Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. It staggers me as to how much longer, and I suspect it will be until the next election, this Abbott government is going to go on hoodwinking the Australian people that, somehow, whatever it says does not represent a broken promise or indeed is an untruth. One of the biggest areas of hoodwinking of Australian voters must be in the area of university funding; it has to be in that area. I want to draw the Senate's attention to the Labor Party's substantial dissenting report—a well-researched document, a lot of facts and figures—unlike the majority report, which is quite emotive in parts. Our report has facts and figures based on what our own research tells us and of course based on the evidence that we heard.

I want to start with budget night. What we found out on budget night, despite promises to the contrary from Mr Abbott in the lead-up to the election, was the announcement of the most radical shake-up of higher education in 30 years. You might think that that is fair enough if the government had alerted the Australian voters before the election of its desire to do that. But no, that budget announcement, that radical shake-up, the most radical shake-up of higher education in this country for 30 years, came completely out of the blue. The Abbott government gave no indication in its statements either prior to or immediately after the 2013 election that it was anticipating radical changes in higher education. I would like to quote the Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, and what he promised in 2013:

In an era of busy government and constant change, it's insufficiently recognised how often masterly inactivity can be the best contribution that government can make to a particular sector … A period of relative policy stability in which changes already made can be digested and adjusted to, such as the move to demand-driven funding, is probably what our universities most need now.

He went on:

We will be a stable and consultative government. If we put in place a policy or a program, we will see it through. If we have to change it, we will consult beforehand …

Let me just repeat that:

If we have to change it, we will consult beforehand, rather than impose it unilaterally and argue about it afterwards. We understand the value of stability and certainty, even to universities.

I put it to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that what we have seen from the Abbott government in this radical change to universities is completely that: a unilateral change without any consultation. Certainly, as members of the committee that inquired into the bill before us, we asked universities if they were consulted and none of them were. Even if you try and gloss over it and say that the billions of dollars being taken out of universities is somehow magically still there, the fact is that this government has put in place the most radical change in 30 years without one skerrick of consultation. That just follows its pattern of broken promises and of no consultation—of, 'We're in government; we're doing what we want.'

The other thing that shows us that this is policy on the run is all the mistakes that the various ministers made when trying to explain this policy. We saw Christopher Pyne saying, 'No, this new student debt won't be retrospective,' and yet it was. We have seen mistake after mistake by Minister Pyne in trying to explain this package. That tells me that this package was done on the run. Somebody came up with a bright idea, perhaps on the back of an envelope, and it was given to Minister Pyne to implement without any plan. You either know the truth and don't want to admit it or you don't know it, and clearly Minister Pyne did not realise that his new student debt would be retrospective. And on and on it goes.

I want to start at the heart of this package, which is the 20 per cent cut to universities. It does not matter how the government tries to dress it up; it is a cut. Interestingly, we have heard senators on the government side trying to say that, overwhelmingly, universities support this package—well, they do not. During the inquiry, we did not find a university that said, 'Please, I put my hand up. Give me a 20 per cent cut in funding.' Every single university had real concerns about that 20 per cent cut in funding. That is what is at the heart of this package.

Then we go to fee deregulation. It is not fee deregulation; it is just charging whatever students will pay. It is just turning universities into a market. It is imposing an American system on our system in Australia. We have seen the failed markets in various parts of the world and here we are, taking our institutes of higher education and simply turning them into a market. Indeed, some of the witnesses to the Senate inquiry referred to going to Myer and having a choice of shirts. It is beyond words to suggest that we are down at that level of competition. It is ridiculous to suggest that. But the 20 per cent cut has to be found somewhere, and all universities expressed concerns about this cut and this loss of vital income. There was no dissent from that. The fact, of course, is that this loss of income can only be recouped from one source, and that source is students, by imposing unimaginable debt on people at a very young age—in their early 20s or, if they do a doctorate, maybe even into their mid- and later 20s. Imposing lifelong debt, unimaginable debt, on very young people shows that the Abbott government has complete disregard for students.

The government come in here, day after day, and say that they do not want to be the government to impose debt on future generations—but that is exactly what the Abbott government are doing here. There is no getting away from the fact that they are imposing a massive future debt on a young person, a debt of at least $100,000 and possibly more. We have already seen the University of Western Australia, in my state, put its fees up. The University of Western Australia is one of the universities that advocates for people to do four and five years of study, and for longer degrees we will see these sorts of debts being incurred by students.

It is fair to say that the vice-chancellors did not have a lot to say about student debt, but they certainly had a lot to say about the interest charge. There was not a university—

Debate interrupted.