Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia—Assistant Minister for Education and Training) (16:13): Let me attempt to bring not only a little calm to the debate compared to the contribution we just heard but also attempt to bring a little sanity and truthfulness to the debate compared with the contribution we have just heard. Ever since the budget last year when Minister Pyne revealed the government's plan to put the higher education system of Australia, our universities, on a sustainable footing with a sustainable funding model that would support them well into the future, all we have heard from the Labor Party is a constant barrage of lies, a constant barrage of scare tactics and a constant stream of fear mongering, and we heard more of that today from Senator Carr. It is necessary to repeat again and again in this debate that first and foremost— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Birmingham, please resume your seat. Senator Bullock: The President made a very firm statement about inferring that members of this House were lying. And that is what we just had from Senator Birmingham. If we are going to enforce the standards which the President outlined, I think we might start now. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Bullock. Senator Birmingham, the President did make a statement about lies and lying attributed to other members in the other place and here. You may wish to reflect on the use of that particular descriptive word. Senator BIRMINGHAM: If it pleases the chair, I will withdraw the word. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you. Senator BIRMINGHAM: It in no way withdraws the reality that Senator Carr and those opposite have, for a continuous period of time, been running a scare campaign, a campaign involving fearmongering, a campaign involving mistruths and misinformation spread right throughout the Australian community. Let us just be very clear about this. First and foremost, the reforms proposed by this government maintain at their heart very significant reforms adopted by a previous Labor government, the Keating government, and that is that there are no up-front fees for Australian students. Let us be very clear about that. There is nothing that Australian students or their families need fear. The fact that stands alongside that is that, ever since the HECS system was introduced, under the Hawke Labor government, we have seen university enrolments continue to rise. As the scale of fees has increased at numerous junctures in the life of HECS, university enrolments have continued to grow. Fees under HECS have not deterred student enrolments one iota. They have kept growing at every step, including each time those fees have increased. Let us also be very clear that we are also trying to preserve another fundamental achievement of the Labor Party, and that is the uncapping of places for undergraduate students, the ability of universities to accept all those who are capable—and who qualify and who they choose to admit—to undergraduate degrees. We want to preserve that reform that Julia Gillard is so proud of. We want to preserve that reform, but to preserve it you have to make the funding system sustainable. You have to find a way to make sure our universities can continue to be the best in the world. Another fantasy we just heard from Senator Carr is this notion of a tax. Professor Chapman, like anybody else, is free to put a submission to a Senate inquiry. We welcome everybody having a contribution in this debate, particularly everybody who is willing to have a thoughtful, considered and sensible contribution. We only wish that Senator Carr, Mr Shorten and the Labor Party might consider having a thoughtful, considered and sensible contribution and might actually present an alternative policy scenario to address the funding crisis that universities face over the long term. Professor Chapman has put his forward. The Labor Party, of course, are desperate to run another scare campaign around that. We keep hearing them talk about this as a tax measure. The truth is that Professor Chapman's model—and it is for him to explain when he appears before the Senate inquiry—proposes that, as universities choose to increase fees on the one hand, the level of Commonwealth subsidy, Commonwealth payment, to the university against that place may decrease on the other hand. There would still be a Commonwealth subsidy—a significant Commonwealth subsidy in many instances. There would still be the right of a student to put all of those fees onto their HECS debt and only ever have to repay them if their income reaches the HECS threshold. So there would still be enormous Commonwealth support for that place at university. There would be no tax. That is not a tax under any definition of the word. We often in this place have debates about whether somebody is calling something a levy or a fee or a duty or a charge to try to get away from the use of the word 'tax'. Senator Kim Carr: Or a fine. Senator BIRMINGHAM: This is not even a fine, Senator Carr. I will happily take that interjection. This is an incentive proposed by Professor Chapman for universities to keep fees low—a disincentive to increase their fees, in the sense that, if they do, the Commonwealth contribution will reduce to some extent. It is an alternative idea, and I look forward to the Senate committee examining it. And I look forward to at least the crossbenchers—who have shown a willingness to engage sensibly in this, to recognise that there is a problem—examining it as well. The truth is there are problems with university funding in the future. There are serious problems. As Universities Australia have made clear themselves—and I will quote their CEO—failure of the package will condemn the university system to 'inevitable decline'. Inevitable decline—that is what the Labor Party seems to be happy to sign up to for Australia's universities. The coalition will not accept that. The coalition wants to achieve a model that allows our universities to retain world-class status, to provide great research and outstanding learning and to ensure our economy is equipped with graduates for the future who can help us to maintain the standard of living that Australians have come to rightly expect. Senator Carr in his contribution actually did have a grain of truth. He highlighted some of the growth in the HELP system that will occur without changes. We are committed to the HELP system, but what Senator Carr failed to do in his contribution was outline any alternative that either deals with what he says is a problem around the growth in the HELP system or that might address the issues that universities face in terms of their funding sustainability. What we know from what he has mused about publicly, though, is that his way to cap growth in the HELP system is to cap the number of people who access it, to roll back Ms Gillard's reforms, the Labor Party reforms, and to go back to a cap on student numbers that would deprive thousands and thousands of Australians in future of the opportunity to access a university education. Senator McKenzie: Not the rich kids! Senator BIRMINGHAM: Senator McKenzie is right. Go down that path, the type of path that Senator Carr is proposing, and it is most likely that it will be the disadvantaged who miss out. In particular, it will be the disadvantaged who miss out, because, built into our reform package, is greater opportunity for people who may not automatically make it into university—in terms of pathways programs and the opportunity to undertake diplomas. If this bill does not pass, around 80,000 students will miss out on Commonwealth support each year by 2018—35,000 of them at the bachelor level through the proposal to expand the level of Commonwealth support in terms of the range of institutions, and 48,000 who would be studying diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees, valuable pathway courses for people to access undergraduate places in future. These are the things we stand to lose because those opposite will not engage in a constructive conversation or have already latched themselves onto and wedded themselves to Senator Carr's proposal to roll back to the days where government knows best, sets the caps on university places and tells universities how many people they can accept into what course. That is not acceptable to us. We believe these have been good reforms, but they need to be underpinned by sound finances in the future. We believe that the model we have presented gives that opportunity to ensure that nobody will face an up-front fee and nobody will face a tax, contrary to what you will hear from those opposite. Every Australian will still have the opportunity, if they qualify, to be accepted to a university place under which they need not pay a cent up-front. They will continue to receive significant Commonwealth support, but the universities will also be able to access funding because of a flexible fee structure and because people, when they earn more through their lives, will be paying a contribution back to the university system. That is the important thing with the fairness here. We are asking those who benefit from the university system to help fund it in future, not those who miss out.