Mr LINDSAY (8:14 PM) —My lifelong experience tells me that there are always two sides to every question. Tonight's debate on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2003 graphically illustrates that particular philosophy. Those listening to the debate tonight might listen to the Labor Party and be impressed with what is being put up but, as I say, there are always two sides to every question.

I heard the member for Griffith articulate Labor's policies. He announced that there will be 20,000 new university places. That sounds terrific. Later in his speech, of course, he announced that the facility to allow for full fee paying domestic students will be abolished. I wonder where they are going to go, if they are going to go to university: of course, they are going to take up a goodly majority of the 20,000 new places. So the claim by Labor that they will provide 20,000 new places is just hollow.

In the amendment that has been moved to this bill tonight, the Labor Party condemns the government for the failure of its policies to tackle the real issues facing Australian higher education. Goodness gracious me: the Minister for Education, Science and Training has gone through the most thorough review of higher education in years. In a visionary plan, the minister has looked ahead for the next decade. The minister has grasped the need for reform in the higher education sector, and his philosophy has been based on two facts that cannot be denied. One is the fact that Australian universities need longer term access to more resources and the other is that money is only half the problem.

Let me tell you what the Australian Labor Party is doing and relate it to James Cook University in North Queensland. The people at James Cook University are currently of the view that they strongly support the government's higher education reform package. Here is a regional university that has come out quite publicly and unashamedly and said, `We strongly support the government's higher education reform package.' That is a university supporting the Howard government. The people who are practitioners are supporting the Howard government. I was talking to the people at James Cook University last week, and what they said to me was: `It is terrific that this new package is available to us. If it is delivered, it is going to mean a quantum leap forward for this university, but we don't think it is going to be delivered.' I said, `Why don't you think it is going to be delivered?' Their response was that they were of the view that the Australian Labor Party would, in the Senate, vote down the most far-sighted reform package.

Do you know what they are doing at James Cook University, Mr Deputy Speaker? They are budgeting for the coming year on the assumption that the package will be voted down. Do you know what that means? It means that they are budgeting for mediocrity. At James Cook University, one of Australia's most significant regional universities, they are budgeting for mediocrity because they believe that the Australian Labor Party is going to vote down the new changes in the Senate and the university's access to the support it needs is going to be denied. That is appalling. It is something that I absolutely utterly reject.

In her contribution to the debate tonight, the opposition shadow minister said that universities are in crisis. James Cook University is not in crisis. James Cook University faces an extraordinarily bright future under the government's higher education reform package. The people at James Cook University know it, and they are prepared to say so very publicly. But universities will be in crisis if the Australian Labor Party votes down this much needed reform package in the Australian Senate.

Another point that I hear the Australian Labor Party continually trot out in their mantra relates to the increase in HECS fees. The view seems to be that students should not pay HECS fees, despite the fact that the Labor Party introduced the concept of HECS fees. What the Labor Party do not seem to understand or accept is that HECS is the cheapest and the best loan that you could ever get in your life. And you do not have to pay for it up front. There is no impact on the student or the student's family. You can pay when you have the capacity to repay. I utterly reject the notion that the Labor Party seem to put about that those who have the opportunity to go to university—and then have the opportunity to earn significantly more than those who do not have the opportunity to go to university can—should be paid for by those 70 per cent of Australian taxpayers who have never had the opportunity to go to university. That is plainly unfair. It is right, it is proper and it is good public policy to ask students who are going to benefit from a public education to ultimately pay some of the cost of that education. That is what the Labor Party originally supported, and that is what the Howard government certainly supports.

I was very interested in the Labor Party's education policy, which was released recently, because it simply denies universities the flexibility they have been asking for. Why tie the hands of universities when there are real benefits to be gained by providing the flexibility that the Howard government's higher education reform package has delivered? I was extraordinarily surprised at the dismissiveness in the Labor Party's policy of the need to reform governance arrangements. Do you know what happens at James Cook University in Townsville? There is a council of about 36. The Vice-Chancellor, who is tasked with running the university, finds that the council, instead of involving itself in policy, involves itself in day-to-day management issues, and the CEO of the university finds himself unable to fulfil that role properly. That has got to change. There have to be proper, businesslike governance arrangements for all Australian universities.

What about Labor's decision to deny students who want to take up the opportunity of a full fee paying place? But in the same breath Labor says it is okay for overseas students to take up that opportunity. Why would Labor discriminate against Australians? That is what it is: plain discrimination. Labor says overseas students can have a full fee paying place but Australians cannot. Surely that is a contradiction in terms. I think that those listening to this debate tonight will understand that. Labor, as ever, in this particular debate has taken up the soft option of just reaching for the public chequebook. It has been a hallmark of the Howard government that it has been prepared to do things that are right, even if they are hard. In relation to the higher education reform package, Our Universities: Backing Australia's Future, the Howard government is prepared to take the hard decisions.

In the higher education package I was of course very pleased to see James Cook University get a huge boost: an additional $122.6 million over four years was provided to support students at regional campuses in the higher education sector across Australia. There is an additional loading incorporated into the new Commonwealth grants scheme, and that was to be allocated according to the campus's size and its regionality. James Cook University gets an additional 7½ per cent over and above what it would normally expect to get. They are huge dollars for James Cook. There is an estimated $6.9 billion in additional funding for the sector and approximately $3.7 billion in financial assistance to students through new student loans. Regional universities and students will also benefit from the new Commonwealth learning scholarships, the Commonwealth accommodation scholarships and the Commonwealth education cost scholarships—terrific initiatives that benefit universities in regional Australia.

But how shocked was I when I learnt that Queensland universities were to be $43 million worse off under Labor's new policy? How was that? There was a black hole in their calculations. That was confirmed by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training and verified by the Commonwealth department of finance. What happened was that in Labor's claim that they would reorder the HECS for maths and science from band 2 to band 1 there was a massive calculation failure. What that means in Townsville is that, if Labor ever implemented this policy, James Cook University would lose nearly $5 million over three years—an amount of money that university could not afford to lose.

I strongly back the initiatives of Dr Brendan Nelson. He will go down in history as being a very farsighted minister for education. The work that he has put into the higher education reform policy has been magnificent, and I encourage the Labor Party please not to vote down these much-needed initiatives in the Senate. I appeal to the Australian Labor Party to please pass the government's legislation through the Senate for the sake of our universities, for the sake of our students and for the sake of James Cook University.