Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

Let me quote the Vice Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, Professor Greg Craven, who said:

Rejecting the package wholesale is not a vote for university equity. It is a vote against reality.

That is what Labor and the Greens and four of the crossbenchers did yesterday. They voted against the reality, the inevitability, of reform. If revenue is not able to flow to universities from the students, then Labor are obviously proposing it flows from the taxpayer. That means they are proposing more taxes or to take the money from other parts of the portfolios of the government to give it to education. That is the inevitable consequence of the Labor Party's position. It is either higher taxes or it is cuts to other services to fund universities.

The Regional Universities Network put out a press release today which says:

The new bill is a big step in the right direction and we acknowledge the efforts of the cross-bench Senators and the Government in progressing this,

The chair of RUN, Professor Peter Lee, said that the new bill introduced today shows that many of the issues raised by RUN have been listened to by the Senate and the government.

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