Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I hear the member for Hindmarsh has come in and defended the Minister for Agriculture. He should join the member for Barker in saying that he is nervous; at least he has been honest. He is an honest man from South Australia saying that he is incredibly nervous about the National Party taking control of water allocation to South Australia. The member for Hindmarsh should listen to the member for Barker, because he knows what he is talking about.

When it comes to education, which is another passion of mine, we know that, despite changing the salesman, the now Prime Minister still supports the unfair plan to rip money out of universities and to deregulate university fees and charge $100,000 for degrees. Indeed we know that, in an interview with Alan Jones in June last year, the now Prime Minister said:

I support unreservedly and wholeheartedly every element of the budget. Every single one.

I am not sure if the Prime Minister understands that that means he supports $30 billion in cuts to schools. That is equivalent to ripping $3.2 million from every school in Australia. He went on to specifically refer to the higher education legislation and said that he supports the reforms to higher education. That means cutting 20 per cent of funding from Australia's universities, introducing fees for PhD students for the first time and slugging undergraduate students with $100,000 university degrees—saddling students with debt for a lifetime. If this Prime Minister does not agree with that, then he should come into this place and state what his values are—state what he believes in. But unfortunately I think that, as we have seen on so many issues, this Prime Minister has not thought through the issues that are facing Australia or the important concerns that are facing everyday Australians. All he has done is thought about himself. (Time expired)

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