Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Absolute rubbish, Senator Fifield? How is it that these outside people can determine the attractiveness of university life? You make university more attractive by charging them a compulsory student fee! Let us ask ourselves some fundamental questions. Did the number of enrolments in university go down as a result of voluntary student unionism? We know the answer to that is no, it did not. So how on earth can you assert that it detracted from the attractiveness of university life? Indeed, more students went to university during this era than ever before.

Government senators interjecting—

You cannot assert that that is the case. We can have a look at the value of the degrees. Are we saying that university degrees that have been awarded over the last six years are somehow of less value?

Senator Carol Brown interjecting—

I could just imagine Senator Carol Brown facing a surgeon, saying, 'I am not sure if I want you to operate on me. Can you please tell me whether you got your degree during the voluntary student unionism era, because your university degree was not quite as robust as it otherwise might be.' Or facing a legal challenge and going to a barrister saying, 'I want to make sure that you only got your degree during an era of compulsory student unionism, because I'm not sure your education would be quite as robust as others.

Senator Carol Brown interjecting—

Of course, even Senator Carol Brown has to laugh at that, because that shows the ludicrousness of the situation. We are told that democracy is somehow impeded by giving people a choice. My goodness, that is really politburo stuff, that you have to have compulsion to enjoy democracy. Then we go on to be told that we need these societies and clubs. I remember, back in my day there was the chocolate fanciers club and the aardvark club. Why did they have all these clubs?