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

$5.8 billion to higher education and university research; nearly $3 billion in terms of the attempts to impose crippling debts on students, through increasing real rates of interest; $1.9 billion in reductions to government course subsidies; $200 million in cuts to the indexation arrangements for universities; $172 million in cuts to the promotion and reward funding for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds; $173 million in cuts to the training of Australian research students; $75 million in cuts to the Australian Research Council; and $31 million in cuts to the regulator.

And we now have a situation where a government wishes to give universities the right to print debt. It will mean a lifetime of debt, and a situation where the $100,000 degree will be commonplace in this country. It will mean a situation where people will be denied—

Senator McKenzie interjecting—