Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014. For 10 months the Abbott government has pursued an unfair, unnecessary and ideologically driven agenda to restructure higher education in this country. The agenda is unfair, because allowing universities to charge whatever fees they want will drive up the cost of degrees. It will impose crippling debt on students and deny to many of them the opportunity in life that a university education can offer.

The agenda is unnecessary, because the so-called funding crisis that has been used to justify fee deregulation does not exist. The only crisis was the one that the government contrived by its threatened 20 per cent cut to the funding of student places. The minister announced yesterday that the cut will be the subject of separate legislation, by which he means in effect that there will have to be an amendment to the current legislation. The minister announced yesterday, that is to say, that the government was going to pursue this, and pursue it if this matter were defeated in the Senate, having said previously that the matter would be put to rest by the end of March. The government has contrived the funding crisis, but now the minister has moved away from that proposition because he thought it was suddenly, to use his word, a 'distraction'. Yet the government still insists that fee deregulation is necessary

This is because the government's real agenda is an ideological one, as has been apparent from the very beginning. This bill and its failed predecessor were never intended to build world-class universities in Australia, as the Minister for Education and Training continues to pretend. Australia already has world-class universities, as anyone familiar with the global university ranking systems will know, and Australia's university system—and I want to emphasise the word 'system'—is routinely ranked amongst the very best. As the vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra, Professor Stephen Parker, has said:

More Australian universities appear in world rankings than a decade ago, courtesy of the current funding system … there is … nothing in the world-rankings of Australian universities to suggest a problem, let alone a crisis.

The Government's real motive is the withdrawal of public provision in higher education. The Pyne plan, if it becomes law, would usher in the creeping privatisation of the system. The minister wants an Americanised system, with very few already wealthy universities charging high fees for an elite education while the rest become less and less able to compete on equal terms. It would be a world of $100,000 degrees and of constant degradation of the system, and a world in which debt on student loans and fee inflation become major social and economic problems. In the United States, fee levels have been rising at twice the inflation rate for the past decade, and student debt is spiralling out of control. Total debt on student loans exceeds credit card debts.

The Abbott government has failed to deceive the Australian people about its intentions. Australians know we already have a strong and competitive university system. They know what an Americanised system would mean. From the beginning, they have seen the Pyne plan for what it is. They know that it is an attack on the Australian dream—an attack on the fair go that every generation of Australians rightly deserves. They know that opportunity and access to education go hand in hand. They know the doubling and tripling of the cost of degrees can only mean that there will be fewer and fewer opportunities for those who do not have private wealth.

The Australian people are not fools and have consistently and overwhelmingly rejected the perfidious Pyne plan. Even the attempt to spend $15 million of taxpayers' money on a slick but misleading ad campaign did absolutely nothing to help Minister Pyne win public support for his trashing of the Australian fair go. Unable to con the voters, the minister has increasingly resorted to desperate measures to try to bully the Senate into passing this bill. He tried to link continued funding of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy to passing the bill. NCRIS was never part of this bill, but the minister, who could not win the argument over deregulation, decided to make Australia's research facilities hostage to the bill's success. He put at risk the jobs of 1,700 scientists and technicians in 27 facilities, 35,000 research projects and Australia's future as a nation committed to the advancement of knowledge through pure and applied research. As the Nobel laureate Professor Brian Schmidt said, it was not the way a grown-up country behaves. And he should know; this is a man who came to Australia from the US because our facilities and universities offered the opportunity to do excellent research.

Even those who would normally be regarded as the allies of the coalition were absolutely appalled by the minister's linkage of this bill to funding for NCRIS. The chair of the Business Council of Australia, Catherine Livingstone, said:

How have we come to a point where a Government feels that it can use assets publicly funded to the tune of over $2 billion over the past decade ... as a hostage in a political process?

The minister lost support all round because of his NCRIS threat—including, reportedly, from some members of his own party.

The government has lost all credibility on its higher education plans. It has lost credibility with the wider public and has done so on the very basic principle that they have defied the essential ingredient of equity in higher education. It has also lost credibility with the experts because its proposals threaten the system's financial sustainability.

Unregulated fees would drive up inflation as has happened in the US. The cost of living would increase for every Australian. The budget papers already show that total HELP debt is expected to increase from $ 25 billion today to $52 billion by 2017-18. And this estimate does not take into account the blow-out in debt if universities are given a blank cheque to set their own fees.

NATSEM modelling, using the government's own data and very conservative assumptions about fee increases, shows that doubtful debt could easily rise from 17 per cent to 30 per cent off a larger debt base. It is clear what that would mean. The taxpayer would carry the can for these inequitable policies. Universities would be funded through debt write-downs and interest subsidies rather than through manageable direct grants, and until yesterday all this was supposed to have been done in the name of resolving a make-believe funding crisis.

As the debate about the government's short-sighted policies has gone on, the minister has been well and truly hoisted on his own petard. He has attained dizzying heights of absurdity as his fiscal rationale has unravelled. It would be absolutely farcical if its consequences were not so dire.

Senators will be left in no doubt about the apprehensions within the sector over fee deregulation if they read the submissions to the Senate inquiry into the principles of the bill. Professor Louise Watson, an education policy analyst at the University of Canberra and a member of the 2011 base funding review, said this about the minister's proposals for relinquishing control of higher education fees while at the same time retaining responsibility for paying them through HECS:

University Vice-Chancellors would henceforth decide how much public money they wanted to receive. Whatever graduates cannot repay due to price increases and declining graduate earnings, will be sheeted home to the federal budget. As the ballooning HECS debt in the VET sector has demonstrated, fee deregulation would simply make Australian higher education less predictable, less affordable and less sustainable in the future.

Professor Watson illustrated the point in this way: 'It is unprecedented in public policy to invite a recipient of public money to dictate how much they want to receive. I do not give pocket money to my children on the basis of how much they want to receive; I give it to them on the basis of how much I think they need and how much I can afford. I think that those principles generally govern government financing and they should be applied in the case of higher education.'

The architect of HECS, Professor Bruce Chapman, agreed that the ability of students to defer payment of fees through income-contingent loans would increase pressure on the federal budget. Professor Chapman made a point that Labor has also argued many times since the government unveiled its higher education proposals in the budget last year. Under a deregulated system there would be no real price competition between institutions, because of the deferred payment scheme and the peculiar nature of the education market.

