2GB Alan Jones

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview - 2GB Sydney with Alan Jones
Wednesday 18 March 2015

SUBJECT: Higher education reform

ALAN JONES: Christopher Pyne is calling himself a fixer, he'll need to be. He's on the line, good morning.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Alan.

ALAN JONES: Well, don't these bills allow private colleges and TAFEs to substantially lower their fees because you are going to extend to TAFEs and private colleges Commonwealth support?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes, and they've already announced in fact in the private colleges, TAFEs that they would reduce their fees by up 25 per cent.

ALAN JONES: Eighty thousand students.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Because they would be able to do so with the Commonwealth grant.

ALAN JONES: Yeah, 80,000 students, mums and dads out there. That's been knocked off.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Not just the 80,000 students who'd be able to go to university for the first time but there's 130,000 students who would be able to pay less for their VET FEE-HELP and their FEE-HELP because we're going to knock off the 20 per cent and 25 per cent premium that the Treasury takes because they are not a university.

So at the moment if you borrow the money from the taxpayer at the university, you don't have to pay any kind of premium, you just borrow the money. If you're at a TAFE or a private institution you pay 20 per cent or 25 per cent on top of it. So it's a premium. Now we were going to knock that off. That was 130,000 students, 210,000 Australians would have been better off financially and have access to university, TAFE or colleges if this bill had passed and the Senate has knocked that off last night.

ALAN JONES: This is Gonski; this is National Disability Insurance isn't it. So open the university gates, Rudd and Gillard said, open them up let anyone in, many students as you like for bachelor degrees except medicine, so an extra 130,000 or whatever sign up thousands and thousands but the cost of funding the places then goes up by 43 per cent and they provide no money and you've got to now provide the dough.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well they borrowed from overseas. That's what Labor does. Labor increases taxes and borrows the money from overseas and they say well the next generation can pay it back. Only the next generation doesn't have it, the generation after that can pay it back and they say well Australia's a rich country, we're one of the richest countries in the world - which we are - and therefore we can just keep borrowing because the rest of the world keep lending to us.

Of course they'll keep lending to us because they know that we have the assets to pay it back. That's exactly the same as your house. If your house is worth a certain amount, the bank will send you - lend you a certain amount, but at some point you've got to pay it back. Now, Labor thinks they can keep borrowing, keep taxing, keep spending and the future generations will pay it back, it's actually quite [indistinct].

ALAN JONES: Well don't worry the electorate seems to believe that if you look at the polls - the electorate seems to believe that. You blokes have come along trying to push the arsonist off the block and it seems as though as they want the arsonist back, they're not interested in the firefighter.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it's quite popular to spend other people's money. Most people think yeah that sounds good, but I think the common sense of the Australian people always kicks in…

ALAN JONES: Well it will eventually.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … and that's why, that's why the Howard Government was in power for 11 and a half years, why the Menzies Government was in power for 19, 21 years [indistinct].

ALAN JONES: But how does this Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer professor say Australian universities should be free to set student fees according to the market value of their degree; that's what you're saying.

Universities would have a strong incentive to compete on price and quality, that is what you're saying so we'd analyse, we'll say well do we go to Sydney or do we go the University of New South Wales, much needed additional funding will be available to universities, that's what you're saying. They can capitalise on their strengths and develop compelling educational offerings, that's what you're saying. The result will be a better funded more dynamic and competitive education sector, that's what you're saying and the Shadow Assistant Treasurer is voting against the very things he's advocated in his own book.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes well it's hard to imagine how he sleeps at night given that he has voted against exactly the things he's advocated in his own book and it's not just Andrew Leigh the Member for Canberra; it's people like Peter Beattie, Gareth Evans, John Dawkins, Bruce Chapman, Peter Dawkins, David Philips.

These are all Labor figures or advisors to Labor ministers over the past who are saying to the Government and to the Labor Party this is how to make this sector economically sustainable. This is the Christopher Pyne or the Abbott Government proposals will work to get more students at university, to make it sustainable for them to be economically there and to have better universities and yet Labor is voting against it.

