sector then we would endorse those reforms, including, importantly, Labor's deregulation of student numbers. So I would say to the member for Franklin that, once again, we are in this ridiculous situation. You cannot deregulate the numbers without addressing the fees. And that is what Labor has done. Labor deregulated student numbers. That is a good reform; it is something we agree with. But if you do not deregulate the fee structures you cripple the universities' capacity to grow, reform and to become great institutions. And that is what this is really all about.

We are here in the second iteration of this bill, listening to the concerns, I might add, of the crossbenchers and listening to the concerns of the people who will decide the fate of this legislation. We are listening very carefully. There are no savings, now, attached to the bill, except for a minor amount, which should alleviate Labor's concerns. This is not a savings bill; this is a reform bill. This is about the reform of the higher education sector.

Why is this so important? Why does it have the support of Labor figures like John Dawkins, Maxine McKew, Peter Noonan, Gareth Evans and, notably, Dr Andrew Leigh, the shadow Assistant Treasurer. It has their support because this is an important package. They know. That is why it has the support of university vice-chancellors. We must have reform in this country. We must be able, as a parliament, to accept levels of reform, by working together and being able to realise that we may not be able to put our agenda through as we would like, but listening to the Senate, as we have done with this latest bill, and returning it here. We must be able to achieve levels of reform.

This is so important because we do not have a university in the top world rankings. We have a situation where, under Labor, we saw our education sector suffer in so many ways. Export income fell by billions of dollars from a 2009-10 peak. There is a neglect of the education sector—not just the university sector but the private education sector as well. There has been billions and billions of dollars of lost revenue. Education exporting should perhaps be one of our biggest and best industries. It really is the biggest opportunity for reach to our friends and neighbours in Asia.

We have seen the third largest export—and the no. 1 knowledge export—suffer very much. Enrolments fell by 130,000 between 2009 and 20012—a decline of 16 per cent. That is bad for our economy. It is bad for all those who work in education and the service sectors that support education. I know, from speaking to the private sector in education, that they suffered enormously under the previous government. But this reform is important because we have to make the system sustainable for the future, and we have to deregulate the fees, giving universities flexibility. It is not accurate to say that university degrees will now be $100,000. In fact, the Queensland University of Technology—I say this to the member for Fairfax—has published fees for 2016 at a massively different set of rates than what the scare campaign has been saying.

The University of Western Australia has set fees which are less than half of what the scare campaign is claiming. Already the evidence is in that there will not be $100,000 degrees. Not all degrees will be the same. Labor struggles to understand the operation of markets, but not every degree will cost the same. There is no argument that they can put forward that says all degrees will rise in cost. Some degrees will fall commensurate with the demand and the supply in the market. That is the way it will go. Some degrees will be cheaper. Not everybody wants to do the same degree. There is not the same volumes in every degree. If we allow the market to operate a little more properly, with more flexibility, there will be a better outcome for universities and a better outcome for students. There will be a better outcome for students.

Labor is ignoring its roots. It is not thinking about those who do a trade or those who never go to university. And that is a legitimate pathway for people still in Australia today. Not everybody has to go to university. Not every university degree leads to a job. In fact, most university graduates I know, who are just of out university right now are struggling to get work because they do not have a skill. Their university degree has not equipped them with the skills to do their job. So it is not automatically the case that going to university is good. It is not automatically the case that doing two or three degrees will lead to better work or employment. That is not the automatic case in our employment market today.

If the Labor Party still represented the working class, they would understand that those people pay a big subsidy to allow people in Australia to go to university. It is a good system. The government is not only maintaining this system; it is expanding it and making it sustainable into the future. That is what this bill is about. We have a situation that is unique in almost any education market in the world, whereby nobody has to pay a cent up-front to go to university—not a cent. But that is at the expense of all those people who decide to get a trade or to do something else in their life and not go to university. That is the system we have. And it is very important to understand that, because I do not think there is anybody left in the Labor Party who has a trade; I am pretty sure they do not have that. Well, there might be one, or there might be two, but not very many. They forgot those people, and they are the bulk of people in our society.

