Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

We are going to continue to support record levels of investment and assistance to Australian universities and to the higher education sector. Ours is a government that proudly delivered the National Innovation and Science Agenda, which delivered a decade of certainty in funding for collaborative research infrastructure across Australia, that is providing better systems to drive greater collaboration between our universities and researchers.

We have overseen record growth in terms of student numbers and, as a result, the delivery of an environment that is seeing the third-largest export sector in Australia—that being higher education, and education generally, and the learning opportunities that we are providing to students right around the world. Through these reforms, we are providing financial sustainability and certainty to universities, so that they will continue to have uncapped places; to students, so that they can continue to have a guarantee of no up-front fees; and to taxpayers, so that the system will be financially sustainable into the future.