Topics: Higher education reforms, Medical research fund.
E&OE…
CHRIS HAMMER
We’re joined by Senator Scott Ryan, Liberal Senator for Victoria, also the Parliamentary Secretary for Education. Good morning, Senator.
SCOTT RYAN
Good morning, Chris.
HAMMER
The Government’s higher education bill didn’t pass the Senate. Why not? Was it a problem with the policy or was it a problem with the negotiations?
RYAN
Well, Chris you’ll need to ask those who didn’t vote for it why they didn’t vote for it. The Government announced these measures in the Budget because we knew that our higher education system couldn’t keep going the way it was. And for the first time ever, the entire university sector was on board supporting the reform agenda put forward by Christopher Pyne. It was disappointing that it didn’t get passed in the Senate yesterday.
We have taken on board some amendments proposed by the crossbenchers, particularly around the interest rate on loans and pausing indexation for people who take time out of the workforce for family reasons, and the bill is being introduced in the House of Representatives today by Christopher Pyne with those amendments incorporated.
HAMMER
Given the problems that you’ve had negotiating with this and not getting it through, why the rush to reintroduce the bill before talking further to the crossbenchers?
RYAN
Well, Chris, reform is always difficult. We’ve never shied away from the fact that these were – this is – a challenging Senate, but we’ve always said that we will negotiate with the crossbenchers in good faith. The important thing to remember here, though, is we’re only in this position because Labor and the Greens point-blank refuse to accept that the current situation is unsustainable. They have no plan for Australian universities whatsoever. All the university sectors are saying we need reform. All the university sectors are saying the current system is unsustainable, yet Labor and the Greens are both refusing to engage.
HAMMER
Well, given that the need for reform is so necessary and so obvious, why hasn’t the Government been able to convince the crossbench to support your reforms?
RYAN
Well, we only went down by two votes. I mean, if Labor and the Greens decide, as they have, that they’ll put their head in the sand and block any meaningful change, then we need six out of the eight crossbenchers. We effectively got four out of the eight yesterday.
Now, the reason it’s being reintroduced in the House of Representatives today, Chris, is in my experience it is easier to negotiate with the crossbenchers, and it is easier to negotiate with Members of Parliament, when you have a bill in front of you to talk about, whether that be about specific amendments and wording, or whether that be in terms of the principles. But reintroducing it also sends the signal that this Government is serious about making our higher education system more sustainable, but also giving it the power to serve students better.
HAMMER
The proposals, though, have been knocked back by the Senate – it is a blow to the Government’s agenda. What has the Government learnt from that?
RYAN
Well, I think in this change in particular, let’s be honest, we got four of the eight crossbenchers – we finished up two votes short. We’ve incorporated the amendments from some crossbenchers – John Madigan and Bob Day – in the bill that’s being reintroduced in the House of Representatives. I actually think that we are part of the way through the process, and the Government’s going to focus on the aspects of this bill that are so critical to increasing opportunity.
After all, there are 80,000 Australian students who, in future years, will benefit from this reform bill through access to publicly supported, effectively interest-free, loans for the first time. We’re going to keep prosecuting that case over the summer break and early in the new year. And we know for the first time ever, we have the entire university sector on-side.
HAMMER
If the problem is a long-term structural one – how to fund higher education, how to fund universities off in the future – wouldn’t these policies have been better if they had been, say, phased in over three or four years with a capping or a phasing in of the new fee structure? That would have, perhaps, made it more acceptable for the crossbench, but it certainly would have made it more understandable, if you like, for those people considering going to university.
RYAN
Well, let’s also remember, Chris, this isn’t just about those people going to university. This is about those people taking other education pathways, and at the moment if you take a course that is a bridging course because you might not have done as well as you thought you could’ve in Year 12, and you think to yourself ‘I’m not ready for university – I need something to build my study skills in order to succeed at university’ – if you take one of those courses, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they are more expensive than going to university because you don’t get access to the HECS scheme to support them. You don’t get access to the interest-free loans scheme to support them the way you would if you went straight to university.