I went to university. There is nothing wrong with going to university. And yes, I did not pay a cent up-front. And yes, I have paid it all back. It is a good system we have. The government is not touching it. The government is not altering the fundamentals of the higher education system in this country. We are doing nothing radical. What we are doing is undertaking the inevitable task of reforming the sector. There is no doubt that anybody in government right now would have to be addressing the higher education sector and making further reform to make it more flexible and make it more deliverable. Labor knows it. The shadow Assistant Treasurer has proposed these exact proposals in his own academic work. He is an academic. I would say to the Labor Party, listen to your shadow Assistant Treasurer when he says that these reforms are vital for the future of the education sector. It is what the university vice-chancellors say. It is what Gareth Evans says. It is what Labor figures of all ilk who are genuinely about achieving good-quality reform are saying. They are saying it because they know that if we do not deregulate fees we are missing an important mechanism for our universities to be sustainable and to make progress.

And we have a real challenge in front of us in relation to this bill, because we have an obstructionist Senate, even when the government is listening very carefully to the views of the Senate. And they are right about the indexation and the bond rate. They are right to send us the feedback that it should remain at the consumer price index for all the loans that are taken out by students. So, the government has listened, and one of the key amendments in this legislation that is before us today is of course retaining the consumer price index for HECS debts. And that, from Senator Day, is sensible, it is reasonable, it is constructive and it is something the government has listened to.

We have also introduced an interest rate pause on debts for primary carers of children aged less than five years who are earning less than the minimum repayment threshold, once again taking into account feedback, looking at the disadvantaged—people who may not be able to access this system. But the bulk of students, the bulk of our society, can live with this reform, they can cope with this reform and they can adjust to this reform. And the reform will benefit not just the education sector but also all students, because universities will be able to provide better-quality education and better-quality services and compete internationally, which is most critical for the future of our education export sector.

I have not even started on the measures to address disadvantage. The Labor Party has a lot to say about fairness, but they really do not think about this deeply. The government has come up with a good program that will take a package of scholarships funded by the Commonwealth, which will mean that thousands—many thousands of places, from rural and regional communities—of students from disadvantaged backgrounds will have access to help to get to university, especially in their local area. So, this is a government that is being fair. It is considering all the reasonable and possible objections to university reform. People from regional areas cannot access it, so we have a scholarship scheme to address that. People from disadvantaged backgrounds were worried about an increase in some fees, so we have a scheme to address that—remembering that no student will pay a cent; the indexation will remain at the consumer price index so that everyone is able to repay it when they get the right job. They do not start repaying this loan until they have a really good job, earning a really decent income. That is the system as it has been, and that is the system as it will be.

So, in terms of fairness, the arguments fall flat. There is not a fairness argument against this bill. This is a constructive reform bill about building the foundations of our university and education future. The fairness arguments are gone. Let us talk to what is in front of us today, the new bill. Let us deal with the concrete proposals that the government is putting forward, listening to the will of the Senate and being reasonable in its approach to ensuring that we can still in this place and in this era achieve some meaningful reform without having to have so many political fights.

The government has again made an important concession asking the ACCC to monitor university fees. That is an important thing. The ACCC will monitor those universities fees to ensure they are not getting out of hand, recognising that, so far, of the universities that have put out fees for the coming years those fee increases are nothing like the scare campaign that the Labor Party is running. In fact, it is less than a third in some cases.

As more universities come forward and more knowledgeable commentators and experts in our field speak about what they think will happen, we hear they do not believe our markets can sustain a huge increase in fees. It is impossible because there is not a market for it. I know Labor does not understand markets, but if there is no demand for $100,000 degrees then there will not be $100,000 degrees. You cannot artificially set a price so high at a price point that people are not willing to pay.

That is what the experts in the education sector repeatedly tell us: there is no price point, because people in this country cannot afford to pay for $100,000 degrees. That is why there will not be $100,000 degrees; that is why there cannot be $100,000 degrees. That is the prime reason. There is no market for those degrees. Coming from Western Sydney and growing up in a simple household, I could not have afforded a $100,000 degree, and that is why I would not have taken a $100,000 degree. That is why there will be no $100,000 degrees.

The member at the table looks confused, and I understand why she is confused. We will get back to market economics some other day. I know you pretend to love markets, but you do not. This bill before us today is, of course, reasonable. It is a reforming bill. It is something that will allow—

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much do you think a medical degree will cost? Medicine will not be $100,000?

