Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

You have said it on your bit of paper. That is the problem when you follow advice from House of Representatives ministers: they have no understanding of how the Senate works, no understanding of the implications of what they are actually saying. They propose that the committee receive submissions and take evidence from 15 witnesses all in the space of two weeks.

Mind you, this is a bill that has 325 pages of material—bills, explanatory memorandums and regulatory impact statements—a bill that goes to the most radical change to the higher education system in this country in 40 years, a bill which is in complete and total contrast to what the Prime Minister said would happen prior to the election, a bill upon which there has been no consultation before it was announced, a package of measures which is completely false in terms of the claims made about the circumstances that will occur in universities and a perfidy reflected in this government's behaviour when it comes to education.

This is a Prime Minister that told Universities Australia and the Australian people just before the election—in fact, I think it is one year to the day—there would be 'masterly inactivity'. There would be no cuts to education. There would be no changes, said the Minister for Education, to the fee structures of this country. This was all one year ago. And now we are presented with a proposition which has fundamentally far-reaching changes to the way universities function in this country.

This week we have seen what happens in this place when people act in haste. This week we have seen this with the mining tax changes and the effects on superannuation in this country. In this chamber you act in haste and you repent at leisure. That is the cost to the Australian people of one of the most dramatic changes that we have seen to universities in this country in over a generation. So it is fitting that there at least be a process by which we can examine the detail of this government's perfidy when it comes to higher education.

I want to know clause by clause what the implications of this act are. I understand what the government's philosophical position is—and I say it is morally bankrupt. I say this bill is actually rotten to the core, but I do want to know the detail of what this bill proposes, what the implications are for one million Australians, what the implications are in terms of social justice for this nation and what the implications are for the economy of this nation. I think we are entitled to ask those questions before the bill comes in. This is one of the fundamental principles of the Senate committee system. This is the house of review.

The Senate committee system is a very powerful instrument in getting to the bottom of what the government is seeking to do. I will not be surprised if even the comprador section of this coalition, the National Party, comes to understand exactly what the implications are for rural and regional Australians. It will not surprise me to discover that the implications of these measures go far beyond even what the most idiotic elements of the free marketeers would have thought they were doing. It would not surprise me to discover, when we look at the detail, that these are measures that even the government will not be able to support.

We do know that of the 15 witnesses the government has proposed, not one of them has unequivocally supported these measures—wait until they understand the full detail of it. This is what we found with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment Bill 2014. Do you remember the tick-and-flick TEQSA bill? We discovered five separate sets of amendments that the government now acknowledge they have to make. I trust that the Senate finds some confidence in the fact that we need to have an inquiry that actually allows people to put evidence to this chamber.