Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

If there is one thing you can rely on with this Prime Minister it is that he is always slipping and sliding away from things he might have said in the past. One thing, though, that you can particularly rely on is that he will continue to drive up the cost of a university education in this country. In fact, you could bet your house on it. Under this Prime Minister and his education policies, it is now the case that you can pay as much for a university degree as you pay for your home. We now have university degrees that basically cost as much as the average mortgage.

Let us look at the Good Universities Guide that came out today and the piece of information that tells us that we now have almost 100 university degrees that cost more than $100,000—in fact, five of them cost more than $200,000. If you want to do a medicine-arts degree at the University of New South Wales, it costs $237,000; at the University of Melbourne, $219,000; and at Bond University, $233,000. If you want to do medicine-law at Monash, I am sure the member for Chisholm would be interested to know that you could rack up a debt of $214,000.

Let us compare that with the average mortgage that people have. We know many people are paying more than this. We know that many people have very large mortgages under this government, but the average mortgage is about $220,000. That is after a number of interest rate rises, of course, as a result of this Prime Minister’s economic management. The average mortgage is $220,000, and now we have five university degrees that cost more than $200,000, even though the Prime Minister said way back in 1999 that under his government there would be no university degrees costing $100,000 and that he did not want to have an American style university system. We now have an American style university system courtesy of the Howard government, and we have nearly 100 university degrees costing more than $100,000. We know that that American style university system is driving Australians away from university.

Let us look at some of the others. I have mentioned the $200,000 degrees, but let us look at the $100,000 university degrees. It costs more than $100,000 to do optometry at the University of Melbourne and more than $100,000 to do a combined science and applied science degree at the University of Sydney—the list goes on, particularly in the very, very important areas of professional skill shortage. We know that there are serious shortages of health professionals in optometry and so on, and we know that there are very serious skill shortages in the sciences, yet it costs $100,000 for a combined degree in science and applied science at the University of Sydney. And that is after this new Minister for Education, Science and Training came out just a few weeks ago and told us that we need another 20,000 scientists and engineers in this country. The government know that we have a very serious shortage when it comes to scientists and engineers, but what are they doing to encourage people into the sciences and into engineering? All they have been responsible for is a massive hike in the cost of a university education, whether it is full-fee degrees of $100,000 or full-fee degrees of $200,000. And, of course, we have also seen the doubling of HECS under this government.

Today in question time we drew attention to the decline in the number of students who complete year 12 and go on to either a university education or to technical education. Of course the Prime Minister did not want to answer the question and so he meandered off answering some other question. Because of the massive hike in fees for university education, we have seen a decline of almost 10 percentage points in the last four years. Is it any wonder we have a serious skills crisis in this country when this government is making it more and more difficult for young people to go to university, to go to TAFE, or to get an apprenticeship? It is no wonder we cannot find plumbers and electricians; no wonder we cannot find scientists and engineers. Fees are driving our young people away from our universities and TAFEs and away from apprenticeships.

The Leader of the Opposition drew the Prime Minister’s attention to the promise he made back in 1999. He did not mention HECS in this commitment. I quote Hansard, the Prime Minister speaking:

The government will not be introducing an American style higher education system. ... There will be no $100,000 university fees under this government.

That statement is quite clear. He did not mention HECS. He did not qualify it in any way. He did not say, ‘We won’t have any $100,000 HECS degrees but there might be some $100,000 full fee degrees.’ It was a categorical statement from the Prime Minister. We are used to the weasel words that we heard in question time today—yet another broken promise from this Prime Minister. This promise is well and truly smashed. We now have not only a broken promise but 100 university degrees costing more than $100,000.

We know why it is that the Prime Minister does not want to get into this debate. Those of us who were here in 1999 will remember why it was that he was forced into making that commitment. You might recall it was in response to a very secret leaked cabinet submission put forward by a previous minister for education, David Kemp, who wanted full deregulation of university fees. He wanted to get rid of HECS and basically say that universities should have full free market power to determine whatever university students should pay. We can imagine that the Liberal Party might see that that is the way university entry should be organised—in a free market way. David Kemp proposed to the cabinet full deregulation of fees and a voucher which could be used in public and private institutions. Also, he wanted a new loan scheme that had a real rate of interest.

Not surprisingly, when that cabinet submission was leaked, the Prime Minister did one of his backflips—we know he is very good at those—and decided that he had to back away from that very extreme agenda. Instead of that proposal, we had a change of minister. Brendan Nelson was brought onto the scene and he said, ‘No, we won’t have 100 per cent full fee payers; we’ll have 50 per cent.’ Brendan Nelson, the previous education minister, said that we should have 50 per cent of our university students paying full fees, that that is what should be allowed at our universities. He could not get that proposal through the Senate. He did a deal with some of the Independents in the Senate that we would have 35 per cent full fee payers.

This government has form when it comes to this issue. We know that their fundamental position is to go to a free market where universities can charge whatever they like and whatever the market will bear, and where there will be abolition of HECS. We know that is the true position of this Prime Minister. He has had to bow to public pressure for the time being, but we can expect to see more and more students being forced to pay higher and higher fees.

We do not know what the new Minister for Education, Science and Training thinks about this issue. She has not said whether or not she thinks that the current level of full fee payers should stay as it is or whether she agrees with David Kemp—maybe that is her position. Hopefully she will give us an answer in response to this MPI. We have heard from her today that we really should not be worried about any of this because it affects only three per cent of students. I say to the minister that you cannot have it both ways. You cannot say on the one hand that universities are going to go broke if Labor abolishes full fee university degrees and on the other hand that we should not worry about it because it is only three per cent. Which one is it? Is it that it is only three per cent and therefore Labor can certainly afford—and I would say the government can afford—to do away with these outrageous levels of fees that are being imposed on our students? Let us see which way the minister wants it. Is it just a small number or is it going to send the universities broke? The minister cannot have it both ways.

We heard the other argument from the Prime Minister which he has mounted over the years—that if foreign students are allowed to pay $200,000, why should not Australian students? I mean really! I have never heard a more ridiculous argument.

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