Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite talk about newspapers and the like. But the reality for those who really know what goes on at universities is that health, counselling, child care and welfare services are about saving lives. So many people have troubled times when they go from school to university and they need someone to reach out to them via a counselling service. Ripping $170 million out of the universities has impacted on so many lives and, unfortunately, in terms of the economic analysis, so many people have not gone on to productive careers because it was not possible to offer them a helping hand because of the Howard government’s cruel approach to university students. The Howard approach was to treat universities like sausage factories. But university students are human and need to be treated accordingly. Thousands of employment opportunities for students were also abolished. This also impacted on academic services as universities have been forced to direct funds out of research and teaching to fund services and amenities. That is really the biggest crime. Universities understand that they serve human beings—not widgets or economic units, but people who need to be supported. Because they have to support people, they have to take funds away from research and teaching—those core services that those opposite talk about.

Universities are already under significant financial pressure after nearly 12 long years of neglect where we saw funding ripped out of the higher education sector. The OECD’s Education at a glance 2007 report found that public investment by the Howard-Costello government in tertiary education between 1995 and 2004 declined by four per cent, while in all other OECD countries it increased by an average of 49 per cent. That is shameful, especially when, as the member for Tangney pointed out, so many of the people opposite benefited from the university system. The Howard government has many shameful things on its copybook, but to decrease university funding by four per cent is surely one of the most significant.

Unlike the Howard government, the Rudd Labor government has a long-term, enduring commitment to the importance of higher education and our universities. We have a plan for the future. We believe that education is the way to go. It is not a temporary thing. Education and technology are the way forward for this government. So blinded were the Liberal Party by their ideological opposition to student unions—and we certainly saw how deep that feeling was in the previous presentation by the member for Tangney—that they refused to explore credible alternatives and even ignored the calls from the National Party to allow universities to implement a compulsory student services fee. Barnaby Joyce lives in my home town.

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