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

I agree with you that the Regional University Centres, an initiative of the former coalition government that I'm very proud of, are making a real difference in regional Australia. However, I remind you that a significant number of those centres have now been put into the outer suburbs, which is most regrettable because it is regional and remote students who most need access to university. Students living in the outer suburbs can get on a train or a tram or a bus and go to university. You can't do that in the regions. So it's most regrettable that the government has decided to redirect that very important initiative. The government is expanding the program but redirecting it to suburban centres when so many regional, rural and remote students are crying out for the same opportunities to go to university.

I'm going to ask you this for the third time, Minister. In your earlier answer, you referred to this as a 'small' cut. It's not small. It's $102 million. So it's very, very disappointing that the government has made that decision. I ask you to again address the very specific question that I asked in relation to the government's commitment to increase research funding to three per cent of GDP, as the Labor Party promised before the last election. What has happened to that election commitment, Assistant Minister?