Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I will get to the $5 billion. What it says here is that institutions can use this fund to fund diversity specialisation and build on existing dual-sector initiatives. What you want to do is go back to the old binary system because you deeply resent the fact that we have a mass education system which could be of the highest quality.

Instead, what we have now is a proposal for a $5 billion fund which, we are told, it is estimated will produce a $300 million revenue result. What we are not told is that there is an urgent, immediate backlog of maintenance and related work in excess of $1.2 billion. What we are not told is the government’s conditions for access to this fund. What we are not told is that there will be a buy-in. What we are not told is that this is a program which will be conditional on the acceptance of the government’s industrial relations agenda.

We have a situation in which the maintenance backlog at universities is such that some universities, such as the ANU, need as much as $500,000. Universities built in the seventies are falling down and, in many cases, are quite unsafe. From this government we have a smoke-and-mirrors proposition, a pea-and-thimble proposition, whereby the existing commitments for the Capital Development Pool and the Research Infrastructure Block Grants program have not been extended. What is the situation, Senator Brandis? What is the commitment by this government to extending those programs? What is the proposition of this government? Is it not the case, Senator Brandis—