Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those senators who have spoken on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Removal of the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements and National Governance Protocols Requirements and Other Matters) Bill 2008. I understand that the opposition is not dividing on the second reading amendment today, although there will be a full debate in the committee stages, so I will make a few remarks in summing up the legislation that we have before us.

This is a bill which is part of the Labor government’s new approach to dealing with the issues that confound this nation in regard to higher education. This is a new approach being reflected by a new government that believes deeply that Australian universities are actually critical to our nation’s future. The government’s view is that universities are essential to our social, economic, cultural and environmental well-being. That essentially is the starting point at which we enter this debate. That is why in our first nine months of government we have paid such particular attention to revitalising Australia’s higher education system. In our first budget we established and distributed the Better Universities Renewal Fund of some $500 million. We set up the new Education Investment Fund of $11 billion. The government moved in my portfolio to double the postgraduate award arrangements and to introduce a new future fellowship program. Minister Gillard moved to double the number of undergraduate scholarships. There was an additional $249 million, if I recall, allocated to fund 11,000 new Commonwealth places to replace the full-fee-paying places that the previous government had pushed so hard. There were new measures introduced to provide a fee remissions scheme and other incentives to increase enrolments in maths and science.

The Labor government has moved to protect academic freedom and to strengthen the Australian Research Council. We have sought to internationalise our research effort. We have of course moved very quickly to abolish the notorious RQF of the previous government. There was a restoration of public benefit as a criterion for funding the CRC program. There was a pattern quickly established by the new government, which was in sharp contrast to the way in which the previous government operated, that universities play a major part in ensuring the well-being of this nation. That is of course in part why we established the Bradley and Cutler reviews to actually look at these systems in some detail to see what other measures can be taken to advance these fundamental principles that are so important.

Senator Mason in his contribution said that this whole debate that we are engaged in here with this particular measure was about accountability. That was the main thrust of the proposition that he advanced. In fact, what we have before us is a bill to actually reduce the level of red tape, to reassert the importance of universities in their decision-making processes and to essentially extend to universities a sense of professionalism that was denied by the previous government.

The new government takes the view that universities can be trusted. The Liberal opposition takes the view that essentially universities are hostile places and that they are run by people that they do not like and do not trust. It is a difficult task for Senator Mason to prosecute this case because he is a former academic himself. He feels so lonely on this issue because he knows the fundamental fallacy of the Liberal Party philosophy, which takes the view that the universities are hostile places for the Liberal Party. Universities have to be punished, according to the Liberal Party, because Senator Abetz and a number of other prominent members of the Liberal Party had bad experiences when they were at university. They were defeated in university politics and they have never grown up from that proposition and they have never been able to cope with the fact that universities might throw up different ideas from those that they see as dominant.

What this particular bill does is remove from the Commonwealth Grant Scheme guidelines references to the draconian industrial relations legislation, which the previous government took to its heart because it wanted to impose its highly authoritarian view of the way in which universities should be maintained. The national governance protocols imposed governance conditions on higher education providers, and these too will be removed.

In essence, this is a measure to reduce red tape. You would have thought that the Liberals, with all their assertions about the importance of the values that they subscribe to, would support this measure. But we now find that that is not their position. They want to maintain an authoritarian and draconian view of higher education, because universities, in their mind, are not to be trusted.

The position that Senator Mason tries to present is that the Liberals really do want to see the universities advance. But look at their history; look at what they did in government. We saw the previous government try on many occasions—and I am disappointed that Senator Mason did not identify this—to gag scientists and researchers. They also treated researchers who criticised the previous government’s policies or who publicised research findings or opinions that the previous government found embarrassing in a punitive manner. I recall one report from a group of labour market economists from various universities in New South Wales on the Work Choices legislation. They were decried as terrorists. They were associated with something illegal because they had a different view to that of the previous government. What you saw was a series of processes undertaken by the previous government, ranging from tacit intimidation to downright threats and even to blatant suppression, if they were not able to silence their critics in the universities.

Senator Mason looks at me as if in some surprise about this. He finds this puzzling. He presents himself as a great small ‘l’ liberal in the Liberal Party. I know how lonely he must be.