The only reason they're voting against it is because Kim Carr the Shadow Minister is a socialist - self-described - he's a member of the Socialist Alliance in Victoria, that's his faction, and he wants to actually re-regulate all the universities and he never has any qualms about more taxes or taking more money from Australians.

ALAN JONES: Well I just have one problem in all of this I have to say which I'm sure indirectly addressed although you don't have time and it sometimes muddies the water. When the Rudd Government removed caps on the number of places, that means Ross over here sort of breathed the sigh of relief because he thought until then he was competing with me for a university place, so he was working his backside off to get ahead of me to get one of those limited places at university.

Then suddenly along came Rudd and Ross breathed a sigh of relief and thank God for that I don't have to compete I can go anyway. So as a result the standard is dropped, is reduced, there's no competition, no competition means lower marks. So here are people going to the university, they haven't flogged themselves to death to make the grade. The gates were open to everyone, don't worry, don't worry about the standards, you can get in anyway. These people then go to university and what course do they enrol for? Teaching degrees. Seven thousand of them with a tertiary admission rank below 50. In other words fail marks being admitted to university. What are you saying about this collapse in standards?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well we asked David Kemp who was the former education minister in the Howard Government and Andrew Norton who's an economist at the Grattan Institute to do a report about that very subject and what they found was that in fact there'd been no diminution of standards at university. They had admitted a lot more Australians to uni, and less than one per cent…

ALAN JONES: Well that's rubbish, Christopher, but that's rubbish, 7000 with ATAR below 50. 7000.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well less than one per cent of students at uni…

ALAN JONES: Yeah but they shouldn't be there. We pay for them.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … have an ATAR below one per cent. Less than one per cent have an ATAR below 50.

ALAN JONES: Yeah but these people are going into teaching courses.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well and that's why I announced recently a teacher training reform to make sure that universities are enrolling students with a combination of ATAR scores and personality and a portfolio given shows that they could be good teachers. One of the reasons I want to expand the Pathways Program which is pre‑degree opportunities for students is because we find that if they do that, low SES and first generation university goers have a one per cent drop out, if they don't they have a 24 per cent drop out rate.

ALAN JONES: Just stay with me here. We should go to the ads but I do want to stay with you because parents out there and kids are seeing on the television, placards, they're marching in the streets yesterday and they think what this is about you're taking money away - can I ask you a couple of simple questions? Didn't the Labor Party cut the per student Commonwealth subsidy without any regard to university cost? I mean people are marching in the streets…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah…

ALAN JONES: …saying you [indistinct] money. Didn't the Labor Party cut the per student Commonwealth subsidy?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes they did. They cut education, higher education by $6.6 billion…

ALAN JONES: Well what are the placards in the streets for?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …and there were no students protesting in the street.

ALAN JONES: None whatever. Didn't the Labor Par…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's because they were the Labor Party.

ALAN JONES: Yeah didn't the Labor Party in April 2013 announce an efficiency dividend for higher university which cut the subsidies to the universities but there was no compensating increase in student charges so there was another massive revenue shortfall?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes, it's exactly what happened. From 2011 to 2013 Labor raided the honeypot of universities to the tune of $6.6 billion and I don't remember the National Union of Students protesting about.

ALAN JONES: Do you think therefore it's the selling of this that we get too complicated and the message isn't getting through because it's not getting through. I mean even the issue of opening the university gates is not understood by the public. They remove the controls on bachelor degree student numbers in 2012. Open the gates, in you come. Universities no longer had to enrol specific numbers of domestic students. Na, all of you, here you come. There's the green flag, green light, go through. Open the gates to anyone from anywhere. Universities can favour international over domestic students, that was the Labor system. The public haven't been - enabled to understand that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it's a complicated area higher education Alan and of course the media in Canberra have generally not been supportive of the Government - and I don't want to blame the Press Gallery, but the truth is they haven't made it easy for me - the Government to explain its policies. I mean I couldn't have done more to try and explain them, nor could I have done more to get the crossbenchers to support them. But Labor also has to be blamed because Labor knows these reforms are necessary…

