Senator CROSSIN (3:48 PM) —The fact that we are debating a further issue in relation to higher education is probably unfortunate for the government this week. The Higher Education Funding Amendment Bill 1999 places the Labor Party in somewhat of a dilemma. While we need to approve the passage of this bill for the necessary funding it will provide to the universities in the coming 12 months, we are reluctant to support at this stage any view or any action that this government is taking in relation to higher education. The government has been reluctant to put this bill on the Notice Paper for most of the year, and it would be even more reluctant to do so today after the events of the last fortnight.

Let me say in my opening remarks that in the last 10 days we have witnessed an outrageous attack on the higher education sector in this country. We have seen attacks on the universities' autonomy and attacks on the relationship between staff and students about who is going to pay for higher education in this country as opposed to it being a public benefit committed to and funded by the federal government. Not only does it reveal a fundamental lack of understanding of higher education by this minister but also the events of the last fortnight have highlighted exactly what path the minister has wanted to take higher education down ever since he took over the reins from the former minister, Senator Vanstone, who did not exactly sprinkle the sector with the wonderful wealth that this country ought to invest in the higher education sector and who was relegated to a less senior position in cabinet. There are probably many people who would join with me in suggesting that that is exactly where Dr Kemp should head after his absolutely outrageous attempt to try to hide his agenda for higher education. But he was caught out.

The government are now backing away at 1,000 miles an hour but, like their policy of the `never-ever' GST, this is going to be the `never-ever' policy in respect of higher education—deregulation of fees, vouchers for use in public and private institutions, a universal loans scheme with a real interest rate and an attack on the industrial relations environment, which is still on the agenda. The government are pedalling backwards at 1,000 miles an hour in the media, in the House and in this chamber simply because they have been caught out. If we had not been given the information that was contained in the cabinet submission—a document that was developed at the request of cabinet—it would still be in the government's back pocket. The government would throw it on the table, probably hoping to implement it well before the next federal election.

Let us have a look at some of the proposals and myths surrounding what the government are attempting to do. One myth that the government would lay before the community is that the deregulation of fees would have helped to meet the unmet student demand. Dr Kemp, in fact, is saying that the unmet demand will be met by lifting limits on the number of places that the universities can offer. The key is that any extra places will have to be full fee paying places. The government have not proposed to increase the number of publicly subsidised places, you would notice, in the last fortnight, except possibly as a sweetener in the short term. In fact, since the coalition were elected, demand for university places has actually fallen by 4.4 per cent in 1997 and by 4.1 per cent in 1998. The fall in demand among mature age students is around 10 per cent. The reason for the fall in demand is simply the increased cost.

The government will probably say that what they have done is throw extra money into the higher education bucket. But the reality is that you lower the threshold for HECS, and that is how that additional money has been made up—students have paid the additional money. It has certainly not come out of the public purse. They will probably say that they are increasing opportunities for students. The only opportunities will be for those who can pay. The coalition have already reduced the number of publicly subsidised places. In 1998 there were 16,500 fewer fully funded places than had been budgeted for in Labor's forward estimates. That is a figure that is obtained from the DETYA Higher education report for the 1999-2001 triennium.

I heard Dr Kemp say on the 7.30 Report last week—one of the very few interviews on the 7.30 Report where I have actually seen Kerry O'Brien get fairly cross with the person he was interviewing—that this will not necessarily increase the cost to students. Dr Kemp acknowledges in his paper that in fact some universities will position themselves at the premium end of the market and that cost behaviour is unpredictable. As I mentioned in our censure motion of Dr Kemp last week, we already know that in the US—the system that, really, this government want us to emulate—the costs of higher education tuition have soared. A commission on national investment in higher education in the United States actually recommended that increased public investment was needed to arrest the crisis occurring in higher education in that country. In Canada, students are seeking to declare themselves bankrupt on the basis of soaring student debt.

The Association of University Staff of New Zealand, hearing the news of what was happening in this country, last week issued a press release—which I have in front of me—expressing astonishment at the proposals. It says:

The Association of University Staff of New Zealand (AUSNZ) today expressed astonishment that the Australian Minister for Education was planning to introduce a funding model along the failed New Zealand lines.

So we have a look at what is happening internationally in respect of funding for higher education—we turn to the United States and to New Zealand. We look at what is happening there and cannot learn lessons from increased student debt and the lack of public confidence in their higher education systems. Oh no, we have to try to emulate them here! We have a look at what is happening overseas and disregard the facts, the figures, the opinions, the numbers of staff enrolments and graduates and try to copy what is happening, particularly in New Zealand.

The executive director of the university staff association in New Zealand said that the national government—that is, the New Zealand national government—was currently resiling from that funding model. The funding model he is talking about is, of course, the student loan debt at normal interest rates. He went on to say:

Student loan debt currently exceeds $NZ3.3 billion and, at present rates of growth, student debt will exceed the nation's public debt by around 2025.

So one would have to say that there is a situation in New Zealand that we would never want to copy and never want to have here in Australia—but not this government. This government has decided that it is probably a good thing and it is going to jump on board, except that it has had to pedal backwards very fast in the last fortnight. This government will also probably say that deregulation will give universities greater autonomy. It seems from the cabinet submission that Dr Kemp wants more, not less, control over the universities. He wants to tell universities what they can and cannot do in respect of their enterprise agreements, and I will get back to that in a minute. He wants to make the universities, not the government, responsible for equity, and he will use those threats and has continued to use those threats to withhold funding.

