Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister inform the House how the government's higher-education reforms, announced in the budget, will help more students gain a higher-education qualification on the New South Wales Central Coast and in other regional areas?

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

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. Yesterday I was very fortunate to meet with the mayors of Wyong and Gosford, from the New South Wales Central Coast, who are both very ably represented by the member for Dobell and the member for Robertson, very ably represented by them both. They were very pleased to hear how the government's higher-education reforms will be of such enormous benefit to a regional area like the Central Coast of NSW.

It will be of benefit in three particular ways. They were very pleased to hear that because we are extending taxpayer subsidies, per student, to non-university higher-education providers that will be a financial shot in the arm to the four TAFEs that exist on the Central Coast of New South Wales; and on National TAFE Day it is good to be able to explain to TAFEs that they will get a large financial support out of the government, because of that first aspect of our reforms.

Secondly, of course, we are removing the cap on diplomas and associate degrees so that universities—like the University of Newcastle—which offer a high preponderance of such associate degrees and diplomas, especially on the Central Coast, will be able to expand their offerings to students in an area that will service, eventually, 400,000 people on the NSW Central Coast. That will be a widening of opportunity to more students, particularly for those of low-socioeconomic-status backgrounds, who typically use those kinds of courses to go into undergraduate degrees and find a pathway to university.

Finally, if the University of Newcastle does not take up the opportunity of both the lifting of the cap and the expansion of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme's non-university higher education providers, then the competition that we have created in the market will allow new entrants into the Central Coast of New South Wales to compete with the University of Newcastle, so forcing the University of Newcastle to, in fact, offer those courses—if they want to keep their market—or the new providers, using the new freedoms of a deregulated system, will be able to give low-SES young people on the New South Wales Central Coast the opportunity to get a higher-education qualification and improve their chances of increasing their income over a lifetime.

It is very good news for regional Australia, in the higher-education reforms, and the mayors were very pleased to see it. These two measures alone are costing $820 million. So our priorities are to put $820 million into higher education. Labor's priority is to spend $1 billion a month—being sent to debtors overseas—to pay the interest alone on the government's debt that was left to us by Labor. Labor's priority is a billion dollars a month in interest repayments; ours is $820 million to expand opportunity.