ALAN JONES: But they keep asking questions about $100,000 degrees every time they stand up in the Parliament, one after the other.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Which they know is completely false…

ALAN JONES: Absolutely.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yesterday the Group of Eight announced their fees. All of them were less than 50 per cent of $100,000 degrees…

ALAN JONES: Correct, correct.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The QUT in Queensland and announced them months ago. Less than 50 per cent of a $100,000 degree. The Australian Catholic University, Greg Craven, he announced they wouldn't increase their fees at all - at all, zero change. So these are lies designed to frighten students, but more importantly designed to frighten the parents of students because enrolments this year are up. So if students really were scared by Labor's campaign they wouldn't have enrolled for uni. The truth is they have enrolled and there are more this year than last year. [Indistinct]…

ALAN JONES: But the argument is…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … is rubbish.

ALAN JONES: The argument is the electorate don't want it, the media headlines said another failure by Pyne and Abbott, another failure, another failure. All you're trying to do is to correct the problem you inherited. You wanted to extend money to TAFE courses, to private colleges, to diploma courses, not a word about any of that. That money is being knocked off.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's right. All the benefits to students for 210,000 Australians have been knocked off by Labor. But I will go back again to the Senate, Alan, because I believe in this reform and so does Tony Abbott, we believe in it…

ALAN JONES: We've got no choice. You've got no choice…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We know it's the right thing.

ALAN JONES: But I mean this is put it simply. By Gillard and Rudd increasing the numbers in higher education dramatically - now the number's a bit rubbery, but just say it's about 130,000, it could be more…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Indistinct]

ALAN JONES: What?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: At least.

ALAN JONES: Yeah, at least 130,000. If expenditure stays the same it means that there'll be a 20 per cent cut to public funding for each student place if the funding were to stay the same. So by voting against what you're on about, Labor effectively saying less money per student.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's right, they've got to spread the same amount of money to more students.

ALAN JONES: How do you - I mean this is - oh I don't know. It just seems to me the whole show's dysfunctional. I mean you can't get a Medicare co-payment of $5 or $6 through and you're talking about trying to cut expenditure, you've got unconscionable debt, $110 million a day in interest on the debt to keep the joint running. You're the leader of the Government in the House. Has it ever been more difficult?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But look Labor's policy is promise everybody everything that they want and don't tell them where the money's coming from because they all know - we know it's coming from higher taxes or borrowing from overseas. And we'll win, that's Labor's view, we'll win and - by promising everybody what they want to hear.

But at the end of the day Alan the Australian public have a lot of common sense. They are not stupid and they realise the money has to be paid for from somewhere. All of these promises from Bill Shorten have got to be paid for somewhere. He says he wants everybody to be somebody. That's his policy. Now whatever that means, I'm not sure. I mean if they weren't somebody what would they be? He hasn't quite answered that question. That's about as deep as Bill Shorten gets.

Now I think the Australian public the next election will think the Abbott Government is getting on with the job of fixing Labor's mess. Of course it's going to be difficult but we trust them to do it. Labor just says there's no problem, [indistinct].

ALAN JONES: That's right. He said in his budget reply speech Shorten: Labor will not support taxes on Medicare full-stop. We believe no matter what your circumstances you should be able to go to the doctor without paying a cent. Now, is this bloke dumb or dishonest or both? Without paying a cent. The doctor gets paid $32.70 from taxpayers' money. There are 260 million of these so-called free GP visits every year under Medicare. The welfare cheques written out every day in this country are 400 million a day and this bloke's saying; you don't pay a cent. Is this bloke competent to be a leader of a country?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No he shouldn't be the leader of the country. He shouldn't be prime minister. He hasn't got the depth or the ability to do the job and I think the Australian public will make that assessment when it counts on election day.

ALAN JONES: Alright. It's good to talk to you. There's no doubt about it, you're prepared to fight but by gee, it's a dysfunctional environment you're operating in. I thank you for your time and I wish you well.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thank you Alan.

ALAN JONES: That's the Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne.

[ends]