Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. Minister, as you know, I oppose your tertiary sector reforms. But, quite apart from these reforms and my concern with them, the University of Tasmania is one of the biggest employers in the state and has developed plans for deep restructuring, capital investment and increasing student numbers. Minister, further to our discussions about the university's plan, what commitment can the federal government now give to help fund this exciting project?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very grateful to the member for Denison for asking me a question about the University of Tasmania's restructuring proposal. He, along with members for Braddon, Bass and Lyons, have been great advocates for supporting higher education in Tasmania, particularly for the opportunity that the government's reforms give for the University of Tasmania to take advantage of those reforms and to restructure their operations, because the University of Tasmania is the second largest employer in Tasmania. The government's higher education reforms give UTAS the chance to massively expand, through the demand driven system, their pathways programs into the sub-bachelor courses like diplomas and associate degrees and, with those extra students and with that extra revenue, spend more on research, more on teaching and more on infrastructure. The government does encourage the University of Tasmania to pursue its restructure, but the restructure cannot occur without the government's higher education reforms. Otherwise there will be buildings across Tasmania—part of the University of Tasmania—that do not have students to fill them, because the rest of the government's higher education reforms will not have been passed.

The member for Denison says that he does not support the government's higher education reforms—and he quotes the University of Tasmania. I tell the member: the University of Tasmania is part of Universities Australia. Universities Australia have spent weeks if not months in this building trying to convince the Labor Party, the Greens and the crossbenchers to vote in favour of the government's higher education reforms. So in fact the University of Tasmania is in favour of those selfsame reforms that the member for Denison has opposed in the past. I would urge the member for Denison to get on board with the government's higher education reforms because, if he does, he is getting on board with the University of Tasmania. If he does that and these reforms pass the Senate today or tomorrow, then the University of Tasmania will be able to not only restructure their operations but thrive in a deregulated environment where they can do even more of their very best quality work and do it even better. They could also provide the vital pathways programs to Tasmanians to help them get into undergraduate degrees, because, as he and I know, Tasmania has the lowest participation in higher education in Australia at 6.7 per cent. I and the members for Bass, Braddon and Lyons—and, I am sure, the member for Denison—all want to give Tasmanians the same opportunity as mainlanders to get to university and to get the benefits that that brings.