Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

Before I start, I indicate—I may have neglected to do this earlier—that Senator Xenophon has asked me to confirm that the details of the matters that he tabled earlier, regarding the monitoring compliance with proposed student services and amenities which were contained in a letter from Minister Kate Ellis, were in fact accurate reflections of commitments made by the government. Those were contained in a letter sent by Minister Ellis to Senator Xenophon. I trust that meets his concerns on that matter.

In regard to the specifics of the National Party amendments we have here before us, the government cannot support them. These amendments will first of all reduce the amount of money that a university can seek from a student—thereby undermining the revenue capacity of the universities—to far below the current compromise arrangements that the government has proposed, from $250 to $125. So it is actually a reduction substantially already being proposed by the government, and then there is a further reduction proposed by the National Party amendments which we cannot support.

The second issue goes to the purpose for which that expenditure can be made. The National Party’s proposition is that we should spend money on sports and recreation—that somehow or other sports and recreation expenditure is not political whereas anything else is political. It is a particularly perverse view of the concept of politics to my mind, particularly when we then hear about the importance of sports to the development of nationalism, national pride, community identity and a number of other measures which are traditionally identified as being very political.