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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) and the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by Senators Carr and Polley today relating to higher education funding and to taxation policy.

We have just witnessed quite an extraordinary proposition where the parliament has been brought back to discuss a series of measures which the government does not have ready to bring into this chamber. It does not want to be able to present a motion and, in light of the fact that next week there is a Senate hearing into why questions about the CSIRO have not been answered, where the opposition asks a legitimate question, following a similar request yesterday in which assurances were given that questions would be answered, we discover that answers to five of the 29 questions which we were assured would arrive will, in fact, happen. What does the government do? It then chooses to filibuster for an hour and a half in a vain attempt to avoid having to deal with a number of motions that are coming up today and, probably, tomorrow, because the standing orders are very clear on this, and the resolution we have already carried makes it perfectly clear which legislation we are dealing with. That legislation has not been dealt with in this chamber because we are still waiting upon the House of Representatives.

I raised a question today with the Minister for Education concerning the government's education policies. We clearly know there are two fundamental issues at stake here: just how much is the government now planning to take out of university funding, and what is their plan in regard to deregulation? We know what the government's formal policy position is because it has been stated. It has been stated twice at Senate estimates—in October and February this year—and stated in MYEFO in December of this year, and the statement has been made by the minister on Sky TV on a number of occasions that the government is seeking to take further savings from the university system.

What we know is what their election campaign will look like, and that is where we get into interesting territory because this is a government that has said, just like the last election—remember the last elections?—'No cuts to education.' No cuts to education was the policy position they took, and what they are trying to do, once again, is slither through the election campaign without any assessment of their policy and then make the assumption that they can climb back into office and introduce a 20 per cent cut to the universities—a $5 billion cut to universities—over the forward estimates.

We now see what I understand is quite a clear proposition: Senator Birmingham, I am told, has gone off to the cabinet and sought further cuts, only to find that the cabinet has thrown him out because the cuts are not big enough. This government wants to impose additional cuts upon the university system, because we know how the universities are treated by this government. They regard the universities as fair game. We know that the Parliamentary Budget Office has made it very clear that the overwhelming reason for a blow-out in the student loan scheme is the stated policies of this government to impose a 20 per cent cut on the universities and to regulate university fees—the $100,000 degree which they are seeking to impose. If the deregulation agenda becomes law, the annual cost of the student loan program will have risen from $1.7 billion to $11.1 billion within 10 years. That is a 46 per cent increase in the public debt, and we know what the assumption for that is based on: the government's stated policy position.

What we are talking about now is that the minister claims he is continuing to consult with the sector. I have absolutely no doubt we will hear talk about another review into the implementation of the government's budget cuts. According to the PBO, on the current unlegislated higher education measures, that is a cut of $12 billion over 10 years. The minister will be forced by his Expenditure Review Committee to seek additional cuts on top of those. The Liberal policies are very clear. They have created a mountain of debt and they have now sought to impose that mountain of debt upon students and taxpayers like. They are determined to pursue the same old Liberal Party ideology: a move from public provision to private provision, a move away from a fair go, and the entrenchment of those who already have power and privilege. What they are seeking to do is to slam the door shut on opportunity for individuals and the nation, and the minister's plans are becoming abundantly clear to all those prepared to listen. (Time expired)

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind senators that it is disorderly and against the standing orders to walk between the chair and the speaker.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could be forgiven for thinking that yesterday was the worst day for opposition senators in the Australian Senate for a very long time. I am looking at Senator Polley from Tasmania, and I will come to her ridiculous claims about double taxation in a moment. You had to witness what we just saw in the Australian Senate over the last few moments. Senator Carr fell foul of his own strategy. He used a procedure that he thought was going to embarrass the government and disrupt proceedings, but what happened? He fell foul of his own procedure and it blew up in his face. Let's talk briefly about the substance of question time today. What is revealing is not what opposition senators want to talk about—their claims about higher education funding and their false claims about double taxation—

