Mr LEE (1:39 PM) —The Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs seems to equate representation of students on the Australian Research Council or on other government advisory bodies with representation by student unions. The problem with this minister is that he has always believed that student representation must equal student union representation.

Because of this minister's obsession with unions, whether it be student unions or the National Tertiary Education Union, representing academics, he is opposed to students or staff having any representation. Having a student on one of these boards does not mean that there will be student unions on the boards. Student unions and staff unions play a very important role in representing the interests of their members and they do not deserve the sort of continuous attack they get from this minister. That is the first point.

The second point is that the government claims that this is not a backdown. The minister claims that, because these amendments require the Australian Research Council to consult with him before they initiate their inquiries, in some way this is the same as the government's original position. It is the reverse. This minister previously—on every occasion that this has come before the House—has insisted on a right of veto, on the right of stopping the Australian Research Council from initiating its own inquiries. That is what has been defeated by the pressure that the Labor Party, with the help of the Democrats, has placed on the government to have those amendments accepted.

So we are pleased that the minister, the Great Waldo Pepper, has executed so many serial backflips down the chamber that we have seen these amendments accepted here. The point that we make is that while we are grateful that 80 per cent of our amendments have been successful, 20 per cent have failed because the Democrats have sold out. Twenty per cent have failed because this minister and Senator Natasha Stott Despoja have done a deal. When any Democrat in the chamber or any Democrat who is listening to this broadcast hears the minister for education, David Kemp, say he is pleased the Democrats have taken a responsible position, that is a warning bell to say that the Democrats have sold out to this government. When David Kemp says that he is pleased that Natasha Stott Despoja has taken a responsible position, that is the warning sign that David Kemp has done a deal and the result of that deal is that research students will not have representation on the Australian Research Council.

As for the minister's claims that in some way the Labor Party has not released any positive alternative policies on education, let me remind him of the University of Australia Online, launched with great success in January and receiving enormous support from people in the bush, from women who are raising kids—

Mr LEE —The minister for education laughs at the fact that the Labor Party is advocating a proposal that will expand access to people who live in rural and regional Australia to studying at university by using the—

Mr LEE —The minister does not seem to understand what the University of Australia Online will do. When it is implemented, the minister will really know. We also had the announcement at our conference in July last year of our commitment to double the number of research fellowships, our educational priority zones, the teacher scholarships to get more of our best students to consider a vocation in teaching, more funding for professional development for teachers, funding for the learning gateway to ensure kids at school can get access to advice from teachers online after hours, the abolition of the enrolment benchmark adjustment—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrews)—Order! The member is drifting away a little from the subject.

Mr LEE —Frankly, Mr Deputy Speaker, the minister provoked me by saying that the Labor Party does not have any fresh ideas.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I remind the member not to be—

Mr LEE —I am listing them for him in detail. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can well understand that you are disturbed by any attempt of the minister to have this debate move away from research funding, so I will return to it. The point to make is that this minister has backed down today on 80 per cent of the Labor Party's amendments, and we welcome it. As I said before, if the collective noun for backflips is a circus, we have seen a circus of backflips here in the chamber this afternoon—backflip after backflip after backflip as he came into the chamber and as he backed down on the amendments that the opposition has moved to improve the way the Australian Research Council will work.

The best thing about this is that we will have a more powerful, more independent Research Council allocating research funding to our best researchers. That is good for Australia, that is good for Australian researchers, and it is something that we are very proud we have achieved. We are just disappointed that, as much as we might think well of Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, she has not been prepared to hold out. She has done a dirty deal with the minister for education in the same way that her leader, Meg Lees, did a dirty deal with John Howard to implement the GST.

Question resolved in the affirmative.