Anyone who is aware of the experience of deregulation overseas knows this to be true. There is no example of fees falling after deregulation, because in the so-called education market fees are perceived to be an indicator of quality. The implications of this for smaller and regional universities are obvious: they would be in a bind. If they do not raise fees, they risk losing students who are wealthy enough to pay higher fees—or who are beneficiaries of the misleadingly named 'Commonwealth scholarships'—to the lures of sandstone universities in the capital cities. But if regional and suburban universities do raise fees, they will impose a heavy burden on the disadvantaged or mature-age students who form a disproportionately high share of their enrolments. As the vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia, Professor David Lloyd, has said:

I don't want unfettered deregulation. In many regards deregulation becomes a group of universities saying 'Trust us, we won't overcharge you.' But to be honest, the public deserves certainty about what the structure of fees would look like.

Research-intensive regional universities—universities like Newcastle, Deakin and Wollongong, which have been steadily moving up global rankings on the basis of their excellent research—would be particularly hard hit by such a regime. Compared with the Group of Eight universities, their capacity to attract the best research students and to fund new projects would go backwards.

That is how Christopher Pyne's Americanised system would take shape. But the minister has not acknowledged the looming budgetary disaster in the system he is attempting to impose upon this country. Indeed, he has failed to release any modelling on the impacts of his radical agenda—no modelling of fees, of HECS debts, or anything. He is happy to pander lies about various perceptions of Labor's models to any newspaper journalist that will take them. He has, however, implicitly conceded that deregulation would lead to massive fee hikes.

In a flurry of negotiations with crossbench senators over the last few weeks, he has floated a proposal for a great big new tax on universities and their students. The suggestion was that universities that raise fees too steeply would be forced to pay what the Minister Pyne prefers to call a fine or levy into consolidated revenue. This is not a new idea. It was also briefly considered by the Tory government in the United Kingdom, when fees were deregulated there. That government—the Minister's ideological cousins— rejected the idea because a tax or fine or levy would cause fees to spiral up; they would not go down. Universities would cover their costs by passing them on to students who would have to pay this great big new tax.

That is the reality of a deregulated system. Fees will rise, pushing the dream of a university education further and further out of reach for increasing numbers of people. And rising fees will create an unsustainable burden for the Commonwealth budget. Under the Abbott government's short-sighted and irresponsible plan, Australia would end up—like Britain—having a system that, to quote the UK Higher Education Commission, 'represents the worst of both worlds, where all parties feel that they are getting a bad deal' and under which government is effectively funding universities 'by writing off student debt rather than investing directly in teaching grants.'

That is the disaster passing this bill would unleash on the Australian higher education system. The government continues stumbling blithely towards that disaster, regardless of what the Australian people have clearly indicated they do not want. Labor knows that people expect governments to fund universities properly—to meet their obligations and pay their bills. The oft-heard claim that there is no political will for increased public provision in the funding of higher education is simply not true. The Australian people have consistently indicated otherwise, and that is the ground on which Labor will continue to contest the government's plans for a deregulated, increasingly privatised and increasingly Americanised university system.

Regardless of what happens to this bill in the Senate, we will be taking this fight to the next election. If we can assume the minister is telling the truth for once, we know the Liberals will, too—so we will have a hell of a contest for the forthcoming election on this incredibly important issue. We shall force the government to do what it did not do with the current proposals—submit its plans for higher education to the verdict of the people. That is a contest we will relish. These proposals constitute just one of the Abbott government's many broken election promises. Before the last election, the man who is now Prime Minister promised that there would be no cuts to education and no changes to the existing funding arrangements for universities. In fact, he went down to Universities Australia and said that his policy was 'masterly inactivity'. And what do we have? The most radical changes, the most dramatic changes, being proposed since John Dawkins's day—and they are being done as secret budget measures. There has been no white paper, certainly no green paper, no proper discussion—just an ambush on budget night.

The government has broken faith with the Australian people on its promises. In doing so, they have taken universities and the Australian people for granted. If they have their way, universities will be able to charge whatever they want—and the losers in that equation are the Australian people. Social justice will be impeded, prosperity will be impeded, and universities will suffer dramatically as we develop a two-tiered system based on a perfidy of a proposition that you can always get what you want if you have the capacity to pay. It would give aid and comfort to the coalition's fundamental belief that this is a rich man's country yet. We shall not let that proposition be forgotten, and we will fight this issue right through to the next election and beyond.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens oppose the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014. What a saga Minister Pyne has inflicted on the people of Australia! For months, students, prospective students and their families have been living with uncertainty about their university prospects. Will they be able to afford to go? What is going to happen with the way our universities are managed?

Minister Pyne has done nothing but create uncertainty for these people. He has done this not only through the destructive aspects of the bill itself but also through the way he has conducted the debate. Let us remember: a bill very similar to the one we are now debating was decisively defeated in December last year. Immediately the minister—not learning the lessons, not recognising it was time to have real consultation—put a similar bill back into the House of Representatives. The minister, by calling himself 'Mr Fixer' and telling us that he is out there creating solutions, is deceiving nobody but himself and maybe a few others in the Abbott bunker. So many of the tactics we have seen in recent weeks—particularly what he came up with yesterday—have been about trying to quarantine the Abbott government from another embarrassing defeat.

There will be a number of speakers in this debate who will clearly set out how damaging this bill is. I congratulate the many concerned people—education unions, students, staff members—who are committed to building a higher education system of the highest standard. Yesterday, while Minister Pyne was doing his backflips, many students were out there taking action and being very vocal about it. I particularly wanted to congratulate Kyol Blakeney, the SRC president at the University of Sydney. With his colleagues, he was protesting, through civil disobedience, at the university. Those sorts of actions are needed because Minister Pyne and the Abbott government have gone too far with what they are trying to do in higher education.

The defeat of the previous bill last year was a significant win for the education unions and for tens of thousands of staff and students, as well as for all those looking forward to a university education—which is their right. It was an important step because, for the moment anyway, we had safeguarded our universities from the neoliberal policies of this government. These are policies which, at the end of the day, are about heaping the cost burden of higher education onto students and their families. That is the real intent of this bill. We need to remember where the original bill came from: it was a budget measure. Purely and simply, it was about saving the government $5 billion. That is what it was about; it was about ripping $5 billion out of our public universities and shifting the cost burden to students.

