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

We have a wonderful high-performing university sector in Australia. Almost half of our universities are in the top 300 globally. They have collective surpluses of $1½ billion. They are indeed outstanding institutions that make an important contribution to our country. But they're also institutions, as I said before, that have seen enormous growth in taxpayer funding and support in recent years. Indeed, analysis shows that whilst they've seen per student growth in funding of around 15 per cent, the cost growth has only been around 9½ per cent. What we're asking universities to do as part of our reforms is to find some efficiencies, with a slightly slower trajectory of funding growth in the future—still some 23 per cent growth over the next four years, but a slightly slower trajectory of growth. Indeed, many, such as former vice-chancellor Steven Schwartz and former ANU professor Keith Houghton, have identified that there are real productivity opportunities in the university sector that can be deployed and can ensure they continue to succeed and excel within the budget framework. (Time expired)