Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I hope it is not only closely but intently and that you digest some of the advice that I have given you. If you do, I am sure your support amongst your own party will grow and swell, and I will sleep easier at night knowing that, Senator Mason!

Finally, after the Howard years, there will be an approach by this government that encourages and supports good governance practices rather than simply imposing upon a sector a set of ideological conditions. And it has been clear from the response from the higher education sector that the removal of the HEWRRs and the NGPs as a condition of funding will be welcomed. And why wouldn’t they welcome it? Of course they would. Why would they not want to get rid of this ideological position being forced down their throats when they actually want to get on with the business and talk about proper good governance, proper flexibility and proper productivity with their staff in a non-confrontational approach, which we know and as all the evidence suggests, is the approach that leads to better flexibility and higher productivity?

Through the period of the Howard government we saw an average six per cent cut to the sector, representing some $850 million. That alone says it all. That is what the previous government’s commitment was to the higher education sector—it was to cut it and impose its ideological agenda. We on this side have a very different approach. We had a different approach while we were in opposition, and now we are in government we are going to implement our approach and support the higher education sector to the extent that it needs that support. It is absolutely crucial for the future of our economy, the future of our community and the future of our children that we have a well-supported higher education sector. It is a basis for innovation; it is a basis for our economic prosperity.

History will show—and Senator Mason may write a book about this—that the last 11 years of neglect of the higher education sector has led to skills shortages and will continue to lead to very serious problems for this nation because, even though we will start to fix these things right now, the lag of the damage that has been done by the last 11 years will continue to haunt us for years to come. The challenge left to us, to repair the damage of the previous government, is enormous. It is worth remembering that over their 11 years the previous government undermined the higher education sector. Their first budget, in 1996, slashed university operating grants by a cumulative six per cent over the forward estimates from 1997 to 2000, resulting in a $850 million cut to the sector, as I mentioned earlier.

When the new Labor government came to office, the student-staff ratio was 20 to 4 compared to 14 to 6 in 1995 just prior to the Howard government coming into office. Those figures are worth emphasising—the student-staff ratio on us coming to office was 20 to 4 compared to 14 to 6 in 1995. That is a massive backtrack on quality education, all happening under the previous government. When we came to office, Australia’s education system relied more on private funding than all other OECD countries bar the United States, Japan and South Korea. More than half of the cost of tertiary education today is met from private sources, with dependence on private sources increasing to 52 per cent now from 35 per cent in 1995. That just demonstrates again the enormous neglect of the previous government.

We are changing this. We are committed as a Labor government to changing this. As I said earlier, there is now a new government which encourages and supports good governance practices through cooperation with their staff. It is a government which thinks higher education is worthy of support for the long-term future of Australia and is not a playground for ill-conceived and vexatious industrial relations experiments—an experiment that was roundly rejected by the Australian people at the last election. We have already announced several packages of funding, such as the Better Universities Renewal Fund and the $11 billion Education Investment Fund, to start to repair the damage done by the conservatives.

I recall when I started as a senator in 2002 I was shocked that in the so-called clever country there could be degrees that cost $100,000. It made a mockery of the merit based system and led to our top universities chasing dollars by charging as much as they thought they could get away with in a system where they were encouraged to do this by the previous Howard government. According to the 2008 Good Universities Guide, there are now more than 100 degrees offered by public universities that cost in excess of $100,000.

In another blow to the conservative agenda, I am pleased that the federal Labor government will also ensure that, from 2009, full-fee-paying undergraduate places will be phased out. Universities will be compensated for the phase-out with funding packages that I have already mentioned. It must hurt those opposite to know that you cannot just buy your way in anymore, which is the truest of all conservative traditions. We believe in merit and we believe in equality.

Putting higher education neglect aside, we all know that the conservatives lived and breathed for the sole purpose of implementing Work Choices and eradicating unions, and that the amendment to be proposed by Senator Mason is a last-ditch attempt by this opposition—I hope it is a last-ditch attempt—to hang onto that ideological agenda. (Time expired)