Dr NELSON (Minister for Education, Science and Training) (11:29 AM) —On the topic of universities, I think we should welcome to Canberra the graduates of the university of life—the university of all walks of life—from the Ulysses motorcycle club, which is having its annual convention here in Canberra. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you share my passionate enthusiasm for motorcycling. I declare myself to be a junior member of the Ulysses Club, and a very proud one.

Mr Fitzgibbon —Soon to be senior.

Dr NELSON —I have four years to go before I reach full membership. One of my most able staff, Adam, who is sitting over there, is a Honda 750VFR rider. At the moment I am trying to delicately negotiate with my wife the acquisition of a Triumph Speedmaster, so if you see something unpleasant happen to me, it probably has something to do with domestic negotiations.

Thank you to everyone who spoke on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2005 Measures No. 1) Bill 2005. While I do not necessarily agree with all the comments that were made—in fact some of them were quite inaccurate—I do appreciate the input into this debate. There are a couple of things I want to address specifically. Again I say to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that personal criticism is an easy displacement and a cloak for ignorance of policy. Almost every time the deputy leader rises to speak, at least half of whatever is said is generally some sort of criticism of a personal nature directed at me. As I have said previously, I do not intend to engage in any of that or contribute to it.

The Oceania University of Medicine is not an Australian university. If you happen to bump into somebody who has a degree from this particular university—and I say this as a medical graduate—then I would advise you not to entrust your health care to him or her. Oceania University of Medicine Educational Services Australia Pty Ltd is a registered Australian company that is affiliated with the Samoan based Oceania University of Medicine. However it has no authority to deliver awards in Australia or to use the title of university in Australia—it cannot do that without the approval of the Victorian government. In fact OUM was advised that it cannot operate in Victoria without approval under the Victorian government’s Tertiary Education Act 1993, which enacts the national protocols in Victoria. It requires government authorisation before a body can deliver higher education in that state. In fact it cannot operate in any state without approval from that jurisdiction. In 2002 I referred the status of this particular body to the New South Wales Department of Education and Training because a New South Wales administrative centre for the Oceania University of Medicine was mentioned in advertising. The New South Wales administrative centre was subsequently closed. Whilst, obviously, I share the concerns in relation to the credentials of this particular institution, the reality is that the Victorian government basically has to close it down. I have no doubt that the Premier, Steve Bracks, and the minister, Lynne Kosky, are just as determined as any of us to close it down.

The other issue raised is the issue of so-called official hospitality by my department. In fact my mother, who lives in Adelaide, rang me a few weeks ago and said, ‘I hear the Labor Party on the radio saying that you’ve got some sort of hospitality.’ I said, ‘Actually I am in the process of finding out what that is all about.’ Over the three-year period, my department and I, as the minister, have administered $50 billion—that is, 50 thousands of millions of dollars. Of that, $600,000 has been identified by the department as being spent on official hospitality. I asked the department to give me a breakdown in terms of what this means—and keep in mind that this is $600,000 to administer $50 billion; it is 0.0000126 per cent of all administered expenditure.

The money includes, for example, $163,000 spent on the Prime Minister’s science prizes. That is an event held in the Great Hall in Canberra, enthusiastically attended by many Labor members of parliament, including Senator Kim Carr. When we had this event last year I made a specific effort to invite Senator Carr onto the stage—he interrupted his entree to come onto the stage and speak to the audience, which was very good, because I do not think he actually endeared them to Labor’s policies. That is a $70,000 event for 600 of the leading scientists from across the country—from all parts of Australia. They come to the nation’s capital annually to see the Prime Minister award the most prestigious award for science in the country, the two junior science awards and the award which I initiated—which is $50,000 each for the most outstanding primary school science teacher and the most outstanding secondary school science teacher. So that event accounts for $163,000.

Recently in the Australian newspaper I set out the vision for school education for this country, which principally lies in the quality of leadership and the quality of teaching in our schools. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition then said some very negative things about an apprenticeship report. In other words the myopic vision of the Labor Party is such that it cannot look beyond today to think about and provide inspiration for the kind of future we might want 20 years hence.

In part, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said that in order to get more young people interested in science we should give more support to Questacon. Questacon is a science facility specifically intended to engage young people and to encourage their enthusiasm and natural curiosity for science. We have just invested another $11.4 million in Questacon and in the $600,000 my department spent on corporate hospitality there is $100,000 for Questacon. That covers the sausage rolls, the snakes, the jelly beans, the cordials and all of those things that the kids actually have when they come in to be entertained. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with children knows that if you have them for more than five minutes you need to make sure that they are fed. There are exhibition launches and programs, and we have also funded, for example, 80 teacher professional development sessions attended by 1,300 teachers where they have been given sandwiches and orange juice. In addition to that, we have the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. The cost of bringing people to Canberra and running that particular forum is $35,000.

Then we have international delegations. I would like the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to go out and tell the Australian public that the opposition resent us entertaining the Danish Minister of Education. I would be very interested to see whether the Leader of the Opposition raises that with Princess Mary and her husband later this afternoon. What do these opposition people think we should be doing? Do they think we should have the Chinese delegation from the Department of Vocational and Adult Education and the Ministry of Education come here and then say to them, ‘You’ve got to pick up your own tab in the staff kiosk’? That is what the opposition are criticising. And on it goes—the Mexicans, the Chileans. In fact, one of the key priorities of the government is to extend our international education focus into South America. The attitude of the opposition is absurd.