The bill before us now is nothing new. It is just back to the old ways of the Liberal and National parties—another free market plan. I think it relevant to compare the old bill and the new bill. The old bill, as I said, projected savings of about $5 billion. The new bill before us has estimated savings of about $640 million. Some of the key provisions of the original bill remain. It is important to note that because it underlines the very poor tactics of the minister. He is not fooling anybody when he just brings back basically the same measures in a new bill, this time hoping he can get his way by trying to embarrass crossbenchers, by using a bit of intimidation or through a bit of blackmail. We have seen all those tactics rolled out.

Some of the key provisions that remain in this bill—

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

On a point of order, Mr President: this is a repeat of yesterday—references to blackmail and intimidation. Those references are directed at the minister. The senator had to withdraw those references yesterday and I recommend that you ask her to withdraw them today.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rhiannon, I ask you to exercise some caution in your contribution to the debate.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was identifying those provisions in this bill that the Senate has already debated in great detail—and rejected. This is very relevant. Those provisions include 20 per cent cuts to Commonwealth supported places. That is still in this legislation. I will come to the comments the minister has made on this issue. Other provisions which are still in this bill include the deregulation of course fees so that universities can charge students whatever fees they want; the lowering of the Higher Education Loan Program, or HELP, repayment threshold; the increase in the proportion of the loan burden carried by students; and the extension of Commonwealth supported places to sub-bachelor and bachelor courses offered by private universities and non-university higher education providers, as well as to sub-bachelor courses offered by public providers. In addition, there are real cuts to this country's research funding in this bill. As we know, the minister was highly deceptive about the $150 million that was allocated for those 1,700 scientific workers. We know that is not in the bill, but there were research cuts in the former bill and there are again in this bill. Those cuts represent a 10 per cent reduction in the Research Training Scheme.

Also included in both bills are the misnamed Commonwealth scholarships, which are funded from increased fee income—the requirement that $1 in every $5 be put aside by universities for these scholarships. I call them 'misnamed' because they are another example of the deception that has become the trademark of this minister. Many members here would have benefited from the old Commonwealth scholarships. These were scholarships where the government provided money to assist people to go to university. With the current form of Commonwealth scholarships being proposed by Minister Pyne, no government money will go into them. The scheme is purely based on getting money from the students who are paying fees and putting it into these so-called Commonwealth scholarships. Those are the similarities between the old bill and the new bill.

In the couple of months since the first bill was introduced, we have seen support for the government's position fall away. This is where we need to consider one of those main blocs that the minister has relied on to make out that he has sector support. How many times have we heard the minister talk about how all of the vice-chancellors support him bar one? Many of us in here have heard privately from vice-chancellors who hold great disquiet about how the minister is conducting the debate and about what is in this legislation. Some of them are on the record. Peter Dawkins, the vice-chancellor of Victoria University, has said that the government should acknowledge that its deregulation plan will not pass the Senate. He has actually talked about a third way. We may not agree with that, but he is certainly not solidly there with the minister as he makes out. The University of Technology, Sydney, Vice-Chancellor Attila Brungs and Swinburne University of Technology Vice-Chancellor Linda Kristjanson have also questioned how these tactics are playing out. So it is not the solid bloc that the minister makes out.

Those vice-chancellors are representative of the senior management within their universities. They are not representative of the majority of staff and the majority of students. I do need to put on the record at this point that it has been disappointing the way many of those vice-chancellors have not represented the whole university sector that they surely lead and should be a representative voice for. I think that has done their own universities a disservice, as well as the wider sector.

Then we come to what we heard yesterday from the minister, with his latest plan to split the bill so that we deal with deregulation on the one hand and the 20 per cent cut on the other hand. What we need to note right at the beginning is that the 20 per cent cut—the $5 billion that the government was trying to save in the first place, and then a reduced amount in the bill before us now—is only a deferral. It is only a tactic for the minister to try to make out that he has listened and has changed the legislation. There is no significant change in this at all. It is another deception. It is really a tactic to save the skin of the minister and those in the Abbott bunker. I say that most definitely because the government looks set to lose one of the major pieces of the 2014 budget that still has not been passed. Five billion dollars is not a small amount. They have already watered it down but they are trying to deal with the whole issue of university funding within their neoliberal philosophy, which is based on putting the costs onto ordinary people and not ensuring that the revenue streams are there to pay for this most important part of how our society is organised.

To repeat again, Minister Pyne is not abandoning his 20 per cent cut to university funding. His proposal is nothing more than to split it off from the deregulation bill for just a six-month deferral. Fee deregulation, let's remember, will result in significant fee increases. That is what is deeply alarming. There is a wider understanding within the community now that that could mean even higher than the $100,000 price tag that has been linked with a number of degrees in some courses. That is really troubling many people. That is what is bringing the uncertainty to so many students and families. It has been such a very ugly part of the way the minister has conducted this debate.

Often, when we talk about the quantity in these fees, because the Greens have done a lot of work in this area, I acknowledge that sometimes criticism comes about our modelling. But our modelling is out there. No flaws have been identified and put on the table. But when you look at the government, they have not released their modelling. To this day, they refuse to release their modelling. If Minister Pyne's comments could be believed, the modelling would help give greater insight into how his promises and his commitments would really play out.

I repeat, this is a very important part with what we are dealing with here, because the landscape appeared to changed yesterday when the minister spoke. This 20 per cent cut for Commonwealth-supported places would have an extraordinary impact on the budget if the government was sincere. This is where their credibility, again, comes into question. If the 20 per cent cut to CSP funding did not go ahead, the minister's higher education policies, which were meant to contribute to budget repair, would now cost the budget about $1.4 billion. So we have gone from the first bill saving $5 billion to the second bill saving about $680 million. Then, if the minister was successful in carrying forward his plan, it would appear that, if you follow through the logic the minister was putting out there—not that I am saying the minister was very logical about it—you come to the conclusion that there would be a $1.4 billion cost burden on the budget. I think it would be wise for the minister to come in on this aspect of the debate in his reply to the debate on this bill and comment on that very fact. Surely, the government need to come clean with what their plans are. Otherwise, if they do not—like they would not release their modelling—you are left with the clear understanding that all those manoeuvres yesterday were nothing more than a tactic to try to muddy the waters and to present that something had changed to try to get through the bill at the eleventh hour when, clearly, the degree to which they are being discredited is just increasing.

