Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move in respect of the Higher Education Endowment Fund Bill 2007:

At the end of the motion, add “but the Senate:

             (a)    condemns the government for failing to invest adequate public funds into higher education and consequently:

                   (i)    leaving Australia languishing 29th out of 34 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries by public investment in higher education,

                  (ii)    presiding over a decrease in real terms in public investment in higher education over the past decade,

                 (iii)    allowing teacher student ratios in universities to blow out to over 1:20,

                 (iv)    increasing the financial  burden on students who now pay almost the highest proportion of the cost of their education in the OECD,

                  (v)    forcing universities into competitive commercial management models that have put educational outcomes below financial considerations,

                 (vi)    forcing universities to pursue alternative funding sources that have skewed the academic profile of those universities, and

                (vii)    leaving academic and general staff under increased pressure, impacting on their ability to provide the best quality services our students deserve; and

             (b)    calls on the government to reverse its policy of university privatisation and instead:

                   (i)    abolish the Higher Education Contribution Scheme and upfront full fees for all appropriately qualified domestic students, returning Australia to a fee free higher education system,

                  (ii)    commit to a per student increase in direct Commonwealth grants to universities to bring Australia up to the top ten of OECD nations by public investment in higher education,

                 (iii)    ensure that Commonwealth support for region and rural universities allows those institutions to prosper as both research and teaching institutions, and

                 (iv)    boost the numbers of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders that both graduate from and work in the university system”.

Question negatived.

by leave—I note that the Greens were the only people in the chamber to support that amendment.

Original question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.