Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I pointed out, this bill seeks to increase student participation in universities. It is demand driven, and that requires funding—and that funding has to come from somewhere. What I am pointing out is that every indication we get from this government is that it is not going to be able to provide that funding. I think that is directly relevant to this bill. It is all very well for us to talk about aspirations to get student numbers increased in universities. That is fine. But you also have to provide the resources to do it. I will give a very quick example so I can get back to the three important details of this bill. We only have to look at mandating hours for kindergartens for four-year-olds and what impact that is having in country areas. In my electorate it is likely that we will see country kindergartens close because the mandating of those extra hours has not seen the government provide extra resources. So this is directly relevant. I am happy to take the honourable member to my electorate and to sit him down with the relevant kindergartens so they can deal with the issues.

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