We have also heard from the minister a great deal about how our universities rank on the international stage. Often he is quite critical in saying how he wants more universities in the top rankings. Yes, the university system at the moment could be improved; yes, it needs more funding. But it is not this massive failure that this minister makes out. And, similarly, our standing internationally is not the disaster or so poor as the minister makes out. The data shows that Australia does not have just a few world-class universities; in fact, we have a world-class system. In addition to the eight universities which make the world's top 200, there are a further 12 universities which make the 200 to 400 group.

So, again, our universities have not failed. We can be proud of them. Yes, we need to get this debate about the future of higher education onto a proper consultative basis with the wider university sector and the community. We need to debate how higher education can be funded in a secure way—not the haphazard and destructive way the minister has conducted himself.

Just staying with these international comparisons, I also want to deal with the issue of the OECD figures, that provide very useful information on the level of tertiary funding. Public funding of tertiary education in 2011 in Australia is 0.7 per cent of GDP. This is below the OECD average, which is at 1.1 per cent. So, again, this is where we are in a very poor position. We have been below the OECD average for a long time. And that goes to failures under both the previous, Labor government and this coalition government, where public investment in higher education has not been given the priority that is needed. It is already too low in Australia and we need to remember that it is the responsibility of the government and not the students to fix this.

Throughout this debate in the wider community, as the government has attempted to bring in legislation—the first round and this second round—there have been many groups that have come to this place to lobby us and to raise their concerns. The National Union of Students and the National Tertiary Education Union are two of those who have provided very useful information.

The National Union of Students have submitted that the inclusion of $100 million over three years for the structural adjustment fund is simply an offset of the government's decision not to extend eligibility for Youth Allowance and Austudy. I want to touch on this issue of a structural adjustment fund, because that was something else that the government decided to introduce. And I would argue that it really is an admission of failure, and highlights a fundamental inequity that is at the heart of this bill. The government came up with this. It is another one of Mr Pyne's attempts to win support for this legislation. He talks about pausing indexation for primary carers of children under the age of five. Clearly, that group of people often suffer considerable discrimination but, again, all we have ended up with here—it is up there in lights—is that this whole way of managing our higher education system is highly discriminatory.

The National Tertiary Education Union have also taken up this issue. They have identified that the SAF was introduced in recognition that deregulation is likely to have a severely adverse impact on regional and rural universities and those serving students that are highly sensitive to the cost of attending university. The change is intended to provide funding to assist providers in a transition to a post-deregulation environment. That, again, sets out very clearly the problems in so many aspects of this legislation that we have before us.

This is legislation that should not be before this House. By far the bulk of it has already been considered and has already been voted down. It is, again, a very poor attempt by the minister to get his way. This legislation is destructive, both in terms of the impact that it would have on individual students, who would be carrying the huge debt burden for much of their lives—many would never be able to pay it off—and also destructive of the very fabric of our society. It is no way to run a higher education system, to build an educated, innovative nation by penalising students and their families and pushing the cost burden onto those people rather than the government accepting its responsibility. If you are in government a key part of your job is to pay for the higher education system. This bill should be defeated.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. Those opposite talk about free education a lot, but education has never been free. It is expensive. And it is subsidised by hard-working Australian taxpayers. The issue for us in this place today is to find a fair and reasonable balance to ensure that our higher education system is sustainable into the future. But it is also about ensuring our graduates are able to compete with the best and the brightest in the world in the industries of the future, and not in the industries of the past.

I want to bring the debate back to where it always should have been focused—that is, on the future. Despite what those opposite would have the public believe, these reforms are all about students, which is why the higher education sector overwhelmingly supports these reforms—because they know that a problem delayed is a problem denied. In fact, 40 out of 41 vice-chancellors in Australia support these reforms.

It was in 1974 that the Whitlam government assumed full funding for universities and abolished student fees. It was successful in increasing higher education student numbers. But in 1989 the Hawke Labor government realised it was reasonable and necessary to ensure that those who benefited from higher education make a small contribution to the cost of their education when they were in a position to repay the loan.

In 2015 we need to look at reforming the system to adapt to the challenges of our time—the 21st century. Those opposite continue to promulgate the old, outdated class warfare rhetoric—which again we have heard from the first two speakers—harking back to the good old days of 1974, when higher education became a cost borne exclusively by the Australian taxpayer.

The world today looks very different from the way it looked 40 years ago. Perhaps fittingly, in 1974 the most popular song was Barbara Streisand's smash hit The Way We Were; and the Time Warp had just become a musical hit. In 1974, in my home town of Perth, the median house price was just over $18,000 and today it stands at over half a million dollars. In 1974, the science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke made a very bold claim: that one day a computer would be sitting on every desk. That year also saw the first use of the word internet. How times have changed in 40 years. In 1974, China's gross domestic product stood at around US$158 per capita. It is now nearly US$7,000 per capita.

The simple fact of the matter is that the world today is not the same as it was in 1974. Times change and we must change with them. Today higher education is one of Australia's most successful newer export industries. Education is now Australia's fourth largest export earner and higher education comprises two-thirds of all those exports. But, without change to the funding model, Australia will start falling behind. The value of our higher education commodity will decrease, and an important part of our economy will decline, instead of increasing and booming into the future as it should. Today our students are competing with graduates from all over the world for the jobs of the future, in industries we now need to transition to. We need, and our higher education system needs, to adapt if we are to keep up with the times and the changes.

At the heart of the reforms the government is proposing is the idea that universities should be free to set their own fees and to compete for students. That is the part of the equation on which those opposite wilfully mislead the public. It is not only about increasing fees; it is about competition between the universities. Competition will enhance quality and make higher education providers more responsive to the needs of students and of the labor market more widely. The fact is that, when universities and colleges compete, students are certainly the winners. The question we should ask ourselves is: what lies ahead for our students and institutions, and in fact for the future of our nation, if these reforms are defeated? What are the consequences for our children and our grandchildren who will find it increasingly difficult to compete with international graduates as the quality of Australia's higher education sector declines and becomes less and less internationally relevant?