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take up the member at the table's objections about medicine. Medicine is a very particular area. What about those apprentices doing a trade who are subsidising a medical student to get a degree and to earn very good income for the rest of their lives? What about those tradies? What about those workers? What about those people who are never going to get degrees? They are paying twice for someone to go and get a medical degree—so you are saying they should not make a contribution to that degree; is that what you are saying? What about ordinary people? I think you have forgotten them You really need to get out of Canberra more.

What this bill and legislation is about is improving the capacity of universities to function better. You deregulated the numbers. This means as many people can go to university as universities want, but they cannot alter their fee structures. Why would you set any business or service that charges a fee to deregulate the numbers but not deregulate the fees? It is not feasible. It is not practical. It is not what the shadow Assistant Treasurer thinks. It is not what Gareth Evans thinks. It is not what John Dawkins thinks. It is not what the vice-chancellors think. It is not what the sector thinks. They know these reforms are needed. They know they are vital. They know reform in this country cannot be constantly obstructed by the Labor Party just because they are trying to win elections.

We backed your deregulation of numbers. You should back our deregulation of fees, recognising that the government is going out of its way to ameliorate any unfairness and anything that can be perceived to be unfair. I commend the minister for education on the work that he has done, in so many ways, including Australian Research Council Future Fellowships, the concessional scheme that the government is implementing, all of the indexation arrangements that the government has changed and everything else that the government is doing in this bill. It is going out of its way to show the Labor Party and the Senate that we are genuine about pursuing reform. There are no more savings left in this bill. This is not a savings measure. This is about the future of our higher education sector in Australia.

Paul Kelly has been around a bit. In The Australian, on 27 November 2014, he wrote:

If the eminently defensible university reform compromise is not passed the result, as Universities Australia says, is that higher education will face an “inevitable decline in quality, performance, competitiveness and reputation”.

Too much is at stake. This sector is vital for our nation's future. We must have ongoing reform, and this parliament must have the ability to pass good quality reforms into law.

Clive Palmer (Fairfax, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I come here today full of admiration for the education minister and his confidence in the education he himself has enjoyed, which has taken him and put him on a pedestal for all Australians to look up to in this parliament. It has given him the opportunity to bring forth his ideas for us to consider and discuss. I come here too with admiration for the Treasurer, who has gone to university, toiled through his university career and come here so the nation can enjoy the benefits of that education. But I, like the Treasurer and the Minister for Education, was the beneficiary of real reforms in the education sector made by Edward G Whitlam when he was Prime Minister of this country. The Treasurer did not pay for his education, nor did the Minister for Education. They never would have got to this place without a university education; they never would have had the opportunity.

The cost of educating someone from primary school through to high school for 12 years is far greater than the amount we lose in one year's unemployment in this country. A good education policy is not only good social policy, it is good economic policy. This country benefits by capturing its resources and there are no greater resources to be captured for the benefit of the nation than the intellect of its citizens. Intellect is not distributed evenly across society. It is not a measure of how much money you may have or what your prospects may be but of what you can contribute to the nation. No Australian, wherever they may come from, should be handicapped from going to university. I have a friend whose daughter recently graduated from university and now has four years debt. She cannot buy a home—she is newly married, but she has to slog away for four or eight years before she can get a housing loan.

When you are 23 or 24, that is the most important time of your life for taking risks, being bold and taking initiatives. We have seen what has happened in the United States with Google, Apple, and Facebook—a whole lot of innovations. Do we really want our young people to leave university and be saddled with debt—to be so conservative that they are too frightened to think, to take risks and to stimulate our economy? Because that is what this bill does. It creates more and more costs for students, the people who can least afford it. It saps their creativity. It takes from them the opportunity for the whole nation to benefit from their endeavours at a time of their life when they could make a real difference.

The Prime Minister has recently said, in the last two days, that there has been a fundamental change in the Liberal Party—a fundamental change in the government. He said they are going to listen to what is happening. Well, they are not listening to the people of Australia. They are not listening to the Senate. They are wasting their time in the House of Representatives because only an idiot expects to get a different outcome while repeatedly doing the same thing time after time. How many times does the Senate have to reject this legislation before the government gets the message? The message is: this legislation will not pass the Senate. This legislation is through, finished, wound up. Every one of our senators in the Senate will vote no. They will not take an amendment. They will not take a compromise because they believe the right to a fair and proper education is the indelible right of all Australians. The right of our people to enjoy a better and rising standard of living is fundamental to their welfare, and it is to the benefit of our nation.

