Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry. Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I remember a time when left-wing activists would complain about the compulsorily acquired student money that was directed to build the palaces at Mount Buller and around the sports unions all around Australia, but that obviously was in a day gone past.

This will cost students a substantial amount of money. It is easily $1,000 for a basic three-year degree when you include indexation and the time taken to pay it back. It could easily be $2,000 for a five-year degree when the same factors are taken into account. And for what? For nothing more than fulfilling the ideological promises of those opposite, which is to reinstate the slush fund that was student union money. They must be getting particularly desperate regarding the next election.

Those on this side have been fighting this battle since 1977 and the famous Clark v The University of Melbourne case, named after Robert Clark, the current Attorney-General of Victoria. While they may think they have a temporary victory out of this, we will not rest until this injustice against students is addressed. Those opposite do not have an argument. They only have a prejudice, and that is that somehow students cannot be trusted to purchase the services they need, that somehow they must be forced and corralled into purchasing the services and subsidising the political activities of what those opposite believe.