Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

As I have already indicated, there are constructive proposals from members of the Senate crossbench. But there is absolutely nothing from those opposite. There is no plan, there is no credible alternative and theirs is the party that took $6.6 billion of cuts to higher education and research during their term. They left funding cliffs for the research fellowships and for infrastructure. No-one seriously believes that they have any idea on how to provide universities with the resources they need because they do not. Former Prime Minister Gillard lauded the demand driven system as one of her greatest achievements. Last week we had Senator Carr dropping hints about reimposing caps on places, closing the door to university inevitably for many low-SES students. Today they even flagged, I read, withholding funding from universities—more of the same from those opposite. Universities have to be put on a sustainable and certain funding footing and research must continue. (Time expired)