Senator TIERNEY (3:12 PM) —What a waste of five minutes that was, listening to what Senator Carr had to say. I thought he was going to make a serious contribution in relation to educational policy, but talking about champagne between various ministers did not have much at all to do with the answer to the question.

Moving to this spurious issue which has been brought up in the last 24 hours, we are faced with the situation of a document which is creating a storm in a teacup. This is not at all government policy that we are talking about. It is a great pity that the press has got into bed with the ALP and scaremongered, as we saw by the headlines today. Those headlines have nothing to do with government policy. These matters have not been discussed by cabinet or by the party. I chair the backbench committee and we certainly have not discussed any of them. This issue has no credibility, but at least it is something we can base some discussion on. By comparison, if we went to the ALP policy cupboard and we opened that cupboard, what would we find?

Senator Mason —It would be bare.

Senator TIERNEY —Quite right, Senator Mason; it would be totally bare. Just like Old Mother Hubbard going to the cupboard to get a bone, we would find nothing in there because there is no ALP policy on this area.

The Labor Party were asleep for three years on policy leading up to the last election. They just hoped they would slide in at the end on the GST question without any policies. They did actually have a shadow minister at that time who had a few ideas. That was Mark Latham, who came up with one bright idea one morning and it was gone by the after noon. It was actually an alternative to the HECS system. This was a shadow minister having the temerity to suggest that there should be an alternative to the HECS system. He announced that in the morning and by the afternoon Kim Beazley had stepped in—that other policy free zone—saying, `We can't have something like that. We can't have something that is different.' So that went out the door.

Mark Latham found the official policy of the ALP—it was devised by someone else in a back room somewhere—and he was so disgusted that, following the election, he resigned his position. He was a fellow who had a few ideas on education, unlike the current shadow minister for education, Michael Lee, who hasn't got an original idea in his head about the field of education. When he was the Minster for Communications, from 1993 to 1996, I called him the Rip Van Winkle of communications policy. He is now the Rip Van Winkle of education policy.

Senator Forshaw —You didn't get a laugh then and you don't get one now.

Senator TIERNEY —Not from you, Senator—shock and dismay, I would have thought, because you know what I say is true. You are a man, Senator, who has some interest in the field of education. It must dismay you that there is no policy on the ALP side. You have been sitting there for five or six years now—

Senator Forshaw —We got four.

Senator TIERNEY —Well, Senator, I invite you to get up following what I have to say and—

Senator Forshaw —I will.

Senator TIERNEY —Good, and outline for us what the ALP policy is. We would love to know what the ALP policy is on education.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Senator Tierney, would you address the Chair, please.

Senator TIERNEY —Through you, Madam Deputy President—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —No, to me.

Senator TIERNEY —Through you, Madam Deputy President, I would like to indicate to the senator that he should get to work. If his shadow minister is not going to write the policy, he should get in and write the policy himself because the ALP certainly does not have one.

We need to continue to develop ideas in education because we were left with a terrible legacy by the ALP government in this area. I came into the Senate in 1991. At that stage in higher education there were 50,000 people knocking at the gates trying to get in. This was after eight years of Labor control of education policy. Over that time, for a start, fees were brought in. Senator Carr starts his speech today with, `No fees, no degrees'—

Senator Forshaw —That is Liberal policy.

Senator TIERNEY —He starts on this issue but, Senator, your government brought in the fees in the first place. Then you increased the number of students and didn't bring in the resources to match. The result of that under the Labor policy was a decline in standards, a decline in the quality of what was delivered, a crisis in the libraries of the country and a run-down in the IT. That is what you left this country. What we have to do now to make up for your legacy of 13 years is come up with some creative ideas to try to improve the state of higher education. If we wait for the Labor Party to come up with that we will not get it, because you are a policy free zone. (Time expired)