Just for the record, I have no ministerial credit card. I am not into the trappings of the job—in fact, I never have been. As members of the Canberra gallery will tell you, occasionally they may have been interested—I would not say excited—to receive a dinner invitation from me and then turn up to find that it is a sandwich and an orange juice under the watchful eye of Neville Bonner in my office. As readers of the Australian would know, I have comfortable but modest accommodation in Canberra. My wife constantly chastises me for being a committed K-Mart shopper, which relates, in part, to the savings program for the bike. As Maxine McKew will also attest, I do not do lunch for her Lunch with Maxine McKew. But it is important that all of the above be on the record, because the average worker would think, ‘Where has $600,000 all gone?’ That is where it has gone.

Specifically, in relation to the legislation, one thing in particular that I should point out to the member for Rankin is that it is Gillian Beer, not Julia Beer, and Professor Bruce Chapman who have done the research. The research looked at the effect of the 25 per cent increase in HECS coupled to the increase in the threshold where repayments by university graduates start to kick in—in other words, at the new situation where the graduates’ interest-free loans are paid back for their 25 per cent share of the cost of their university education but, because we have increased the repayment threshold, instead of their payments being taken out with their tax at $24,365 they are only taken out when their income reaches $36,100, indexed in line with wage movements. Professor Chapman found—and he supported the increase in HECS, by the way—that, for low-income women who do not have children, the real cost of HECS has actually dropped from $12,000 to $4,100. On the day after International Women’s Day, I say to the feminists of the Labor Party: that should be something to be celebrated. But it gets even better. For low-income women who have children, the real cost of HECS has declined from $10,000 to $1,400.

For other groups—for middle-income earners, people who might be graduating, for example, with IT degrees—the real increase is about nine per cent, and it is 18 per cent for the remainder. In fact this year there are 180,000 Australians who owe the taxpayer HECS repayments for the 25 per cent of their university education that recipients pay for and who will pay no HECS at all because the repayment threshold has gone up to $36,000. That is $100 million the taxpayer will not be getting back into his or her bank account this year because the government has chosen to make HECS even more attractive.

There are a few points in the legislation that need reiteration. The legislation is necessary to update appropriation amounts in the Higher Education Support Act 2003 for the years 2004-08 to provide for commitments made during the election. In other words, this is yet another example of the government delivering on its election commitments. This bill provides for 100 new radiation therapy places as part of the government’s Strengthening Cancer Care package, $2 million in infrastructure funding for improved information technology at Charles Darwin University and $12 million in infrastructure funding for a new veterinary science and agriculture school at James Cook University. In that regard I pay a special tribute to the member for Herbert and the member for Leichhardt, who worked tirelessly as advocates for the university, recognising the importance of the university and these initiatives to the economic and social development of the region. When the history of Far North Queensland is written further into this century, there will be a very special and prominent place accorded to the members for Herbert and Leichhardt for the contributions they have made. This would not have happened without the members for Herbert and Leichhardt working constructively not only with me but also with my department and the university leadership under Professor Bernard Moulden, which has been outstanding, to deliver more opportunities and a stronger educational future for Far North Queensland.

The bill also contains funding for 40 additional aged care nursing places—which, by the way, provides more than 4,000 extra nursing places that have been delivered with higher education reform—and 12 more medical places at James Cook University, announced in last year’s budget. The bill provides $16½ million in increased national institute funding for the Australian National University and a transfer of funds related to the establishment of the Australian Maritime College’s Point Nepean Campus, for which, again, I pay tribute to the member for Flinders.

The Australian government is also taking this opportunity to make a number of technical amendments to enhance the legislation’s effective implementation and to give certainty to higher education providers. These include enabling table B higher education providers to apply for capital infrastructure funding. It is interesting that, in the course of the debate, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said that basically the Labor Party would support this but ‘we are not sure what it means’. It is the same old story. They say, ‘We’re going to support it, but we’re basically going to do everything we possibly can to white-ant it at the same time.’ I ought to remind the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that the present Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand, wrote to my predecessor, Dr David Kemp, on 30 June 1998 saying, ‘I have consulted Mr Latham’—who was then the shadow minister for education—‘on the proposal to include Notre Dame on the schedule of the Higher Education Funding Act. This means that one of Australia’s two pre-eminent Catholic universities can get access to capital development funds, which it should.’

This bill will clarify the way the tuition assurance requirements interact with certain provisions in the act, adjust the Higher Education Funding Act 1988 to make it consistent with the new act in the administration of student assistance and amend the Maritime College Act 1978 to ensure that the Australian Maritime College complies with national governance protocols. The table B provision, as I am sure members on the other side know, has been supported by some very prominent opposition figures, including the now Leader of the Opposition. The University of Notre Dame was granted funds under the capital development pool for payment in 2006, and this would provide $2 million in funding for its medical school in 2006—an initiative strongly supported by this government. We believe in Catholic education in secondary schools, and we believe in it in higher education. The University of Notre Dame is now listed as a table B provider under the Higher Education Support Act 2003, and I urge members to support the bill to ensure that these benefits can be delivered smoothly and in the most efficient way possible.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lindsay)—The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.