Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

When Labor formed government in 2007, the higher education sector was suffering under decades of neglect—a legacy of the Howard years for universities was crisis. The reviews Senator Rhiannon refers to confirm as much. By contrast, under the Labor government university revenue rose from $8 billion to $14 billion between 2007 and 2013. Were we still under a Labor government this would increase further to $17 billion in 2017. We increased real funding per student place by nearly $2,000 in real terms to $18,000. Labor improved indexation, replacing the coalition's hopelessly out-of-date system. We increased the science research and innovation budget by nearly 30 per cent. We delivered more capital infrastructure in the last four years than the coalition managed to do in a decade of power and we gave 190,000 more students a place at university, compared to 2007, by introducing the demand-driven system. We reintroduced campus life and essential services— (Time expired)