Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill 2010. In commencing my remarks I will say that it is another day and—guess what?—another tax by the Labor Party. On 17 August 2009, I spoke on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009. This was a bill that was twice put before the Senate and was defeated on both occasions. But did the government actually learn its lesson? Clearly, no, it did not. What do we have today? We have the government introducing, yet again, a piece of legislation that is substantially the same. All that has changed is the date. It now refers to 2010 as opposed to 2009.

Having studied the 2010 bill, the most offensive part of the former bill, the part which forces students to pay for services that they cannot or will not be able to use, has stayed the same. Under the 2010 bill, consistent with the 2009 bill—again, I repeat that it was a bill that was defeated in the parliament—every one of Australia's one million students will be forced to pay $250 a year regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of their ability or willingness to use the services their fees will be financing. Only a Labor government and one with a strong socialist bent could introduce such insidious and morally objectionable legislation. Then again, this is a Labor government that is in a very unholy alliance with the Greens. Anyone who has read the speech given by the member for Melbourne in the other place on this bill would have to agree with the comments made by the member for Indi when she said, referring to the member for Melbourne's speech:

… once a Trot, always a Trot—you can put a suit on, you can wear a nice, trendy silk tie, but once a Trot, always a Trot.

This bill amounts to a $250 million new tax on those in our society who can least afford to pay it. Students are already struggling under the current tough economic conditions that the Labor Party keeps telling us about.

What does this bill mean? This bill means for students $250 less for textbooks, study materials, transport and the cost of living or, at best, $250 more in a HECS debt. Do you know what the height of hypocrisy is surrounding this bill? It is the annual indexation of the levy. Under this bill, we have a government that is committed to annually indexing a tax on struggling students to ensure they pay more each year. But when it comes to supporting families who are struggling to meet the costs of child care, the Labor government takes the exact opposite stance. Remember the pain that those opposite, the Labor government, inflicted on families by capping the childcare rebate at $7,500 per annum for the next four years and suspending the annual indexation of the rebate for parents? The capping of the childcare rebate and the suspension of the annual indexation, we were told, was to compensate in some small way for Labor's mismanagement of the economy because it would generate savings. So the Gillard Labor government's profligacy and poor financial management means that there will be a reduction in the childcare rebate for approximately 20,700 families who struggle to meet the costs associated with child care.

What it comes down to is that you just cannot win with the Gillard Labor government. This is a government that, by its actions represented in the legislation that we see coming before the parliament, likes to slug the most vulnerable of those in society. But it is also a government that, on the promises it makes before an election, says all bets are off when it actually assumes power. We have before us a government that has manipulated the trust and the confidence of the Australian people by making specific promises to them in the run-up to an election when at the very same time it had a secret political agenda that was based on its intention to never, ever carry out those pre-election promises. The Rudd government and the Gillard government have shown that the Labor Party is big on promises but consistently fails to deliver on them. The Rudd government and the Gillard government have shown to the Australian people that they are prepared to deceive the Australian community by making pre-election promises without any intention of actually carrying out those promises. We have seen that in so many portfolio areas. Remember that, in relation to the 2007 election, the Labor Party told the people of Australia that it would not introduce what it likes to refer to as an amenities fee, but is, for those of us who see right through Labor Party rhetoric, a compulsory student tax. The then shadow minister for education and now Minister for Defence, the member for Perth, Mr Stephen Smith, said during a doorstop in May 2007:

I'm not considering a compulsory HECS-style arrangement and the whole basis of the approach is one of a voluntary approach so I'm not contemplating a compulsory amenities fee.

That was in 2007, just five months before the election was called. It was a time when, one might say in hindsight, Labor tongues were rather loose with the truth. This was a clear and unambiguous promise not to introduce a compulsory amenities fee. But, as we all fall come to know, for the Australian Labor Party that was merely an election promise—a little like the promise the now Prime Minister gave to the people of Australia the day before the 2010 election. When asked whether she would introduce a carbon tax, the now Prime Minister responded: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.'

One can only conclude—the Australian public can only conclude—that election promises mean absolutely nothing to the Australian Labor Party. We had the emphatic ruling out of a carbon tax the day before the 2010 election. Lo and behold! When Ms Gillard took office what did she do? She did a complete backflip and, as we saw last week, presented to the parliament the legislation whereby the most blatant, deceptive lie that has ever been told to the Australian public is about to be perpetrated on them. Does the Labor Party care? Of course not. The horrid truth of ALP powerbroker Graham Richardson's statement: 'Labor will do whatever it takes to succeed and retain power,' has yet again been confirmed. Then of course we have the famous line from the member for Kingsford Smith, Mr Peter Garrett, just prior to the 2007 election, who said, 'Once we get in, we'll just change it all.' Principles and sound policy mean absolutely nothing to those opposite. They are motivated solely by a self-serving desire to retain power and sit on the government benches.

