Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm always very happy to see young people go to university, succeed and get ahead in their careers. I'm happy for them personally. The other reason I'm happy is that university graduates and undergraduates form a big part—not an entire part but a big part—of the Young Liberal Movement around Australia and in my home state of Queensland and they do a wonderful job. Indeed, as undergraduates, they've taken a real interest in democracy in many universities in Queensland. It is the YLMP who've actually taken over the student advancement leagues in the university—some call it student politics. They do a wonderful job, and I'm delighted for them that the taxpayers are able to send them to university and then, through Labor's HECS, pay it back, and I think that's only very fair.

I wasn't bright enough to go to university and, in those days, you needed a Commonwealth scholarship. My parents weren't wealthy enough to send me to university, so I started work as an articled clerk, working eight hours a day, and then studied externally through the University of Queensland to get my solicitor's qualifications. Can I remind Senator Di Natale and most of the other senators—I say 'most' because I suspect Senator Sterle and a couple of others, like me, never had the opportunity to go to university—as they rail on about asking students to pay back the taxpayers for their education, that the people who are paying for their education are, in many cases, not people who will ever go to university. There are a lot of young people who, for various reasons, cannot get into university and go into the workforce. They start earning a fairly meagre wage but they start paying tax, so the likes—