Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister explain how the government's higher education reforms recognise both the private and public benefit of university education and how the costs of that education should be fairly shared between student and taxpayer? What support can the minister cite for this approach?

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

I thank the member for Forrest for her question. I think she would agree, as would most Australians, that there is both a private and a public benefit to higher education qualifications in this country. Most obviously, the public benefit is manifested in a more productive workforce and a growing and productive economy. But there is also a very obvious private benefit. There has been much research done that shows that people who have been to university live longer; they are healthier; they enjoy a 3.3 per cent unemployment rate as opposed to a 7.8 per cent unemployment rate for those people who leave school at year 12 and do not get a qualification; and they will earn $1 million more over a lifetime, or 75 per cent more, than those Australians without a qualification.

Sixty per cent of taxpayers do not have a higher education qualification and yet they are paying 60 per cent of the cost of tuition fees of students who are at university. So 60 per cent of Australians do not go to university and yet out of the goodness of their own hearts they pay 60 per cent of the tuition fees of students who go to university. Those students will go on to earn 75 per cent more than Australians who do not go to university. So our reforms rebalance the approach, the contribution, between students and taxpayers to around fifty-fifty. Students can borrow every single dollar of that up-front and we are asking them in these reforms to pay back at an interest rate which is the same as the taxpayer has been good enough to pay on their behalf in borrowing the money.

I am not alone in recognising the private benefit that comes from higher education. In a book that was released a couple of years ago one writer in this House said:

I clearly remember being among a distinct minority of university students who supported paying for our degrees through HECS. I supported it because I could see the inherent logic. Our incomes would be higher because we had been to university.

Some members might think I am talking about the member for Fraser and they would be incorrect. In fact, I was not; I am talking about the shadow Treasurer, the member for McMahon. He recognises the private benefit in university education. But let us not leave Dr Leigh out, because he wrote in his book:

A deregulated or market-based HECS will make the student contribution system fairer, because the fees students pay will more closely approximate the value they receive in future earnings.

So there are Labor members who recognise the private benefit and they expose the extraordinary hypocrisy at the heart of Australia's No. 1 whinger's complaint about higher education reform. He should get on board with the member for McMahon and the member for Fraser.