Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

(i) That the Coalition Government's plan to rip $900 million out of Australian universities and increase student debt by $1.2 billion will not be legislated,

(ii) the enormous contribution by organisations such as the National Union of Students and the National Tertiary Education Union in campaigning against these proposed cuts,

(iii) That the former Labor Government commissioned two major reports into university funding, the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education (2008) and the Lomax-Smith Higher Education Base Funding Review (2011),

(iv) that both the Bradley and Lomax-Smith reviews found that Australian universities are chronically underfunded,

(v) That the Bradley review found that Australia was the only Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country where the public contribution to higher education remained at the same level in 2005 as it had been in 1995,

(vi) That the Bradley review proposed a 10 per cent increase in base funding of universities to maintain standards at their current level, and

(vii) That the findings of these reviews are still relevant due to a lack of implementation by the former Government of their recommendations; and

(b) calls on the Government to commit to an immediate 10 per cent increase to base funding of universities.