Senator Polley interjecting—

I will come to double taxation in a moment, Senator Polley. I am looking forward to debating you on double taxation. I want to share with you what the Daily Telegraph said about double taxation, Labor's plan to modify the carbon tax and Labor's plan for a new electricity tax. Let me get to that in a few moments. What do Labor senators not want to talk about this afternoon? They do not want to talk about their ridiculous claim earlier today that somehow the government was going to breach its caretaker conventions with regard to government advertising. Why was it a ridiculous claim? First, because we have given a clear commitment that we will not breach the long-established caretaker conventions, but, more importantly, because Labor did breach them when they were in government. In a most horrendously shameful way, Labor breached the caretaker conventions at the last federal election. I know a little bit about this. I was the senator at the Senate estimates committee process who asked David Tune about the caretaker conventions. Let me share this for senators who are not familiar with him. He is one of Australia's most well respected public servants. At that Senate estimates committee hearing in May, he was the secretary of the Department of Finance—a very significant and considerable area of the Australian Public Service.

I asked him rather innocently about the caretaker conventions and whether they had been breached in the past. It is no wonder that Labor senators are silent, because in that silence is their embarrassment and deep shame. What did the secretary of the Department of Finance, David Tune, say? He said he was directed by the then Special Minister of State—and I will come to him in a moment—to breach the caretaker conventions. It is not a rumour; it is well documented; the documents are here. He was directed by the then Special Minister of State to breach the caretaker conventions with regard to a government advertising campaign on people smugglers. What makes that more remarkable, as if that were not remarkable enough? The Special Minister of State was none other than the member for Isaacs, Mr Dreyfus QC, who was also the Attorney-General. So, not only was he the senior law officer in our country; he actively directed—those are not my words; they are David Tune's words—the secretary to breach the caretaker conventions. That is a most shameful act.

It is no accident that Senator Gallagher asked one question and not three. She realised that she had trod on a landmine. I will give this to Senator Gallagher: she was not in the Australian Senate when that matter was revealed at Senate estimates. She can be forgiven for that, but she cannot be forgiven for her poor research skills. She should not forgive the people on that side who gave her the question and set her up. It was a lazy allegation this morning from Labor that the coalition would breach its caretaker conventions . The Leader of the Government in the Senate made it very clear today that we will not. Why should Labor senators care so much? Because they were the people who actively breached the caretaker conventions and instructed, directed, David Tune to breach the caretaker conventions. It is not an allegation and it is not a rumour; it was revealed at Senate estimates. Yesterday was a bad day for the Labor Party in the Australian Senate. Today has turned out to be a worse day. (Time expired)

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a contribution to the Senate that was. When I asked a question today of the senator representing the Prime Minister, it was in response to one of those policy announcements by the Prime Minister that they are now trying to run away from. The comments that I referred to were from the Treasurer of the Tasmanian parliament: Liberal member, Peter Gutwein. He raised his concerns. I quoted him when he said:

... each Tasmanian would need to pay $4,500 per year in additional tax.

That is not what I have said. That is what the Treasurer of Tasmania has said. So there is no doubt.

We are getting quite used to the fact that this Prime Minister has all these thought bubbles and they just sort of float past. He will see a bubble somewhere, grab it and say, 'That seems like a good idea,' but we know his ideas do not really stand the test of time. He will announce something in the morning and, by the evening, it will be off the drawing board, yet again. We know, from the contributions that have been made through the course of yesterday and today, that there is only one thing this Prime Minister has on his mind, and that is that he will do and say whatever it takes to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the Australian community, yet again. He will say one thing today but do something completely different tomorrow. We know, when he knifed Tony Abbott, that he did what he had to do. He did the deals within his caucus to get him that job. He has run away from the principled position that he kept espousing to the community, year in, year out. So we expect nothing different from him as Prime Minister, but the Australian people see things very differently now. They see that this government cannot be trusted. Whether it is Tony Abbott or Malcolm Turnbull—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Polley, you should refer to him as Mr Abbott or the member for Warringah.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whether it is Mr Abbott or Mr Turnbull, Australians know that what they say before an election will be very different if they are re-elected. They said before the last election that there would be no cuts to education and no cuts to health. That was untrue. They said there would be no new taxes, and what have we seen? We have seen, time and time again—and it really does not matter whether it was Mr Abbott, when he was Prime Minister, or Mr Turnbull now—that they cannot be trusted. They are running scared and running away.

