George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, I have assured you that that statement was not made by the Prime Minister about the crossbenchers. But I will tell you, Senator Lazarus, because I know that you have been engaged in this discussion, I know that you have been good enough to give the minister and his staff a good audience on these bills, we will re-present the higher education legislation in a few months time. In the meantime, if you will entertain us, we will continue to try and persuade you why 40 out of the 41 Australian university vice-chancellors are right. We will seek to persuade you why, for example, the Nobel laureate Professor Brian Schmidt was right when he said:

… this is an incredibly important reform. The current university funding model is … not very good. I would say it's close to being broken.

We will continue, with respect, to seek to persuade you, Senator. (Time expired)