Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is sad, because this really just comes down to the simple proposition that allows you to take away from the universities the greatest cost. When you started wandering off into the myriad other issues, that is where conjecture does arise, but there is no conjecture held, even in this chamber, about what sport is about. If I use the analysis of the childcare centre, it is probably a great idea, but you will start to walk into areas where people say, ‘I didn’t have one of those at high school so why do I need them at university?’ Housing is another issue. What is the role of that? There are medical issues, of course, but a lot of people will say, ‘Well, there is a public hospital.’

The big thing about sport is that somebody has to pay for those facilities. They are in the grounds of the university. Somebody somewhere has to pay for them. Currently the university is not allowed to pay for them, and we are asking people who are only going to be there for three years to think of the holistic view of these facilities over 100 to 150 years. This is what creates the problem. People who are there for a short period of time initially think, ‘I would rather put that money in my pocket,’ and that is a natural belief people have, but the facilities remain and they remain within the confines of the university. This causes the problem. At the moment the university is allowed to pay for them but is not allowed to raise the fee to pay for them. This is a simple way to deal with the largest part of this problem and you can leave the debate on all the other smaller issues to a later time.