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

I rise to speak on the response given to the clear question on the consultation the government undertook on its higher education bill. I asked a very simple question: how many of the one million students and 140,000 staff who make up our higher education sector were consulted? It is really on the record because Senator Payne was unable to provide the details. Yet again we hear about the vice-chancellors and senior management who are consulted, but that is not the higher education sector. The failure to consult is compounded by the fact that the government has lied. Let us remember: it was just prior to the last election, in September 2013. The then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, was saying very clearly on the ABC: 'No cuts to education under a coalition government.'

Essentially, the bill that we have before us—about which I asked about the consultation that was undertaken—is really a budgetary measure. The impact it will have on higher education will be massive, ripping out $5 billion, and the government has not got past speaking to vice-chancellors and senior management. I asked some very specific questions about the organisations to help jog the senator's memory: were the National Tertiary Education Union, the Australian Education Union, the National Union of Students, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, the Australian Medical Students' Association or the National Alliance for Public Universities consulted? I asked the very clear question: who was consulted? Again, the words we get back are about vice-chancellors and senior management. This bill will be so damaging. Where this government wants to take us with higher education is so serious. We need to consult. I also put a question about a green paper—the very reasonable way governments can conduct themselves when they want to reorganise a major area, where you put it out widely to get feedback from the community, but there was avoidance on that one.

Why this is so serious—and it has been further highlighted today with information about the failure of this government to consult—is because of the momentous change this legislation would have if it goes through. It would create a higher education system that would be inequitable and elitist, with limited accessibility to the highest quality public education institutions. That is why we need this consultation.

We also need to remember that we can have an education system that is well funded. That is not difficult. Right now, Australia is very much down the bottom of funding in the OECD. If we move to average OECD funding for higher education, it would certainly require a billion-dollar boost, but surely that is what we should be aiming for. We cannot have an educated, innovative nation with the legislation that we have before us on higher education. It would be so deeply damaging to education and research. It would turn so many people away from coming to our universities, because of the deregulation that goes hand in hand with this $5 billion cut. It would deter so many people deciding on higher education.

Many countries have already moved to a free higher education policy: Germany, Sweden, Norway and other European countries, and a number of low-income countries as well. We have been talking about it recently with the death of the former Prime Minister. There are possibilities that we could return to that way. Those are the sorts of issues that should have been canvassed with a green paper and thorough consultation, but Minister Pyne has just run into his rabbit hole. He talks a lot, but who does he talk to? Only the people who will feed back to him what he wants to hear, which is an elitist form of education that may suit somebody like the Prime Minister, who feels comfortable coming from the North Shore and does not mind a $100,000 degree, and is not troubled by ripping money out of education and loading it onto students to pay the money. I go into those details to highlight why it was so important to have the consultation, and now we know how limited it was.

We will come back to this debate and I look forward to that, but certainly what we heard today further underlines that there is no deal that can be negotiated on this bill. There are no arrangements that can make it worthwhile. We cannot turn it into a winner. It needs to be scrapped in its entirety.

Question agreed to.