What is all this about? It is about a lie. It is about saying that Australia has too much debt. We know that our debt is only 12 per cent of our GDP. We know that when Bob Menzies was Prime Minister of this country, our debt was 40 per cent of our GDP. We know that our country has the third-lowest debt in the OECD. We are one of only 13 nations that has a AAA credit rating—yet we are supposed to be having an economic crisis. The Treasurer comes out this morning. He says to the Liberal Party that he has to pursue his cuts—he has to pursue austerity in this country. In the United States, President Obama has stimulated the economy. He created real growth. It has been so successful that the European Union has done the same thing. We look around the world and find Uzbekistan and Ghana, two countries with a balanced budget. We look at the United States economy and see that for the last 50 years it has only has 12 years of a balanced budget. Are we going to follow the Uzbekistani model in our economy and balance our budget whatever that means or are we going to go for prosperity, for growth, for a strong economy and follow the lead of the United States of America?

What are we going to do? Are we going to spiral down? I tell you what: if these cuts continue, they will destroy demand in this country, they will collapse the economy and we will never get the budget back to surplus, because it is only through growth creating real wealth that you can really support our economy, support what we have got. So, rather than saying that we are going to cut, let's accept the challenge to make this country stronger, better. Let's believe in ourselves that we can create greater growth and greater prosperity for Australia.

Why does the government go away from the challenge that previous governments have accepted—to provide a better standard of living for Australians? Is it that we believe our members of this House do not have the same capability, the same talent as those that went before them to maintain the fight to keep Australia growing? Is it because we want to give up? And why do we need to continually increase taxes and introduce levies and fees that other people pay? Can't this government be as efficient as the last and the one before it and the one before that? Are we going to continually sink in a hole of non-performance, negligence and incompetence?

This bill will not become law. It will not go through the Senate. It wastes the taxpayers' money by having it considered in this House yet again. It is just a sign of the political process where an arrogant attitude is prevailing in the government and they think they can pass legislation through this House without any discussion or consultation. We have seen in Queensland what happens to an arrogant attitude. This is a time for the government to change, to listen, to adjust its policies for what is best for all Australians. If they continue down this path, they will be defeated at the next election. Let's face it: without our preferences, they would not be there now. And the reality of it is they do not have the support of the Australian people.

We only have to visit universities and talk to the students, discussing with them the difficulties they have even coping with the large levels of debt that burden them and which take away their creativity, knowing that that just will not happen. What we need in this country is more compassion and a real understanding of how the economy works, to know how important education is in the economic process and to know what opportunity means as an Australian—to benefit from our assets. We need to know that you cannot buy success in this country. You cannot buy success by just having a lot of money and going to the best university if you have not got the brains to pass it, if you do not have the ability to compete. Shouldn't we in Australia hope that all Australians compete on a level footing so we get the very best people through our universities? If we go to Japan, China and other parts of Asia, we see the whole country competes in education performance to get these places.

Why do we want to stifle competition? Why do we want to say that you have to have enough money to go to university? Why do we deny people who do not have enough money to go to university? I was the beneficiary of a free education and a free university education. I have produced more money for this country than any member in this House—that is the fact of the matter—and I would not have done it without Gough Whitlam's support and a free education when I was 20, because I could not afford to go to university. Billions of dollars of exports would have been lost to this country. That is the hard reality.

You people sit here and deny opportunity for Australians to compete in our economy, to be all they could be. I think it is a great disgrace. And it is irrelevant; this bill is going nowhere.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to follow the member for Fairfax, Professor Palmer. I think his speech was a ringing endorsement of the coalition's plans for deregulation of universities to bring more competition into that sector.

What has really concerned me during this debate is the shocking scaremongering we have heard from members of the opposition. We have heard these dishonest and deceitful claims about $100,000 degrees. I never thought I would see in my lifetime an opposition that actually, for political purposes, goes about discouraging young Australians from going to university. So, I would ask all members of the opposition to think very carefully when they go out into their electorates and spread this fear and this scaremongering: their false claims of $100,000 degrees, their false claims that students cannot afford to get into university. That scaremongering that they are engaged in is discouraging the young people of this country from going to university, and that is an absolute disgrace. And it is a disgrace for crass political purposes—that members of the opposition would actually dissuade our young people from going to university.

