John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for her question. I will check the figure. But whether it is right or not makes no material difference to the answer I give, because I would have thought that one of the reasons fewer people might be going on to university now is that it is easier to get a job. What a terrible thing! I think it is a good thing if you can get a job. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition talks about turning people away from TAFE. The last time I checked, TAFEs were run by state Labor governments. The time before that that I checked, they had increased the fees by about 300 per cent. So let me say to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: if there has been a situation where fewer people are going on to university, that is not of itself—and I do think that, if we are to seriously address the skills issue in this country, we need to get away from the deputy leader’s mindset that the only good education is a university education—

See this speech in context