Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) to a question without notice asked by Senator Lambie today relating to funding for higher education.

Minister Birmingham misled Australians when he referred to his higher education bill as reform. Spending cuts are not reform, and the bill is nothing but a cost-cutting venture. If Minister Birmingham gets his way and his higher education bill passes the Senate, students will pay more, sooner, for less. They will more quickly accrue a larger debt, which they will be asked to pay off before they are financially ready to, and for what? What does the government seriously think is going to happen when the universities respond to massive cuts to their budgets? Does he think universities won't make tough decisions like closing down regional campuses? When you cut a university's funding, they won't just shrug it off; they will withdraw their investments in infrastructure and student accommodation, cancel their investment in start-up incubators and innovation hubs and cut research even further.

Who wins from this? Australian students won't have access to world-class education. They will only have access to a bare-bones education. It is what has become of Prime Minister Turnbull's innovation agenda. Is the Prime Minister's commitment to innovation so shallow that he would reserve his deepest, most damaging cuts for centres of innovation all around the country? A postgraduate voucher system will create uncertainty for universities, preventing them from doing crucial planning. It would be simpler to just not run postgraduate qualifications altogether. The performance contingent funding and efficiency dividend will lock a huge number of disadvantaged and regional students out of the opportunity to chase their dreams and further themselves and their families.

You can wave goodbye to Australia, the lucky country, the land of opportunity. You can wave goodbye to a fair go for all. Instead, Australia will become a land where the rich get richer and the poor just keep getting poorer. Instead of attracting the best of the best from all over the world to engage in world-class research, we will lose our best students and researchers to countries that actually value a higher education as an asset, not just a cost. We will lose jobs, investment and export opportunities to countries that value higher education and the role it has to play in the economy, in building vibrant cities and in boosting wage growth.

No other sector has been subjected to cuts this devastating in the 2017-18 budget. They are the largest cuts to universities in two decades. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your innovative and agile government. The government says no sector is immune from the need for budget repair, but keep in mind that the university sector has already been forced to make savings of $3.9 billion since 2011. Now the government is looking to slash another $3.8 billion from the Education Investment Fund, from infrastructure funding.

The government's rhetoric that universities can afford these cuts because they are all profiting is an absolute joke. Universities do not profit. When a university is lucky enough to post a surplus, it is invested in research infrastructure or student support programs. That is what is under attack with this bill: research, infrastructure and student support programs. We'll lose the things that enrich the country because, apparently, we're not rich enough to afford them.

Minister Birmingham has attempted to mislead the public throughout this debate, trying to paint universities as bloated bureaucracies growing fat on the public purse. But the reality is that cutting universities means making students fund the cuts with higher fees. Let's not forget the hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs that are at risk from these cuts. What does the coalition government think that will do to the communities where the university is the largest employer? In fact, the University of Tasmania is one of the biggest employers in the whole state. Any job cuts in the current economic climate would be absolutely devastating.

What does the coalition government have against further education for Australians? If Minister Birmingham wants to talk about reforms, great; then let's talk about reform. But don't insult us by taking a bill for budget cuts and rebadging it as reform. Real reform would look at finding the right funding balance between teaching and research. Real reform would invest more into research so Australian students can lead the way on breakthroughs and innovation. Real reform asks, 'What are we trying to achieve?' not just, 'What are we trying to cut?' This isn't reform; this is, plainly speaking, a ramraid.

Question agreed to.