George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Troeth for her question and acknowledge her longstanding and distinguished interest in higher education in this country. There is one assumption in Senator Troeth’s question that I would, with respect, challenge and that is that Australian universities are not already world class. The respected Times Higher Education Supplement world university rankings which were published in October last year list no fewer than six of Australia’s universities. The Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, Monash, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and the University of Queensland are among the 50 top universities in the world. We only have 38 universities in this country and six of them are among the top 50 universities in the world. That has been the case for the past three years. Nevertheless, building upon the already strong international reputation of Australian universities, last night the Treasurer announced, in a red-letter day for Australian higher education, two important initiatives: the Higher Education Endowment Fund, of which Senator Minchin has already spoken, and the Realising Our Potential universities package. The Higher Education Endowment Fund, as Senator Minchin pointed out, will invest $5 billion in perpetuity for capital works for Australian universities and institutions of higher education. In a stroke this doubles the endowment of Australian universities.

We heard some rather cheap and mean-spirited criticism in Senator Carr’s question earlier, but let us see what the universities say about the Higher Education Endowment Fund. This is what the President of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee, Professor Gerard Sutton, said on AM this morning—