Despite the Labor Party's protestations, there is no good news for students in this bill. This bill slugs university students with a $250 tax that will be indexed annually. The Labor Party can dress the wolf up in sheep's clothing and call it an amenities fee, but the plain truth of the matter is that this is a tax; it is nothing more and nothing less. It is more spin over substance by the Australian Labor Party. The spin prior to the 2007 election, the line that was being fed to the Australian people, was that the Labor Party would not impose a compulsory amenities fee. The substance of that promise, as was evidenced in the 2009 bill and is now evidenced in the 2010 bill, is that the Australian Labor Party always intended to slug university students with a $250 compulsory amenities fee. In introducing the 2009 legislation in the other place, the then Minister for Youth and Sport said in her second reading speech, 'This bill is not compulsory student unionism.' This is exactly where the problem lies. The Australian Labor Party has a history of saying one thing but actually meaning another. With the Australian Labor Party it is all about semantics. We should be very concerned, therefore, when we hear the relevant minister say that this bill is not about compulsory student union unionism. Because based on the Labor Party's history on this matter and having regard to the tricky and devious way they use semantics to shroud their real intentions, it is very likely that the bill is compulsory student unionism or a clayton's form of it. There we have it; nothing more and nothing less. This bill represents a return to compulsory student unionism in Australia.

Changing demographics and culture mean that most students today simply do not have the time, the inclination or even the opportunity to actually access the services that are offered. Universities today are mainstream; they are not elite. More students are older, more study part time and in the evenings due to competing work and family commitments and many more take advantage of greater flexibility and competition, as well as opportunities that new communications technologies bring, to study externally. For example, there are around 130,000 students studying externally and they are going to be slugged by the $250 annual fee, but they will never have the opportunity to access services.

Students themselves, unlike student politicians, are not interested in student unions or the services that student unions provide. In a poll commissioned by none other than the Australian Democrats, 59 per cent of students voted against compulsory fees. At most, five per cent of students ever vote in student union elections. A similarly small minority currently voluntary joins student unions and pays the fees. What does this mean? In black and white, pretty much, on those statistics it means that the majority of students, not that a majority has ever worried the Australian Labor Party, does not want to pay a compulsory student fee. On the face of it, there is nothing remarkable about this bill. It provides universities with the ability to implement a services fee capped at $250 a year. However, as with much of the legislation put forward by the Labor Party, one needs to read it very carefully. When one reads this legislation one realises that the devil is in the detail. On closer examination, the provisions of this legislation fail even the most cursory tests of impartiality and accountability. The system remains open to political abuse and is devoid of effective enforcement mechanisms. While the bill prohibits universities or any third parties that might receive money from spending it in support of political parties or political candidates, there is, low and behold, nothing in the bill to prevent the money being spent on political campaigns, political causes or quasi-political organisations per se, whether or not students want their money spent on such causes. But choice has never been flavour of the month for the Australian Labor Party.

Even with this prohibition on the direct support for political parties and candidates, one has to wonder how this prohibition will be policed. There is nothing. There is no credible enforcement or sanction mechanisms provided for in the bill. This is hardly surprising. The bill merely states that it is up to the universities to ensure that the money is not spent on political parties and candidates without providing the universities any power to enforce this. Student guilds or unions target individual issues and run politically motivated campaigns against parties or groups. Yet, what do we have? Nothing in the legislation prevents them from still doing this. But, again, we expect nothing less from the Australian Labor Party.

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of these provisions is that there appears to be nothing to prevent student unions using the fees in an approved way to run the university cafeteria, for instance, but then using the profits generated from the university cafeteria to fund political activities, political campaigns and political propaganda, which is explicitly disallowed by the legislation. This is a tricky form of political money laundering, if you will, and it is a loophole which the minister is completely aware of, but which I doubt those with a philosophical bent towards student unionism will ever change.

Despite the Labor Party's rhetoric, this bill represents compulsory student unionism by stealth. Freedom of association, including a concept that is very new to those on the other side—that is, the freedom not to join an association—remains one of the core beliefs of the coalition. This bill attempts to reintroduce compulsory student unionism, which in turn may fund the activities of student unions. In the past, student unions have proven themselves to be very adept at using the profits from allowable activities to effectively cross-subsidise activities for which direct funding was disallowed.

The coalition will continue to oppose this legislation if and when this legislation is brought before this chamber again. It was bad legislation when it was debated and defeated in 2009; it continues to be bad legislation in 2011. The Australian people, but in particular the majority of university students who do not want to be slugged this $250 by the Australian Labor Party, know that this legislation is nothing more and nothing less than compulsory student unionism by stealth by the Australian Labor Party. They are not fools and they will not allow the Australian Labor Party to treat them as is if they are fools. We have in this place today a bill that the Labor Party swears is not compulsory student unionism but which is supported by the Australian Labor Party, who are committed advocates of compulsory student unionism. For all intents and purposes, the bill has a fee structure much like a previous version of legislation that has been debated and which was nothing more and nothing less than compulsory student unionism. Despite the rhetoric from those opposite, this legislation is without a doubt compulsory student unionism by any other name.

I am proud to be part of a political party that believes in upholding the principle of freedom of association for students. I am proud to be part of a party that will continue to fight to preserve the fundamental rights of students to choose to belong to or, more importantly, not to belong to a student union, student guild or student association. The Liberal Party will continue to stand up for the rights of university students and will continue to expose the Gillard Labor government for what it is—that is, a high-taxing government.

As I have previously said in this place, the Liberal Party wants university students to succeed, because when our students succeed we as a country succeed in this competitive global environment. The last thing university students need is an additional financial burden being imposed on them at this time when there is massive economic slowdown in Australia. I say to the Australian Labor Party: do not crucify our students in an attempt to advance your own cheap political agenda. Unnecessarily taxing students is bad policy; it is bad for this country. This bill should patently not pass this chamber.