We in the coalition want to see more students at university. That is what this bill, at its heart, is all about. It is about giving more opportunities, to increase the number of students in the country who can go on to get degrees. That is the core of this bill. We need to disabuse some of those absolutely false and misleading claims by the opposition—the idea that it is now too costly to get into university. The facts are that in this country, after this bill, you can get into university without paying one single cent up-front. To any student who wants to back themselves, who thinks that they have the talent to go to university, to get a degree, we in the government are saying: we will back you. And we are saying that we will actually give you a gift of 50 per cent of the cost of your degree. The taxpayers of this nation will back any student who wants to try their hand at university with a gift of 50 per cent of that cost. They will never have to pay that 50 per cent back. It is a gift from the taxpayer. And regarding the remaining 50 per cent, you do not as a student have to pay one cent up-front. You only have to start to pay that back once you start to earn $50,000, and you pay that by way of a higher marginal rate of tax—at $50,000, a two per cent higher marginal rate.

And this is most important. As I said, the coalition wants to give more opportunities to the young people of this nation. We have many resources in this country. We have that black coal seam that runs down our eastern seaboard. We have minerals—iron ore, gold and uranium—buried in our outback. But our greatest resource is the citizens of this country. We see many countries throughout the world that have great mineral resources but do not have the wealth of this nation. The greatest resource that we have are our people, and it is our job in government to create the most opportunities so that our people can unleash their creative skills and their creative talents. That requires giving more people the opportunity to get to university and to go on to do further study. If this bill goes through, it will assist 80,000 people a year to get further education, to do further studies. That is what the opposition and the Greens and some of the crossbenchers in the Senate seek to block.

This bill is back for a second time, and some amendments were made after discussions with some of the more sensible crossbench senators. And I would like to go through those. The first one is the indexation of the debt. Initially it was planned that that would be at the 10-year government bond rate. It is interesting that since that last debate the 10-year government bond rate is now down to about 2½ per cent, so anyone who wants a loan it is basically at 2½ per cent. That is a pretty good offer. But we have actually gone better than that. We are going back, where the indexation on that loan will be nearly at CPI. Currently, I think we are looking at about 1.7 or 1.9 per cent—less than two per cent. That is the interest rate a student will have to pay on their debt.

Secondly, we are creating a five-year pause. If a parent becomes a primary carer for their young child, that indexation on their debt pauses for five years. This was a suggestion by Senator Madigan. I congratulate Senator Madigan on this sensible suggestion. I congratulate the Minister for Education on accepting this. This makes our HECS system even fairer. But if this bill gets held up or blocked in the Senate by Labor and the Greens, that will not go through. The five-year pause that is part of this bill will be held up. Most importantly we want to encourage people. We understand that when they have young children they may want to take time off work or time off study. This bill freezes the indexation on their student debt.

Thirdly, this bill will establish a structural adjustment fund to assist universities to a new deregulated market. I hear, with great amusement, members of the opposition standing up saying, 'This will Americanise our universities', as though there is something wrong with American universities—they have some of the top universities in the world. It appears those opposite would like to go back and 'Sovietise' our universities.

Fourthly, this will introduce a dedicated scholarship fund for universities with a high proportion of low SES students who will be funded directly by the Commonwealth on top of the existing university-based scholarships. This will be the biggest scholarship scheme in our nation's history. Yet again, it will enable more students to study and create more opportunities.

Fifthly, it will amend the legislative guidelines to ensure that domestic fees are lower than international fees. And, also, the government will direct the ACCC to monitor university fees so there can be no collusion between them and there will be effective competition. And we have great diversity in universities around this country. There are enough universities, enough players in the market, to ensure that competition will keep university fees down and low.

While the opposition have actually failed to say what they want to do, the alternative appears to be to just continue to spend more and more money and get our nation further and further into debt. What they want to do is continue on the current fiscal deterioration that we have seen over the past six years. You have to remember the overspend in this country at the moment is $100 million every single day. We are spending more than we are raising in revenue. Now of that $100 million, $40 million is the interest on Labor's debt. We cannot go on for all time in this country continuing to overspend and borrow $100 million a day. This simply cannot continue. So if we want to put more funds into university and to get more students into university, the fairest way is to have the students who are getting the benefit of that university degree—a degree that we know will allow them to earn, on average, 75 per cent higher incomes over their life than someone who has not got a degree, the equivalent of $1 million over lifetime in additional wages and salaries over someone who does not have a university degree—to pay for it. The opposition are asking those people who do not have a university degree not only to pay the 50 per cent gift that they give to a student who goes to a university but also to fund the rest. That is inequitable and unfair.

