Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) and the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked by Senators Carr and Polley today relating to higher education reforms.

This is a government in terminal decline; a government that is rotting from the head down; a government that has a Prime Minister that 40 per cent of the back bench do not want to be Prime Minister of this country. The budget was the worst budget ever presented to parliament in this country—a budget that is not accepted by parliament, is not accepted by the public and is not accepted by at least 40 per cent of coalition members. They know it is a dirty, rotten budget. They know it is a budget that cuts at education, that cuts at health and that cuts pensioners' payments—this is a budget that has no capacity to look after those most in need.

If Minister Pyne was not around, you would have to invent him. He is now a figure of fun; a figure of ridicule. It is said that he is the fixer. It is like some parliamentary equivalent of the Joker, where you get made up and you go out and do things to people. The things Minister Pyne is doing include forcing an Americanised system of education onto this country—$100,000 fees, and people will be in debt for evermore. They will never be able to pay their debt from going to university. This government does not care about education. Prior to the election this government said there would be no cuts to the education budget. Minister Pyne said in a media release on 26 August:

While we welcome debate over the quality and standards in our universities, we have no plans to increase fees or cap places.

This is another Liberal lie. The Liberal Party put out a booklet, Our planreal solutions for all Australians, which purported to be setting out what the Liberals were going to do in government. It said:

We will ensure the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding.

Yet another Liberal lie! Then Prime Minister Abbott, on Insiders on 1 September 2013—before the election—said:

I want to give people this absolute assurance: no cuts to education.

How many lies can you put out there? How many statements can you put out to try to convince the public that education will not be cut—and then go ahead and cut it?

Today Minister Pyne said that he would never give up on getting his cuts to the university system—because, he says, 'I am very committed to these higher education reforms, as is the government.' I am always interested to hear the coalition use the word 'reform'. I went to the dictionary to look up what the word meant. 'Reform' means 'to make things better'. That is certainly not what this rotting government are doing. They do not care about pensioners, about the health system or about the education system. They cut and cut because their ideology is all about cutting back on support to the most needy. Access to education is critically important in helping people from low-socioeconomic backgrounds fight their way out of their situation, but $100,000 fees will mean that education will be put beyond the reach of many of them. This is dishonesty in government.

Coalition members are not even prepared to stand up for their own communities. The South Australian senators were not prepared to stand up against the budget cuts to submarines, education or health. They are an absolute disgrace. (Time expired)