Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. How is the government expanding opportunities in education for all Australians?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ryan for her question. I am very pleased to be able to tell the member for Ryan and the House in general that the government is keeping all its election commitments in education. All of our election commitments will be met in the Education portfolio. Spending on higher education and research will increase by $900 million over the next four years and spending on school education will increase by $3.5 billion over the next four years. So, ironically, because of the cuts delivered by the previous government, by the Leader of the Opposition, we will be spending more on school education in 2017 than Labor would have if they had been re-elected. So let us not hear any of the cant and hypocrisy from the Labor side about education spending.

In this answer I want to specifically focus, if I may, on higher education, because higher education is one of the really positive features of the budget that the Treasurer delivered last night. The government is embarking on one of the greatest reforms of higher education in 30 years, which will spread opportunity to more than 80,000 Australians across Australia, who will be able to access degrees over the next four years which they would not otherwise have been able to, and to countless apprentices, who will be able to keep doing their apprenticeship and complete it because of the support that we give apprentices in this budget, announced last night.

So, we are building the skills infrastructure of the future—not just the physical infrastructure but, very importantly, the skills infrastructure of the future. We are doing it in three ways. We will be expanding the demand-driven system to diploma and associate degree courses across Australia, which means that students who do those courses—who are typically low-socioeconomic status, first-generation university goers or low ATAR achievers—will be able to use the courses as pathways into university. It is a major reform and it costs us money. We are overseeing the largest Commonwealth scholarship scheme in Australia's history so that the smartest kid from the lowest socioeconomic status background can go to the best universities in Australia. We are expanding the trade support loan program—extending it and creating it—so that apprentices can access $20,000 of borrowing from the taxpayer over four years to use for their costs of achieving their apprenticeship. We are spreading the benefits of education and skills right across the economy to apprentices, to lower income families, to first-generation university goers. We are investing in the skills infrastructure of the future and we are damn proud of it.