The scare campaign currently being run by the opposition and the Greens is, I believe, an irresponsible attempt to shift the focus and derail the reforms. It is, pretty much, a very cheap political tactic. Currently our universities face a herculean, or mammoth, challenge, competing with the best universities in Europe and North America—and now also with the fast-developing and extraordinarily hungry universities across Asia. They, unlike our universities, are not shackled to the past. They are free to compete and to innovate and to make sure they meet the needs of the industries of the 21st century. Last week, the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings listed only five—that is: five—Australian universities in the top 100 in the world. That should set alarm bells ringing throughout not only this chamber but all of Australia. Only five of the top international universities are now Australian. In 2013 there were six—and the decline continues.

I am sure every politician, every teacher, every student and in fact every Australian would like to see more Australian universities ranked among the finest in the world. The question is how to make this a reality. As they say, hope is not a method. Doing nothing, or hoping things will improve for the sector, will simply continue to send us backwards. As Universities Australia have themselves warned us: if this bill does not pass, Australian higher education will certainly decline inevitably into mediocrity and will be overtaken by increasingly intense international competition. Without changes to the current funding model Australian universities will bleed financially. They will be forced to make cuts which will narrow the study options available for students. This will see student-to-staff ratios gradually decrease and reduce the overall quality of higher education in Australia. I do not for a second believe that the status quo is an option, and it is certainly not an option in the best interest of all Australians.

The unfortunate truth for those opposite is that Australian universities will continue to struggle to compete with the best in the world if they continue to be constrained by an outdated funding model. Those opposite, sadly, would rather see Australia stand still while the rest of the world is adapting, and adapting very rapidly, to changing circumstances. Their intransigence has consequences—and I think very dire consequences—for us all.

What alternative have those opposite put forward? Surprisingly, given all their rhetoric on this issue, Labor has yet to propose a single credible alternative to our higher education reforms. Instead, in fact, between 2011 and 2013, Labor announced cuts of over $6.5 billion to higher education and research. The facts are quite different to the rhetoric we continue to hear from the Labor Party today. On the reforms this government has proposed, Labor has rejected the advice of prominent people within its own party—in fact, advice from a conga line of eminent members of their own party including, most recently, Peter Beattie, who has quite clearly and unequivocally warned that we risk becoming a dumb country if these reforms are not passed. It is not us saying this; it is Peter Beattie saying that we risk becoming a dumb country if these reforms are not implemented. And it is not just Peter Beattie. There are many more on the Labor side who have been giving the Labor Party and the Greens advice that these reforms are necessary. They include Gareth Evans, John Dawkins and Maxine McKew, who have publicly pleaded with the Labor Party to support these reforms or, at the very least, engage in constructive discussions—pleas which have all fallen on deaf ears with those opposite.

Probably in the most extraordinary turn of events, last week Labor rejected the proposals of Professor Bruce Chapman—the father of HECS, an eminent education economist and a former Labor adviser. Labor rejected his proposals a mere 24 hours after his proposals were announced. I would have thought that any proposal put forward by Professor Chapman would be worthy of more than 24 hours consideration, particularly as we have just heard Senator Carr 30 minutes ago discussing Professor Chapman's credentials and his credibility—a mere 24 hours, not remotely credible.

The old adage, 'Don't bring me problems; bring me solutions' is very applicable here. Labor's decision to block constructive ideas and proposals without offering credible alternatives is shameful and irresponsible. Quite frankly, I think it is playing politics at the expense of the next generation. Although Labor have refused to come to the discussion table at all on this important policy area, the government have demonstrated it is very willing to work with the crossbenches to achieve outcomes that are both fair and reasonable. What has happened with respect to those discussions?

Proposals from Senator Day, Senator Madigan and Senator Muir have been included in the new higher education reform bill. For example, HECS indexation will be capped at CPI rather than at the bond rate; there will be a freeze on HECS indexation for primary caregivers of children under the age of five; and additional scholarships will be offered through the higher education participation program—all as a result of the government working successfully with the crossbench to get the best possible outcome for Australian students. Just imagine if the Labor Party or the Greens had come to the negotiation table at any point in this discussion what we could have achieved together for Australian students.

If this bill does not pass, an estimated 80,000 students will miss out on Commonwealth support each year by 2018—utterly shameful. Many of these students, often from the most disadvantaged families, will need to pay full fees to complete their studies and others will simply miss out on higher education altogether. Those who are forced to abandon their studies will be severely disadvantaged in their working lives and that is an extraordinarily shameful legacy for those opposite and a burden for them to carry.

The Commonwealth scholarship scheme proposed under this legislation is in fact the biggest scholarship scheme in Australia's history and, despite what those opposite have claimed, it is aimed squarely at helping disadvantaged students and is one of the most important and valuable elements of this reform package. Under the scheme, institutions will be able to provide tailored, individualised support to help disadvantaged students to meet their own personal needs, including costs of attending, participating in or succeeding in higher education. Without the passage of the bill, thousands more potential recipients will miss out on this vital support.

In politics it is often the case that a scare campaign beats good policy debate and I think this is a classic example of that with what we are seeing here today. However, the future of our higher education institutions, our students and our economy is far more deserving than what we are currently getting from those opposite. Labor and the Greens continue to make wildly exaggerated and quite frankly untrue claims, and again today in this chamber, of the cost of tuition if these reforms are passed. Really, $100,000 degrees! They know and we know that that is simply not true. There is not a shred of evidence to demonstrate that that is true. It demonstrates that they have no concept of what competition can bring. Competition in this case is good. It brings out better reforms. There is no suggestion of $100,000 degrees anywhere. That is simply untrue.

Another myth, one of the many perpetuated by those opposite, is that disadvantaged students will be negatively impacted by these reforms. That could not be further from the truth and, again, those opposite know that. In fact, on deregulated fees, the shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh has said, 'There is no reason to think that it will adversely affect poor students.' That is not us saying it; that is their own shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh saying that, and their shadow Assistant Treasurer is absolutely correct.