This is partly about expanding access so that those people who might be first in family, those people who might come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, who currently often have a higher dropout rate at university, have the pathways and support necessary to allow them to succeed. So, there shouldn’t be the simple focus on Labor’s scare campaign, unfounded though it is, on fees in a couple of degree courses at a couple of our sandstone universities.
HAMMER
Isn’t one of the problems with this reforms package that it has bundled together several different measures? Now, the changes to HECS have basically been taken back out, but there’s still the deregulation of university fees – it’s been [inaudible] something like a 20 per cent cut in Government spending, so it’s a kind of budgetary measure. And isn’t that why some of the crossbenchers, and indeed perhaps Labor and the Greens, have balked at the reforms, because you’ve bundled two different issues together?
RYAN
But this is the challenge, Chris. In all complex policy areas of Australia, there is no silver bullet. And we can’t keep sustaining the rapid increases in growth in spending that Labor put in landmines in our Budget. Labor, when they deregulated the number of students that go to universities, the system’s not sustainable in the long-term if higher education funding keeps growing at the rate it has over the last seven or eight years.
And let’s put in context that the subsidy, on average, per student will still be 50 per cent – it will drop from about 60 per cent to about 50 per cent, give or take a couple of points. That still means the Australian taxpayer’s wearing half the cost, on average, of someone going to university. If anyone thinks that that difference is critical to some sort of alleged fairness, then they haven’t looked at the history of the way HECS works in Australia, and HECS, through being a deferred interest-free loan, has shown to not have an impact on people from different backgrounds going to universities. It has funded the expansion of opportunity.
HAMMER
Okay, just thinking about the political process, many of the measures in the Budget weren’t flagged before the election – they weren’t even flagged that much before the Budget. They kind of caught people a bit by surprise – possibly caught the Senate by surprise. Looking forward to next year’s Budget, and clearly the Budget situation means the Government will be looking for further savings. Can the process be improved so there’s more an indication of where the Government’s heading? Perhaps, more consultation with the interest groups so the Government can perhaps do a better job in making the case for a reform?
RYAN
Well, to be fair, I think that there was a very clear awareness at the election by the Australian electorate that the Budget situation was completely unsustainable, and I think that was shown up in the result, it was also shown up in a lot of public debate.
When you say that the Senate might have been a bit surprised, again, that is only because Labor and the Greens refuse – refuse point-blank – to consider virtually any measure that will help bring the Budget back into balance. Now, the Greens are fanatical and extremists on the Budget – they don’t think budget deficits matter. But what’s truly amazing is that we’re trying to implement some of the policies that Labor announced before the last election, and were in their last Budget. And Labor won’t even let us keep their promises on some spending measures, which is truly extraordinary.
The Budget, as we’ll see in MYEFO when it comes out – when it’s released by Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann – still has substantial problems. And it is simply not an option for Australia to keep borrowing money at the rate that it is. And I think MYEFO, when it’s released before Christmas, will play a very important part in reminding, particularly people in Canberra, that there’s no point to keep coming and knocking on Ministers’ doors saying ‘I want more money for my pet project’.
HAMMER
Now, I’ve made the assertion there that perhaps the Budget caught, perhaps the public and the crossbench by surprise. There’s a story on the front page of The Australian this morning that’s essentially saying that the Government backbench is harking up – that it’s been caught a bit by surprise by some of these measures. It’s not prepared to just rubber stamp proposals coming out of Cabinet – the case in point is that they haven’t approved the legislation that would set up the Medical Research Fund. That does indicate that there is a communications problem coming out of the Government’s leadership if its own backbench isn’t happy, let alone the public or the Senate.
RYAN
Well, I think one could take an alternative view, which is that it’s actually government functioning entirely appropriately. It’s a Government listening to its backbench and also we have these vibrant processes inside our party room. Bills need to go through processes before they come to the party room for approval, and they are subject to scrutiny and discussion. This is how the process works. Without some of the inflammatory language that the journalists might use, internal debate is a good thing in government. It is something this Government is proud of, it’s not something we shy away from.
HAMMER
So there should be more rather than less?
RYAN
Any idea is better when it’s tested by debate.
HAMMER
Okay, Senator Scott Ryan, thanks for your time today.
RYAN
Thanks Chris.
(Ends)