Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me open by saying that Labor's position on these matters and the contributions by the senators are based on lies—great lies. The facts as presented by them are completely inaccurate. But it had me cast my mind back to a pop group in the 1960s and 1970s called The Great Pretenders. What we have now with the Labor Party in this place, and particularly with this legislation, is 'The Great Resisters'. In fact, everything the government has endeavoured to do over the last couple of years and certainly in the term of this current government has been resisted by Labor. There are no arguments, of course, on the merit of their argument, and never have they produced any alternative ideas. Many of these recommendations are in parallel to or adequately supplement ideas the Labor Party has presented in the past. However, when it comes from the government side, from the government benches, they will just resist it. They will say and do anything to resist the passage of government adjustments, particularly in the space of education.

We saw in the earlier parliament an enormous amount of effort over a very long period of time come up with some structural reforms around higher education and education generally, reforms that were supported by the greater majority of the universities around the country, reforms that would bring more equalisation into the space, more fairness in relation to funding and the abilities of those educational facilities to operate. And what happened? The Labor Party resisted the reforms. In fact, their resistance put paid to them. This is another effort here. Every one of their quotes in relation to these matters, as I have heard over recent days and since this debate commenced, has been very selective. For every negative quote they have produced, my office and the offices of colleagues on the government side have received strong, resounding endorsements, often from people in authority in education who are superior to the individuals selectively quoted by the Labor Party.

This is an area that has been crying out for some serious reform for a long period of time. This is an area that has required some sort of stabilisation around fairness and equity with the distribution particularly from the Commonwealth in relation to funding in this space. As is the case with large transformative policies at their introduction, not everybody will be happy. It is impossible.

We go to an election and a large part of the Australian population wants to support one line of ideology and the other wants to support another, so it is going to be impossible of course to bring about reforms that please everybody in the community. These reforms have been endorsed by very substantive, important and influential figures in the education marketplace and by schools—right across the board, whether it is public schools or private schools or indeed the very important Catholic education system, it has been largely supported. They do not agree with the issues that have been raised by Labor. There is no body to their resistance.

In fact it is, as we have seen, their practice over recent years to go from being the great pretenders to the great resistors. They pretend first; there are the crocodile tears about how we are somehow all going to be affected—partially sympathetic to reforms. This is how they go on, until of course we get to where the rubber meets the road. Then they slip out the side theatre and they change and come back as the great resistors, and their tune is completely different.

I just urge the Labor Party, and I urge our colleagues in the Senate, to sit and think carefully about this. If this reform opportunity is lost at this time, then what is going to happen is we are going to have the status quo for a long, long period of time and the inequities that this legislation deals with will remain and the students and schools that they pretend to represent will continue to be affected. (Time expired)