Let us take a minute to have a look at the United Kingdom. In 2005, the Blair government lifted the cap on university fees. In 2011, the coalition government led by David Cameron almost tripled the cap. Due to the additional bursaries and scholarships that were then available, university participants from lower socioeconomic groups were not adversely affected and in fact increased significantly. The data shows that 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas in England were 12 per cent more likely to enter university in 2013 than they were before the reforms.

Another myth, again perpetuated by those opposite today, is that students will have to pay up-front. The reality has been since the introduction of HECS that no student pays a cent up-front and that no graduate will have to pay anything until they are earning over $50,000 a year. Again, here is another complete untruth put out by those opposite to scare students and parents alike.

The reforms tabled in this place today will require all universities and other higher education providers to spend one dollar in every five of additional revenue on scholarships and for disadvantaged students. In fact, recent announcements from some of Australia's top universities have indicated that there will be more support for disadvantaged students than ever before. For example, the University of Sydney alone has pledged to extend financial support to one-third of its 27,000 undergraduates. The University of Western Australia has also made a similar announcement.

I would like to finish by speaking about the positive impacts these reforms will have on students in regional areas. In my home state of Western Australia, higher education participation rates among 15- to 24-year-olds sit at 5.3 per cent, much lower than metropolitan participation rates, which are at nearly 12 per cent. Over 30 per cent of regional students relocate to study, with over 75 percent of this group relocating to Perth. Given the sheer size of Western Australia, this can result in regional students having to pay up to $20,000 a year to live in Perth away from home and away from family support in their home towns.

Under this legislation, regional education providers will have the opportunity to offer more courses and will be able to compete to attract more students in their home locations. In practice this means that a student living in the Pilbara may not have to uproot their life 1,500 kilometres away to Perth to study. Regional education providers, such as the Pilbara Institute, will be able to expand the number of courses they offer, giving regional Australians more choice in higher education where they live. Additionally, universities operating regional campuses in Western Australia—such as UWA, the University of Notre Dame, Curtin University and Edith Cowan University—will receive a regional loading in recognition of the higher cost of operating regional campuses. The government will be investing $274 million for this purpose. That is an overwhelmingly good thing for those students and families who live in regional Western Australia and other parts of regional Australia.

Let's make no mistake here: these changes are vital to Australia's higher education sector, to our students and to the future of our economy. There are simply no viable alternatives to these reforms. Certainly we have heard not a single one from those opposite. Without reform, our higher education sector will stall in an increasingly competitive international market. That is a fact. Universities may not close their doors but, as the university vice-chancellors themselves have said, the quality of higher education in Australia will decrease significantly. They will become less competitive, leaving our students to bear the consequences of not being prepared for future industries and the competitive international environment. In the end, the casualties of this bill being defeated will be our students and that is in no way acceptable and is a complete abrogation of our responsibility in this place. As I said, a problem delayed is a problem denied. In this case, it would have devastating consequences. I commend this bill to the Senate. (Time expired)

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we would expect, we have heard nothing but myths and great legends from those opposite. Let me put on the record where Labor's reforms are. Labor's reforms are currently being well received in the higher ed sector. The reforms that we implemented in government are working. They have been well received. There is no evidence at all before the Senate or, indeed, anywhere in Australia that those reforms which Labor implemented are not working.

Let's have a look at all these thought bubbles we saw from the Abbott government just last week. Was it a tax? Was it a fine? What was it? It was a tax. There was a thought bubble put to the government that it entertain taxing universities that charge fees above a certain limit. They would be taxed at 20 per cent and then 60 per cent and then 80 per cent, depending on how high the fees went. So badly thought out was that thought bubble that in a speech in this place last week I pointed out that the University of Western Australia in my state of Western Australia would actually be paying more to the government in taxes than it would be receiving in subsidies. What a ridiculous notion. Of course, Labor and a number of scholars and academics were very quick to point out to the government that the tax was just an absolute nonsense.

The other thing is that, if this is such a wonderful package, if it is going to so advance the lives of students and make sure that disadvantaged students get to university—I have to say that under Labor's reforms that are currently in place we had record numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds attending universities, but of course you will never hear that from the Abbott government—students would be welcoming it. But in all of the evidence I have heard—and I have sat on all of the Senate inquiries, unlike most of those opposite—I have not heard any student organisation say that this is a good package and that somehow it is going to be an advantage for them. Not one single student organisation—not the National Union of Students, not the postgraduate students and not the medical students—have said that this is a package that is going to be of advantage to them.

Let's not forget for one minute where this whole package started from. Just a little over 18 months ago, we started with a Prime Minister who said there would be no cuts to education. That was the basis for this most radical reform that we are now seeing in our higher education sector. It is based on the premise of the Prime Minister, who said days before the September election there would be no cuts to education. All of Australia knows now that that was not true. This promise of no cuts to education just goes on a very long list of broken promises from this chaotic Abbott government.

Nothing illustrates the chaos of the Abbott government more than these higher education bills. We have had so many that it is a bit hard to keep up with what is happening. The reform in higher ed is the most radical in the history of our universities. What serious analysis was there in the construction of these bills? It seems just any thought bubbles which escape from Minister Pyne's office or, in fact, the last best idea from a conversation he has seems to emerge as another higher education bill. Quite frankly, you cannot build quality reform in a six-month time frame. You cannot build quality reform post the budget. You certainly cannot build quality reform when you do not speak to anyone about your intentions.

We started with that cast-iron guarantee that there would be no cuts to education from now on, but it would seem that the Prime Minister has not thought that out—certainly it is questionable whether there was any debate. It appears there was no consultation with the sector, economists, or academics. It is very clear from our questions at Senate estimates that, prior to the budget, there was no consultation with universities. Post the budget there has been consultation. That is because there has been such an outcry about these radical proposals. The government somehow thought that the community would embrace them. This is radical reform. Let us not kid ourselves: this is the most radical reform we have seen in the higher education sector; yet, it would seem there was no input from anyone before the idea was announced.