There is the ultimate myth being put about by the government that the funding for universities is increasing. The minister claims that income available to universities is increasing, based on projections about the increasing proportion of income that comes via fees and charges. In fact, government income to universities has been steadily decreasing since 1996, as the government's own figures show. They suggest that, under the current arrangements, in the year 2000 government funding to universities will be below 50 per cent of the total operating revenue—around the same level it was in 1990.

What was even more amazing were the statements by that minister last week in the House of Representatives, prior to the release of the documentation to cabinet and prior to the Labor Party being prepared to tell the truth about what the government were intending to do in respect of higher education. Dr Kemp was asked a question about taking responsibility for universities and those that have been forced to operate at a deficit. He was in fact asked: `Do you . . . accept that there are regional campuses whose very existence is now at risk as a result of your policies?' This was a question that Michael Lee asked of Dr Kemp last Wednesday, and Dr Kemp's reply, which is in Hansard, was:

The suggestion that there are regional university campuses at risk is absolutely absurd, and I completely reject that.

We have actually seen in the cabinet submission an admission by this government that there are regional universities at risk, and they go so far as to say that there are eight of them. They have not identified them, but if anyone has been watching the way some regional universities have been trying to cope with not meeting student demand and not meeting their targets, with the amount of funding that they have been given by this government, as little as it is, it is not too hard to work out which eight universities are working at a deficit and which regional campuses are at risk.

In another question last week, Mr Lee asked about higher staff-student ratios, less frequent lecture and tutorial contact, outdated technology, and gaps in key areas of professional preparation. He asked the minister how he reconciled those facts with his claim that the government is intending to raise the quality of university education. The answer to that question, surprisingly enough, was:

The government's policies for higher education have put the universities in a position where they have greater capacity and autonomy to manage their own affairs.

Again, if one looks at the proposed document that went before cabinet, one has to ask: why is it that this cabinet-in-confidence document says that `higher education institutions' capacity to respond flexibly and efficiently to merging student and employer demand is hamstrung' but, in answer to a question, the minister said that his policies were providing them with greater capacity and autonomy to manage their own affairs? Whom are we to believe: the public image of Dr Kemp or the private image with backdoor, in-the-pocket secret documents that are produced only for cabinet?

Probably the most outrageous and continued attack that we have seen over the last 10 days in terms of the government's obsession and absolute passion for trying to deregulate the workplace by attacking the trade union movement is their attack on the operations of the National Tertiary Education Union and the Community and Public Sector Union. Why? Because those unions have an increasing membership from the university sector, and because they have, over the last number of years, been as effective as they possibly could in a sector that has been strangled for growth and for efficiencies.

In the cabinet document, Dr Kemp says that there are workplace rigidities in universities, and he points the finger at the retention of unwieldy government structures and the persistence of an NTEU-dictated bargaining agenda. It is interesting to note that, since 1996, Dr Kemp has continually refused to meet with officials from the National Tertiary Education Union. They have not been accorded one meeting with this minister, particularly since he took over the reins from Senator Vanstone. He talks about the retention of unwieldy government structures. By that I assume he means inside the university sector, but that is just further evidence of how little he knows or understands about what is happening in the university sector.

I want to take senators through some of the impacts that government funding has had on universities and what the union and that sector have tried to do. Since 1996, enrolments have increased by 6.6 per cent, but the average staff equivalent in the general staff area has diminished by 5¼ per cent and academic staff has diminished by 3.5 per cent. So universities have in fact lost 4.55 per cent in their staffing budgets. And why have they done that? Because with a decreasing budget they have had no choice but to put staff off and to offer redundancies. They have had no choice but to offer people either casual or contract work instead of making them permanent employees in the university sector.

The staff-student ratio in the higher education sector was 14.5 to one in 1994, and in 1998 it was 17.9 to one. That is a figure you would expect in a senior secondary class of years 11 and 12. So there has been an increase of nearly four students per class in the higher education sector.

Let us have a look at salary increases. For the period 1991 to 2000, the NTEU, in consultation with their members, have been able to give their staff a 17.9 per cent wage increase. Let us have a look at that in comparison with other sectors. Engineers in this country have had a 23.4 per cent increase in wages; teachers, on average, have had a 19.8 per cent increase; the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation have had a 21.2 per cent increase; and the Australian Public Service have had a 19.4 per cent increase. So in a nine-year period, aca demics and general staff working in universities have had the lowest increases of workers in these sectors.

We have a picture here of universities struggling with funds. They are downsizing, they are making staff redundant, they are putting staff on contract or making them casual, and they have had the smallest wage increase in nine years compared with other industries—other scientists, other academics, other engineers. And yet the minister still believes that they have an unwieldy government structure and that they are dominated by the persistence of the NTEU. Clearly his knowledge is out of date.

But wait, there is more. They will actually be allowed to get a little bit of funding—a two per cent salary supplementation—if they agree to some of the workplace reforms. Senator Carr mentioned today that this government is off getting legal advice, as it did with the wharfies and the building unions, and now it is going to start its attack on the higher education sector.

What an insult to academics and researchers in this country. It is no wonder that they are leaving the university sector in droves when all this government can do, on top of the outrageous policy it has released in the last fortnight, is to now offer them only a two per cent salary increase in relation to what has not been achieved over the last nine years. It is an insult to the higher education sector in this country and to those people who work in that sector. I think it is an absolute abrogation of the higher education sector. This federal government needs to seriously look at its policies in respect of higher education, to take that sector seriously and to fund it seriously for the public good.