Senator BILYK (Tasmania—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:15): I too rise to take note today and debate the fairly disappointing answers given by Senator Abetz to questions by Senator Carr. Senator Abetz's answers were evasive and certainly failed to address the substance of this issue. They were pretty disappointing and typical of the cavalier attitude that the Abbott government has to this place, Labor, the crossbench senators and the Australian people. It is common knowledge that only through education will Australia be fully developed to our economic potential, our scientific potential and, in fact, our people's potential. So why is the Prime Minister and Minister Pyne continuing to try to cut money from higher education? Why are they trying to destroy the higher education system? Labor will vote against cuts to university funding and student support. We will vote against them and we will not support a system of higher fees, bigger student debt, reduced access and greater inequality. We will never, ever agree that education should only be available if you have the capacity to pay. Since the budget, we have seen that it is not only Labor that opposes the government's unfair and short-sighted higher education package; Australians overall oppose them. They oppose cuts of up to 37 per cent to public funding for undergraduate courses. We hear from the other side that university fees are not going to rise, but we know that that is not true. If you look around the world, there are examples—like in the UK—where university fees have risen substantially for people. Those on the other side need to take full account of what is happening in other places. Lots of us have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and young people we know. We want to see them have the same opportunities that we have been able to have. Maybe some of us have not had that opportunity, but we still want to see that opportunity for the next generation to pursue their education at Australia's best universities without facing crippling debt. It is pretty amazing that today Minister Pyne had to make another embarrassing backflip. It is pretty hard for anybody to keep track of where the government is at in regard to higher education. Senator Conroy: Another backflip! Senator BILYK: Yes, another one, Senator Conroy. It is pretty hard for people to keep up on where the government is at. Minister Pyne had to make a backflip on the bullying tactics of trying to hold the scientific community as hostages to get the higher education package through. That was an obviously wonderful strategy that somebody had come up with on that side! They really backflipped. It really was not going to work for them. The crossbenchers in particular were very angry about that being held to ransom and having the 1,700 jobs of the scientists being held to ransom. Minister Pyne had threatened funding for 1,700 research jobs unless members of this place voted through his unfair $100,000 degrees and 20 per cent cuts to university funding. The minister threatened to absolutely destroy Australia's research sector unless this place made his petty, cruel cuts to higher education. He had to backflip. Yet again, it is another backdown by the government. They go in there and they have these thought bubbles. I doubt they are discussing it with themselves, because members of the Senate backbench were very upset by this happening. We even had Senator Bernardi saying that move appeared counterproductive. I do not know who they are talking to on that side. I would suggest that they do a lot more talking to a lot more people and that they stop having these rushes of blood to the brain where they think that they can bully people and intimidate people. They had to back down on the GP tax and now they have had to back down from reducing funding. The funding was already there; that funding was already in the forward estimates. There was 21 months' worth of funding left there when the government came to power. They should have been able to make sure that funding was continuing without having to threaten or cajole— (Time expired)