Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I will tell you what is hypocritical. What is hypocritical is that the Australian Labor Party are prepared to allow Australian students to study at the University of New South Wales Singapore campus—they are quite prepared to allow them to pay fees to study in Singapore; they voted for it—but then they say that a full fee paying student should not be able to do the same in Australia. This is all about choice for students. If Labor want to have a debate about lower standards then bring it on, because that is what the Australian government is committed to ensuring—that our students have a greater focus on literacy and numeracy standards. It is a disgrace that our universities are having to divert resources to remedial English classes at university. That is a failing of the state education systems.

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