Absent from this bill is any notion of independent advice, and there is no evidence of a considered process involving consultation, evaluation and analysis. Indeed, fee deregulation has been presented as the one and only quick-fix solution to a sustainable higher education sector in Australia. What nonsense! Like most of the rhetoric from the Abbott government, their rhetoric is that, somehow, universities are at some kind of tipping point and for Australian universities to remain high quality this radical reform is needed. But where is the proof? Where is the considered analysis? When you start from the premise of just 18 months ago of 'no cuts to education', it surely means that there wasn't considered consultation before the budget. There has been no green paper and there has been no white paper. In evidence, the universities told us that they were not given much of an opportunity to have input. That is typical of this government. We know that in most areas where the government are pursuing conservative Tea Party ideologies that have failed in other countries there is no evidence of consultation with the sectors involved.

Labor has asked over and over: 'Give us some indication of the consultation.' The very best we got from the Department of Education and Training in evidence is that it had consulted post budget. I think that was a matter of damage control because there was such an outcry. Once the government's radical reform was out, and there were huge protests and a massive outcry, that is when they consulted. We have seen that over and over again—for example, the thought bubble on the GP tax, which was put out there: 'Yep, we're going to do this. Suck it up. Too bad. It is happening.' Suddenly, there was an outcry and a huge backlash from the medical profession. Now, the Abbott government are trying to hoodwink Australians that it is out there consulting. That is their modus operandi. That is how they operate. They throw it out there and see how it lands. If there is a hue and cry they will go out and pretend to do a consultation. It is not as if the GP tax is off the table. It is just put away until they can work out a time to get it through. It is the same with this higher education reform. I heard Minister Pyne on the radio this morning trying to get a medal for presenting the bill over and over. How many times do you have to present the higher ed bill before you give up? How many times do you have to be told by the Australian public 'We don't like your reforms' before you give up? Mr Pyne does not deserve a medal. He should take his reforms off the table and think about where to go next. He should talk to people and consult. But, no, he thinks he deserves a medal for keeping on keeping on. What a ridiculous notion that is. Again, like the GP tax, there has been no consultation, and that will resurface again too.

There is no evidence of any consultation on the development of their $100,000 university degrees or their 20 per cent cuts, which are off the table. But Minister Pyne has told us that they are coming back, just like the GP tax, at some later date. Labor argues that the Abbott government, with its combined budget cuts and the provision of this higher education package, are creating their own tipping point. The tipping point is the threat of this higher education package. The package threatens participation, attainment and the quality of our own current successful system. In the words of Professor Stephen Parker, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra:

… we should not be taking risks with this. In the absence of evidence, modelling and time for consultation, we should be taking this carefully. The stakes are very high.

This Abbott government package was completely unexpected. It was lobbed on the Australian higher education sector off the back of the promise of 'no cuts to education'. As the Australia Institute, in its submission to the Senate inquiry, asserted, there has been no properly, well-informed debate and there are no clearly articulated goals of how this radical reform will serve the public interest. Moreover, it is imperative that all Australians have a clear understanding of arguments for and against any proposed changes to the higher education system and the mechanisms by which such changes will be achieved.

Then of course there was the false and misleading advertising, a significant waste of taxpayers' dollars from a government supposedly so concerned about taxpayers' dollars. On 7 December 2014, the Abbott government launched a taxpayer funded advertising campaign designed to address supposed misunderstandings about higher education funding and the changes contained in the HERR bill at that time, which has now been defeated. The $14.6 million campaign spanned television, radio, newspapers, digital media, social media and bus shelters. The purpose-built campaign website featured video, infographics and a true-or-false quiz. If we applied a true-or-false quiz to the Abbott government false would come up most of the time.

The short-term interim guidelines on information and advertising campaigns by Australian government departments and agencies, which were in effect when the Secretary of the Department of Education and Training certified the campaign as compliant, stipulate that all campaign materials should be presented in an objective, fair and accessible manner. The guidelines specifically state:

Where information is presented as a fact, it should be accurate and verifiable. When making a factual comparison, the material should not attempt to mislead the recipient about the situation with which the comparison is made and it should state explicitly the basis for the comparison.

The government's advertising campaign presents misleading, unverifiable figures as fact and offers no information about the basis of its calculations. Policy experts have questioned the accuracy of the government's claims, with Andrew Norton noting that, regardless of their veracity, the figures used are 'not particularly meaningful in the first place'. It is so typical of the Abbott government: it seems to think that, if it says it over and over really loudly and it insults everyone else, somehow it makes the campaign believable. Well, it does not. Truth and facts are what the Australian people want.

The guidelines require that advertising campaigns be instigated on the basis of a demonstrated need. While there has been some attempt to use unverifiable anecdotes and third-party market research to justify the campaign, there is no demonstrated need for a wide-scale, multimillion dollar advertising campaign, using taxpayers' dollars, to promote a bill that has not yet passed the parliament. On Minister Pyne's own reflections on the radio interview I heard this morning, the legislation is unlikely to pass this place once again.

The campaign does not address the bill's core policy objectives, instead offering misleading and meaningless assurances to prospective students and the broader public. It is clear the campaign has been developed not to address demonstrated need but rather in response to the negative reaction to the government's proposed changes from students, education providers and the Australian public. Let us be clear: it is students who will carry the $100,000 debt. And not one student organisation has yet to tick off and sign up to the government's reforms. The reforms are universally rejected by students right across this country.

The campaign's clear political purpose breaches the guidelines, which require that 'Campaign materials must not try to foster a positive impression of a particular political party or promote party political interests.' The current system works. The Senate inquiry received overwhelming evidence that the current higher education system is sustainable and high quality. For example, Mr Ben Phillips and Professor Parker argued:

… at the moment student contributions are already quite high in Australia from an OECD perspective. The Australian university system appears to be working very well: we have 19 universities in the top 500 and on a per capita basis we are ranked fourth in the world. We are very attractive for international students, and the international market is very healthy here in Australia. I guess we are not quite sure what the problem is. That is something that needs to be explained.

When we heard evidence on the first bill, all of the universities that gave evidence—and many of them, or their representative umbrella groups, did—said that international students are a very lucrative market for Australia's higher education sector. They all want to continue to be able to encourage international students to come to Australia to study. The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations also said that the current system is workable and would ultimately produce better future outcomes for the Australian higher education sector. Australia Needs a Brighter Future agreed with the notion that the current arrangements for the funding of the higher education sector are preferable to those proposed in the reform package.

