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

When the Labor Party were exiting office, before the 2013 election, they recognised at that time that the reforms to university admissions and the opening up of the demand-driven system required paying for, and that it actually had to be funded by the taxpayer. At the time, the Labor Party proposed an efficiency dividend on universities, only, when they lost that election, to backflip in relation to that policy. It wasn't just the efficiency dividend that the Labor Party proposed; they proposed some $6 billion worth of cuts and savings across the university sector. Now, of course, we see the hypocrisy of the Labor Party, who say no to the Turnbull government's more modest reforms and measures than they proposed. We all know that the best thing to do with Labor is to have a look at what they did and what they do—not at what they say or what they claim, because Mr Shorten's words certainly cannot be trusted. We know that, were they to win, the cuts would be back and the hypocrisy would be exposed. (Time expired)