We simply cannot continue on the way we are going, spending $100 million a day more than we raise in revenue. We are living today at the expense of people too young to vote and for those yet unborn. That is why we need to wind that back. We have to make the hard decisions, and those hard decisions mean a slight rebalance on the costs of a university degree in what is paid by government and what is paid by the student. Currently it is around 60 per cent free gift from the taxpayer, 40 per cent paid by the student. This brings it back to a 50-50 split. I do not see how anyone could say this is not fair, especially when it creates 80,000 more opportunities for our young students.

There has been overwhelming support for this legislation from those who actually think about this and are not engaged in some type of cheap political stunt for votes. The people who think about what is best for our nation going forward support this. I will go through the list. All the higher education peak bodies support the reforms. Universities Australia, the Regional Universities Network, the Australian Technology Network, the Innovative Research Universities, the Group of Eight, TAFE Directors Australia, the Australian Council of Private Education and Training and the Council for Private Education are all supporting these reforms. And the list goes on. Distinguished commentators such as David Gonski, Paul Kelly and Stephen Matchett all say these reforms are absolutely essential. So do the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Even prominent Labor figures support this. Gareth Evans, John Dawkins and Maxine McKew have urged the members of the opposition to stop the scaremongering and to engage positively to work out how we can make our universities stronger and better. Belinda Robinson of Universities Australia has said—and the member for Charlton might take interest in this:

It is simply not possible to maintain the standards that students expect or the international reputation that Australia's university system enjoys without full fee deregulation.

So the opposition has a choice. They can be obstructionist. They can continue with their scare campaign—this disgraceful, misleading scare campaign that they are engaged in—scaremongering students, discouraging them from going to university. I say that will be on their heads. If one student is discouraged from going to university by this scaremongering campaign with the falsehoods and false claims about $100,000 degrees, the false claims that you have to put money up front to go in, they stand condemned. They will stand condemned for every one of the 80,000 students who will miss out on Commonwealth support if this legislation is held up. They will stand condemned for those students who become primary carers for their children, who will not have their indexation frozen for five years should this legislation not pass.

This is important legislation. We would hope that the opposition, instead of being obstructionist, instead of trying to sabotage this government's attempts to repair the fiscal mess they left in almost every portfolio, would take the chance to come on board, to show that they can be constructive, to show that they can work with the government and to get this legislation through. I commend it to the House.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am proud to speak against the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014, because Labor opposes the coalition's radical, right-wing deregulation agenda.

The member for Hughes provided a list of groups who purportedly support these reforms, but he failed to mention the one group in this country that that is deadset opposed to these reforms, and that is the Australian people. Every reliable poll of the Australian people has said that they are opposed to deregulation of universities, they are opposed to the inevitable rise in fees that accompanies that and they are opposed to closing the door on a generation of young Australians accessing higher education.

Another falsehood contained in the member for Hughes's contribution was that somehow this will contribute to the bottom line of the budget and that this is about sustainability. Well, the government has already given away so much in this package to get their ideological agenda through that the purported savings from this package have moved from over $4 billion to $400 million over the forward estimates, and if they have any chance of getting this through the other place they will have to give away a lot more revenue than that.

The real truth here is that this is not about savings; this is about an ideological agenda of making it harder for working-class kids and kids from middle-class families to get to uni. It is about a narrow ideological agenda of deregulating uni fees, of returning to the fifties and sixties where only kids from wealthy families could get to university. And this amended bill is an insult to the parliament and it is an insult to the Australian people. That is why this government is so on the nose with the Australia people. That is why 39 members of that party room voted against the Prime Minister on Monday, because they realise that this bill and these reforms are electoral death out there.

This bill identifies how clearly arrogant and out of touch this government is. The parliament comprehensively rejected the government's higher education reforms last year, and yet this new reform bill is basically a carbon copy of last year's bill. The Minister for Education has admitted that it is 90 per cent the same bill. In his second reading speech he stated that the bill:

… preserves essential elements of the government's higher education reforms …

…   …   …

It is much the same as the bill I introduced a few months ago which was yesterday defeated in the Senate, …

The only substantive change in the bill is the change in the indexation rates.