Labor believes that fee deregulation is unnecessary. Education policy analyst Professor Louise Watson argued that evidence obtained in the Higher Education Base Funding Review, chaired by Jane Lomax-Smith, which reported in October 2011, led to the conclusion that Australian universities were doing very well. In discussing the fee deregulation proposal, Professor Watson argued that it was a further impost on the Commonwealth budget and that it would be more unpredictable than the removal of caps on funded places, stating:

I have always been puzzled as to why fee deregulation was necessary or deemed necessary. I have never understood the problem it was meant to fix. From where I stand, it seems like fee deregulation will simply compound the problems currently facing the government in terms of university financing, not solve them.

This is what happens when we put Minister Pyne's thought bubble into a higher education reform package. If there had been some consultation, and if indeed the Australian public had been put on notice that there were going to be cuts and changes to education, we would have been able to have a for-and-against debate. We would have been able to have experts providing input. But no: the Abbott government, in its usual way of pushing through, denied everyone that opportunity. Expert after expert is saying that this is not the way to go. What is it that we are trying to fix? Nobody quite understands that.

The National Union of Students contended that fee deregulation would result in decreased opportunities, accessibility and equity for students and provided evidence before the committee that deregulation, as proposed, will be unpredictable and unsustainable. All of the student organisations reject fee deregulation out of hand. The National Tertiary Education Union noted that 'nobody, including the government, seems clear as to the rationale or underlying principles of the proposed policy framework'.

Those are the reasons that Labor will not be supporting the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill. We do not see the need for it. There is no clear evidence being put forward. Therefore, we will continue our opposition to it.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to follow Senator Lines and to respond to the absurd arguments that have been put by Senator Lines and others. It is a telling reflection of the quality of debate in this place at times when we hear an argument like the one we have just heard from Senator Lines. It was absurd and ridiculous. I want to go to some of the most ridiculous parts of it, because it encapsulates what is going on here. We have Senator Lines saying, 'There is no-one supporting this reform.' Her evidence is to trot out the views of the National Union of Students. The NUS is against it and therefore it must be a bad idea.

Let's go through some of the supporters of this reform, who, I think, have a fair degree more credibility than the National Union of Students—on which the Labor Party is basing their opposition. On the one hand, on the 'no' side, we have the National Union of Students and on the 'yes' side we have Universities Australia, the Innovative Research Universities, the Regional Universities Network, the Australian Technology Network, the Group of Eight, the TAFE Directors Association, the Council of Private Higher Education, various university leaders and 40 out of 41 vice chancellors.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The students still come out on top!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You say the students, Senator Cameron, but the National Union of Students—the far left union organisation—does not represent most students. I do not know when you last went to university, but when I was at the ANU—

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was too busy to go to university.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

its left-wing student union refused for years to join the NUS because it was so far left. You can rely on the National Union of Students, but we will listen to expert after expert who is saying—

Senator Rhiannon interjecting—

Senator Rhiannon, who takes her advice from the National Union of Students and the Green Left Weekly, is shouting across the chamber and saying that there are some other voices. I have not heard the views of the Green Left Weekly. I suspect the Green Left Weeklyis against the reform. I do not know, Senator Payne, whether you are aware of the Green Left Weekly's views, but Senator Milne is speaking next and so we can look forward to hearing them.

The Business Council, ACCI, the list goes on and on. There is a good reason that you have the NUS on the one side and all these experts on the other and that is: all these experts have considered the issue. What is even more concerning about the contribution of Senator Lines in this debate is that she was saying: 'There really isn't any problem. We don't have to fix anything, because we have a perfect system and we don't need to reform it.' That is absolute rubbish, and Senator Lines knows that it is rubbish; the Labor Party knows that it is rubbish; 40 out of 41 vice chancellors know that it is rubbish; every peak body knows that it is rubbish. There is a simple reason that it is absolute rubbish. We have seen a deregulation of student numbers, so the numbers are no longer capped and we are going to see a significant growth in student numbers. That is something we can celebrate; we are going to see more people have access to higher education. Yet the former government, as well as this government, recognised that there is no blank cheque; there is not an unlimited amount of public money that can go in, as those student numbers rise.

Unless you acknowledge and unless you are going to take the Kim Carr approach and look to cap student numbers, you need to acknowledge that there will be a significant rise in people accessing our universities and that there is a limit to the amount that taxpayers can subsidise those students, and then you have to reform. You have to ask for a greater private contribution, and that is at the heart of this reform. If you deny it, as Senator Lines just did, you are putting your head in the sand and pretending that there is not a problem, when blind Freddie could see that there is. To go further than that, the likes of Senator Lines and the Labor Party are effectively calling all of these people liars. When they talk about the $100,000 degrees, they are calling the university vice chancellors liars. They are saying that the whole sector cannot be trusted, even when they announce what their fee structure is going to be. Some universities have already put out their fee structures, which makes a lie of the Labor Party's scare campaign, yet those opposite pretend either that they did not hear or that the whole sector is simply telling lies. This is a serious debate, and it deserves better contributions than what we have heard to date.—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You will have to sit down, then!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does not deserve contributions from the likes of Senator Carr who now wants to cap student numbers. That is the Senator Carr policy—the new Labor Party policy is to put a cap on student numbers—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will put a cap on you. Put your D cap on!

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On my left!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you are not going put a cap on student numbers, Senator Carr, then you are not going to be able to afford it. What we will see is an ever-declining university sector. The modern Labor Party, with its head in the sand and ignoring all of the experts, is now saying that they stand for a cap on student numbers or a decline in the quality of higher education in this country. We happen to take a different view, and that is why this legislation is important—

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why did the Liberals lie before the election? Just answer the question.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron, NUS might be very important to you, but we believe that 40 out 41 vice chancellors, all the peak bodies that represent higher education, the Business Council of Australia, the Regional Universities Network—all of these groups we take more seriously than the National Union of Students. Senator Lines informed the chamber today that there is nothing to see here—there is no problem to fix in our university sector. We can all walk away; not worry about it; leave it as it is; she'll be right. Well, Mr President, we happen to have a very different view. The facts happen to support a very different case. We certainly will not be taking the advice that Senator Lines and the Labor Party do from the National Union of Students.

Debate interrupted.