They spent all this money bringing us back to parliament for two days, and what have they done? They guillotined debate on a bill that was introduced yesterday and passed last night. They did not give each and every one of us senators the opportunity to contribute to the debate. That is the very least you should expect when you come into this chamber. When there is proposed legislation before this chamber, you have a right to make a contribution, but they guillotined the debate because all they wanted to do was spend taxpayers' money to recall parliament so that their Prime Minister could call a double dissolution of the parliament. I say: bring that election on, but let us make sure that there is some real honesty in this campaign.

This Prime Minister may say that he is nimble and agile, but we know he is not a truthful Prime Minister. If he was, he would have been up-front with the Australian community. When he wanted to extend the GST to fresh food—in fact, extend it to everything—and increase it from 10 per cent to 15 per cent, he was not being honest, but he did get the message, because the Australian people and those on this side of the chamber said, 'We will never support a GST on everything; we will never support an increase to 15 per cent.' If you want to talk about taxation and have a thought bubble every other day, that is fine, but you will be judged on that by the Australian community. They will judge you.

I would not get too self-assured if I were sitting on that side of the chamber, because we know the Australian people are smart. They will make their judgement. Of course those on the other side go into this election as frontrunners—they certainly do—but just be prepared. You will have to explain your policies in far more detail than you did at the last election. You will not get away with the hollow promises that you made that there will be no new taxes, no cuts to education and no cuts to health. You ran away from Gonski funding in years 5 and 6. You have betrayed the Australian people, and I think it may well be once too often. (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to contribute to the so-called double taxation debate that Senator Polley has so keenly engaged in. If one takes the very first principle that Prime Minister Turnbull mentioned when he spoke to the premiers and chief ministers, it was that there would be no net increase in taxation across the nation and there would be the opportunity for tax sharing. Senator Polley says this is an initiative of the coalition and something that Prime Minister Turnbull thought up. Let me go back to the year 1991. I do not know if Senator Polley was interested in politics in those days, but I will tell her in a moment who the Prime Minister of the day was. There was a premiers and chief ministers meeting in Adelaide on 21 November 1991 and a historic agreement was struck. The communique to emerge from the meeting is significant because of who the meeting was chaired by. Here is a guessing competition. Who was the Prime Minister in 1991, Senator Polley—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President? Anyone? Senator Smith, would you know? It was Bob Hawke. There were eight premiers and chief ministers at the meeting, six of them Labor. I will tell you who these luminaries of the Labor Party were: Kirner from Victoria, Bannon from South Australia, Lawrence from our state of WA, Goss from Queensland, Field from Tasmania and Follett from the ACT. Do you know what they did? The communique said that all leaders:

… reiterated their support for a national income tax sharing scheme based on providing States and Territories with access to the personal income tax base …

Furthermore, they agreed on a figure of six per cent—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to Senator Polley—as being appropriate, 'without impinging on fiscal equalisation arrangements'. Finally, they also agreed, under the leadership of then Labor Prime Minister Mr Bob Hawke, that the proposal was not just revenue neutral but economically sustainable. How wonderful. It was 1942, as you know, Mr Acting Deputy President, when the states gave up their capacity for income taxing.

Incidentally, let me go on and tell you what happened. I should, shouldn't I? What do you think happened to this breakthrough agreement by Prime Minister Hawke and six Labor premiers and chief ministers? I ask those in the gallery—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. It is a bit like Q&A. One month later, it got mothballed when Paul Keating, whose infamous centralist tendencies would never permit him to grant greater autonomy to the states, seized Hawke's job. What do you think happened to that thought bubble? It got scuppered. That was the end of it. It was finished because of Paul Keating, the great centralist. 'He who holds the gold makes the rules', and Keating wanted to hold the gold and make the rules.

What did Prime Minister Turnbull do? He went to the premiers and chief ministers and to the people of Australia and said, 'Let's engage in an economic debate and let's put everything on the table.' How amazing that the people of Australia would be given an opportunity to actually have everything on the table for discussion. Fortunately, as a result of decisions made in this place last night, you, the people of Australia, on 2 July are going to get an opportunity to decide whether you want the future economic, social and industrial management of this country to be run by the coalition or to be run by that rabble on the other side.

