Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

This is not even a fine, Senator Carr. I will happily take that interjection. This is an incentive proposed by Professor Chapman for universities to keep fees low—a disincentive to increase their fees, in the sense that, if they do, the Commonwealth contribution will reduce to some extent. It is an alternative idea, and I look forward to the Senate committee examining it. And I look forward to at least the crossbenchers—who have shown a willingness to engage sensibly in this, to recognise that there is a problem—examining it as well.

The truth is there are problems with university funding in the future. There are serious problems. As Universities Australia have made clear themselves—and I will quote their CEO—failure of the package will condemn the university system to 'inevitable decline'. Inevitable decline—that is what the Labor Party seems to be happy to sign up to for Australia's universities. The coalition will not accept that. The coalition wants to achieve a model that allows our universities to retain world-class status, to provide great research and outstanding learning and to ensure our economy is equipped with graduates for the future who can help us to maintain the standard of living that Australians have come to rightly expect.

Senator Carr in his contribution actually did have a grain of truth. He highlighted some of the growth in the HELP system that will occur without changes. We are committed to the HELP system, but what Senator Carr failed to do in his contribution was outline any alternative that either deals with what he says is a problem around the growth in the HELP system or that might address the issues that universities face in terms of their funding sustainability. What we know from what he has mused about publicly, though, is that his way to cap growth in the HELP system is to cap the number of people who access it, to roll back Ms Gillard's reforms, the Labor Party reforms, and to go back to a cap on student numbers that would deprive thousands and thousands of Australians in future of the opportunity to access a university education.