The Minister for Education is showing particular contempt for the Senate in this bill in pushing ahead with unfair changes that the Labor Party and the crossbench have clearly stated they do not and will not support. I do not often quote the Palmer United Party, but Senator Lazarus had a particularly colourful description of the minister's reforms, which I will not repeat. Suffice it to say that they were an accurate representation of these reforms. Last year's reform bill was unfair and was rejected by the parliament. This year's reform bill is still unfair, and for that reason must also be rejected by the parliament.

There are fundamental differences between what the Labor and Liberal parties believe relating to higher education. The Labor Party understands the powerful contribution tertiary education and research contribute to our economic and social good. The coalition is hell-bent on the Americanisation of the sector, and this has been so overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian people. The new bill is still fundamentally inequitable and still contains sweeping cuts in funding and support for the tertiary sector. The funding cuts are substantial and extensive. The bill provides almost $2 billion in cuts to Australian universities: $171 million in cuts to equity programs, $200 million in cuts to indexation of grant programs, $170 million in cuts to research training and $80 million in cuts to the Australian Research Council. There will be fees for PhD students for the first time ever and this bill will still mean that undergraduate students are paying $100,000 for degrees.

So in the reform bill mark 2 the cuts remain, the new fee position remains and the clear attack on the sector and on research is maintained by an out-of-touch government more interested in its own political survival than in a thriving tertiary sector that is fundamental for an economically prosperous and socially fair Australia.

I turn now to the impact on the regional universities. Just as the last bill did, this bill will have a devastating impact on regional universities, like the University of Newcastle in the region which I represent. Before looking at these impacts, and whilst talking about regional communities, I want to draw the attention of the House to the Nationals' policy on universities. The Nationals members in this place purport to represent regional Australia yet over and over again they vote with their Liberal friends for policies that hurt Australian families and the regions. This document is from the Nationals website. It is called Our Policies Building Stronger Regional Communities and lists 48 policies in different areas. But guess what? There is no policy on tertiary education—a minor oversight. Guess what? There is a policy on their abandoned Paid Parental Leave scheme; there is a policy on building the East West Link—so comprehensively rejected by the people of Victoria—but no policy or plan for universities.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

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

I know the member for Charlton is baiting you but it is reasonable that the member for Charlton is able to speak as others have been able to speak.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Nationals are obviously of the view that regional communities do not deserve access to tertiary education. This week the Liberal member for Dobell, who represents a regional area, with a straight face accused Labor members of discouraging engagement in higher education. She obviously does not see the hypocrisy of this claim. How does slugging young Australians, Australians from Wyong or Tuggerah, with $100,000 degrees encourage engagement with higher education? The member for Dobell also stated that the sector requires ongoing support from the government. Labor agrees with that. But how cutting $2 billion from the university sector help students in Wyong? How does it help students at the Entrance?

Labor has a very different view to the coalition. In government we boosted funding for regional universities by 56 per cent and boosted regional student numbers by 30 per cent. Under the Labor government, investment in universities was increased from $8 billion in $2007 to $14 billion in 2013. Current and prospective students at the University of Newcastle—recently ranked as the best university in Australia under 50 years of age—will be hit hardest by these proposed changes.

The bill provides $100 million over three years for a regional transition fund. The minister has previously said this fund would be $300 million. This is how out to sea these guys are. One day the fund will be $300 million; the next day it is $100 million. Their higher ed policy has the same consistency and strength of thought as their submarine policy. The very fact that there needs to be a transition fund highlights how clearly this bill is unfair.

Deregulation will have a devastating impact on regional universities and communities and every coalition member, especially those who pretend to represent regional communities, should be ashamed to be supporting this bill. And that is why 39 members of the Liberal Party room tried to kill the Prime Minister on Monday.

Madam Speaker, I understand it is the pleasure of the House to defer debate on this—so I can come back and have another go.

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

I thank the member for Charlton for agreeing to resume his remarks later when we continue on this piece of business because it is appropriate. We now have both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition with us in the chamber for the important presentation of the Closing the Gap statement, a statement which has been annually presented since 2008.

Debate adjourned.