In the few minutes left to me, I do want to comment on issues associated with higher education. I have said in this place so often, and I say it again, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to Senator Kim Carr: Professor Paul Johnson, the vice-chancellor of UWA, one of the Group of Eight universities, has said that a four-year agriculture degree will cost $16,000 a year. Hands up all those who know what four times 16 is. It amounts to $64,000. Perhaps Senator Carr is an example. He ought to go back and get a calculator, because four $16,000s do not make $100,000 degrees. And it is not to the credit of people in this place to continually tell lies about those degrees.

Let me also tell you what this coalition government, through Andrew Robb, the then trade minister, has achieved: free trade agreements with three of our major trading partner countries—Japan, China and Korea—and also, of course, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As one who has had a keen interest in the higher education sector, and one who was an academic at Curtin University in Western Australia and at the University of California and at the University of Kentucky, I can say to you: the value to the university sector of the free trade agreements and the TPP will be measured in billions for years to come.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take note of the answer given by Senator Birmingham to Senator Carr's question today. The answer that Senator Birmingham gave clearly indicated that the Liberals' only plan for higher education is to continue down the path of cutting university funding and allowing universities to set their own fees. Fundamentally, that will lead to the Americanisation of Australia's higher education system, and we know where that leads—that leads to massive student debts and $100,000 degrees.

It is quite a different plan from the one that the now Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, had for higher education when he was a student activist in the 1990s. Then he ran for student politics on a platform of opposing voluntary student unionism and 'fighting against funding and staffing cutbacks'. As quoted in Adelaide university's student newspaper of the time, On Dit, he said, as part of his campaign for student presidency: 'I'd like to ensure that we can take the fight up to any government, be that Liberal or Labor, state or federal, and indeed make sure that we can lobby the upper house of both parliaments quite effectively.' Now Senator Birmingham is right here in the upper house of our federal parliament, where he could effectively lobby—very effectively lobby—against the funding and staffing cutbacks that his government has foisted on our universities, and which it wants to continue to foist on them, by slashing their budgets. But, from his position as minister here in the Senate of the Parliament of Australia, what does Senator Birmingham do? What has he done since the disastrous budget announcements of 2014? Well, he has not done much. When faced with the backlash of the 2014 budget announcements on higher education, this government has been unable to move away from its passion for deregulation and saddling students with more debt.

As Senator Carr said, meanwhile, in a PBO report, we have seen that, if something is not done, Australia's HECS debt will increase massively and eventually threaten the whole HELP system. That PBO report also finds that, within 10 years—that is just one decade—the annual cost of HELP loans, now $1.7 billion, will have risen to $11.1 billion, a 46 per cent increase in our nation's public debt. That debt will be driven mainly by projected increases in student fees from 2017, due, as the PBO report says, to this government's announced higher education reforms. Those so-called higher education reforms—which consist mainly of cutting funding, with a cut of $5 million more to come—coupled with deregulation mean that universities are forced to claw back funding by enrolling students and charging them more, if the universities are able to get away with it, because that is what will happen, arising from deregulation of fees, if this government has its way. We know from other research, including that prepared by NATSEM, that course fees would double and treble under deregulation. The prospect of $100,000 degrees is not a furphy; it is very, very real.

We know that it is true because overseas experience—including in the UK, where fees were partially deregulated—is that it led to overall course increases. The UK deregulated in 2012. The British government claimed then, as this government claims now, that deregulation would mean universities would be able to compete on price. But, as we well know, what happens in the university sector is that the students, the consumers, believe that a lower priced degree is a less worthy degree, and so they do not enrol in those universities that have lower priced degrees; those universities are forced to increase their fees so that they match the higher-charging universities. And, overall, the fees for all students go up, with the detrimental effect, eventually, of fewer students enrolling in university degrees. Of course that will be fatal to the future of Australia's economy and to our innovation and to ensuring that we have good and decent jobs for all Australians. I wish Senator Birmingham would return to his student activist roots and use his position here in the Senate to advocate for better higher education funding and more support for Australian students.

Question agreed to.