Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate about the future of higher education in this country, because the fact of the matter is that we can do better than we have been doing. But it is going to take a change of mindset. One of the curious things about this place is the attempt by those opposite to paint those of us on this side of the chamber as backward-looking, when on this bill, the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014, as on so many important economic reforms over the last year, they are the ones looking back, clinging onto a world that no longer exists.

We live in an international economy that is constantly changing and constantly evolving. That is something we should all recognise and appreciate. If we want Australian universities to be the best, and if we want to attract the best and the brightest to study at them and to teach at them, then we have to recognise we are part of a global marketplace. I understand the sentiment surrounding the Whitlam era reforms has been heightened recently, but the truth is: that was four decades ago. Gough Whitlam governed in a very different time and in a very different Australia. The future needs of Australian students and of our education sector more broadly are not going to be met by indulging in misty-eyed sentimentality about how things used to be, which has been the response of some of those opposite in their pining for the age of 'free' university education.

As most of us in this chamber have worked out—or I hope have worked out—when we talk about 'free' education, what we actually mean is 'taxpayer funded' education.