Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

He served his country with distinction and is now serving the nation through the national parliament. And, yet, Senator Polley just harangues and harasses him for daring to stick up for what he believes in. I am disappointed with that. Senator Polley has the audacity to claim that he is somehow bullying someone because he writes to another adult saying, 'I disagree with what you're doing and I think it's wrong.'

We know that those on the other side do not take kindly to being told they are wrong but in this case I am pointing out that the troglodytes are wrong. The university sector in this country needs reform. The university sector in this country needs the opportunity to advance the interests of Australian students while also providing additional opportunities for those students who want to get to universities.

To those on the other side who say, 'We don't want to Americanise the university system in this country,' I say that no-one wants to see a broader range of opportunities for Australians to pursue their academic scholarship in this country than I. But I also want to see Australian universities reach the pinnacle of achievement. I want to see more Australian universities in the top 50 globally. The fact is that we often see American universities there. We will pursue and reach into that limit.

We will also see many Australian students choose to attend some of these finer schools anywhere in the world. I want those international students to choose to come to Australia to get outstanding degrees. The thing that holds those on the other side back is that they are not interested in ensuring that there is reform in order to modernise our university system. There is a whole range of things, quite frankly, that could be tapped into it. One of those things is fee reform, which would see fees lowered in some instances and go up in other instances. We would see more private colleges perhaps emerge out of this to provide opportunities. Universities would be able to choose to specialise to provide, perhaps, a tighter curriculum opportunity for students who come in and say, 'I want to go to the pre-eminent university for languages'—or for science, medicine, veterinary studies or for anything else. This would be good for Australia.

I want to address the other reforms that I think the university sector needs to consider. We have to consider some of the bureaucracy within the university movement. We have to consider other services being provided to students as being important. I would like to see reform of the student amenities levy, which is compulsory. It is basically a student union fee that they have to pay, even though some do not benefit from it. We have to ask ourselves: is it important that we provide as many facilities on campus as making the campus education available—either through distance learning or through tele-learning—to those who cannot attend on campus? Should we be looking at a more rigorous tutorial model? There are a whole range of things that could happen within university sectors. But in order for them to have that flexibility the primary thing they need to do is to be able to set and establish their own priorities for their students. The market will assist in that.

I have researched the American university system with respect to the $100,000 degrees. In the United States you will find that an overwhelming number of people graduate with student debts that are less than $30,000 or $40,000. In fact, only about 10 per cent of students have student debts in excess of $40,000. So that bells the cat that we are going to have everyone graduating with these massive debts. It is not necessarily the case. It is about how it is managed. We need to get the troglodytes into the 21st century.