Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, you didn't use those words. Your representation was that universities would be starting courses—or some universities would be ready to start courses in February of next year. And I put it to you that they won't be ready to start in February of next year. They've only just seen the guidelines tabled in the Senate today—these are the guidelines which underpin how this startup year program will run—so they've got absolutely no idea how the government proposes to run the startup year courses, because they've only just learnt of those today. So I would welcome any further advice that you have, because Universities Australia, for one, has indicated to me that this is not something that universities can just quickly turn around and get up and running quickly.

You've indicated that this will be a 12-month pilot program of up to 1,000 places. Will this pilot program be concluded within 12 months, Minister?