Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Just under 30 years ago a member of this chamber took their first tentative steps into the political fray by nominating themselves as a first-year student for election to the august position of student representative of the University of Adelaide's education standing committee. It was a bashful start; the member in question could not manage to include a picture of themselves in their materials. That being said, they did provide an election statement—a formal statement of their raison d'etre for running for election. In their statement the bashful member said:

I feel it my duty to stand for election and do everything possible to forestall the introduction of fees and indeed to end any movement by the federal government to introduce fees.

I happen to support the imposition of income-contingent, reasonable-deferred-repayment university fees for university students, but I do understand that 30 years ago many idealistic young Labor members opposed fees of this kind. The extraordinary thing is that this election statement was not made by a Labor MP. It was not the member for Adelaide. It was not the member for Kingston. It was not the member for Port Adelaide. Who could this be? It was the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne.

How could this be? Did the education minister undergo an ideological epiphany from student socialist to high tory over the past 30 years, or is there another explanation? The education minister's comments in a recent interview with the ABC's Fran Kelly about another coalition MP's awkward history in student politics might be enlightening in this regard. Minister for Education Christopher Pyne's explanation for the disconnect between the historical comments and the government's current policy was:

You don't get elected as student politician by saying the opposite to what the voters in your university are thinking.'

Fast forward 30 years, and this is exactly the contemptuous, cynical, deceptive approach that the minister is taking in his latest elected office. Before the last federal election, the coalition's Real Solutions policy pamphlet—another document that, surprisingly enough, is also missing the face of the education minister—made this promise to the Australian people:

We will ensure the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding.

The education minister made the meaning of this commitment crystal clear when he gave an interview on Sky News in November just last year after the election. Responding when asked whether he would like to raise university fees, he said:

I'm not even considering it because we promised that we wouldn't. Tony Abbott made it very clear before the election that we would keep our promises.

Six months later comes the federal budget, and Australians have found that the word of the federal education minister is worth just as little as the word of the student politician. A cut of $1.9 billion in Commonwealth funding for university places, a broken promise that will force universities to start raising fees—for Australian students this means hikes in the cost of their degrees of at least 30 per cent just to replace what the government's broken promise has taken out. It means engineering students will be paying up to 58 people cent more to make up for the cut. Nursing students will pay 24 per cent more for their nursing degrees. Our environmental studies students will have to pay 110 per cent more to study their courses.

Even more fundamentally, the deregulation of fees means that universities can charge whatever they would like for these degrees. If the market will bear over $100,000 for a law degree, as it is at the University of Melbourne, that is what students will pay. We saw in WA today that we are already seeing more $100,000 degrees. It is a shift in our higher education system towards the rich and away from the smart. It means our bright young students from disadvantaged families will learn that it is money, not merit that determines their future. It means our universities will cater for a narrow elite, not the egalitarian majority needed by the Australian economy and our society.

But this deception did not end with the budget. No, in the second reading speech of the higher education bills the education minister claimed, 'Students will benefit the most.' In an interview on the ABC's Insiders program the education minister claimed, 'Students will always be the winners.' If students will always be the winners, why didn't you tell them before the election? Why keep it a secret? If it is so great, make it a vote winner.

You have to go back to Victor Hugo to find out the education minister's animated political philosophy:

… he does not speak, he lies. This man lies as other men breathe. He announces an honest intention; be on your guard: he makes an assertion, distrust him: he takes an oath, tremble.

The Australian people did not vote for these changes at the last election and they do not want them. The Australian Labor Party will fight these changes every step of the way through this place. We will fight them every step of the way in our community and we will fight them all the way through the next election, when we kick this deceitful government out.

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