Press Conference - Parliament House

E&OE TRANSCRIPT Press Conference - Parliament House Wednesday 3 December 2014 SUBJECT: Higher education reforms MINISTER PYNE: Thank you for coming. After this press conference I’m going to go into the House of Representatives and introduce a new Bill, the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014, the Bill will effectively be nine tenths of the previous Bill with the only item of that reform Bill being dropped is the ten year government bond rate proposition for of the indexation of the higher education contribution scheme debt of students. That will be replaced by the CPI which we currently have, the CPI rate, and that will continue into the future which means that the Labor party scare campaign about fee increases and compounding debt and massive interest rates being levied on the HECS debt will totally be obliterated, but there are aspects of the new reform Bill which I think will both be attractive to both the public and to the crossbenchers, remembering that Labor and The Greens have entirely taken themselves out of the conversation having been wreckers in government and now vandals in opposition. Apart from the ten year government bond rate going, we’ll be introducing a transition fund for universities to access over the next three years at the cost of 100 million dollars. We will ensure that the guidelines for commonwealth scholarships provided by the universities are skewed towards low socio-economic status students, and rural and regional students, but we’ll be establishing a new commonwealth government scholarship which will be from the higher education participation program money. That scholarship will only be for low socio-economic status young people or first generation university goers or students in general from rural and regional areas going to rural and regional universities or universities with a high level of low SES students at the university. We’ll also have a HECS indexation pause, so the higher education contribution scheme will be even more generous than it already is, remembering it’s the best loan that students will ever get. The pause will mean that mums and dads who decide to stay home and have a child, who have a HECS debt and are leaving the workforce will have a pause put on their HECS debt. There’ll be no CPI applied to those people, which will be of great benefit to mums and dads who wish to stay home as the primary caregiver and look after children in the early years. They won’t have to worry about their HECS debt increasing. We’ll also introduce in this new reform Bill a provision that requires domestic fees to be lower than international student’s fees and will give the ACCC the same powers that it has to monitor fuel prices and stevedoring costs and so on, we’ll extend that to higher education. The process for this will be that we will introduce the Bill this morning. We will not be guillotining the bill and rushing it through the parliament. It is a new reform Bill. I believe it picks up many of the concerns of the crossbenchers and the community. We’ll introduce the Bill, it will go through the normal stages of the house, which means it will sit on the table until we return for the next sitting, which will be in February. Labor will have the opportunity to go through their party processes. We’ll then have the debate when we return. I’m sure many of my colleagues will want to talk on this Bill. It will then go to the Senate, having passed the House of Representatives and will go through the process of negotiating with the crossbenchers, or Labor and The Greens if they choose to be part of a constructive dialogue rather than simply saying no. JOURNALIST: Every single one of these concessions that you are putting into the new Bill was on offer to the Senate yesterday and the Senate chose not even to debate them. What are you hoping is going to happen over the next couple of months to persuade them? I mean it’s not like you’re offering anything new here, you’re just repackaging the Bill. MINISTER PYNE: Well it’s time and persuasion Phil. So, my view is that there is an understanding in the crossbenches that there needs to be reform to the university sector. Senator Xenophon has said that. He believes that he needs more time to consider the government’s proposals. In fact he said that in the senate, that he would have a different, would potentially have a different view in February. In my discussions with the crossbenchers many of them have indicated that they would like to debate this next year. I believe there will be a majority for this reform next year. We simply need to give the crossbench more time to think about the aspects of the reform. I was pleased to get the support yesterday of Senators Muir, Madigan, Leyonhjelm and Day, but even Senator Muir indicated that while he was prepared to give the Bill a second reading, he wanted to look at each amendment in the senate in the committee stage. Obviously I’m disappointed that Glenn Lazarus and Dio Wang and the other two crossbenchers, Jacqui Lambie and Nick Xenophon, didn’t want to give it a second reading, but that’s the nature of politics. For the last 40 years governments have controlled the senate for three of those years. For 37 they’ve had to compromise and negotiate and I intend to continue to do that because this reform is important. JOURNALIST: Are you willing to compromise at all on the 20 per cent cut in funding to universities that even Universities Australia says is necessary? MINISTER PYNE: Well can I say that Universities Australia have been absolutely superb in their support of the government’s agenda. Certainly they’ve wanted amendments, and that’s part of the nature of the process. And we’ve picked up many of the issues that they have been concerned about. Every particular interest group asks for more, of course they do. That’s the nature of lobbying in the nation’s capital. But we will continue to talk to Universities Australia. I would like to thank them though for the support that they’ve given us. And I think it is a singular achievement, to have united the university sector behind a reform. It really hasn’t been done before, so I’ve been very pleased that they’ve been so supportive. I was glad the first opportunity I had last night was to speak to Universities Australia and assure them that the government is not walking away from this reform. I’m not a quitter and I’ve no intention of giving up on this reform. JOURNALIST: But my question was, are you prepared to give any ground on the 20 per cent that was… MINISTER PYNE: Always prepared to talk about negotiation. Always prepared to negotiate, whether it’s with Universities Australia, whether it’s with the crossbenchers, I have been quite flexible, not quite Houdini, but I’ve been as flexible as I can be and I intent to continue to be flexible. JOURNALIST: Mr Pyne, on that 20 per cent though, there was an estimation yesterday from someone on RN, I forget who, I think it was a VC, said that a 20 per cent cut would see a 30 per cent rise in fees. Now if you’re paying say 61 grand for a medical degree, then doesn’t it really mean that some degrees become only those that would be attractive to rich kids? MINISTER PYNE: No Andrew. I mean that is really a very old fashioned argument, sort of pre-Whitlam. The reality is that now that we have the higher education contribution scheme every single dollar that a student pays in fees can be borrowed from the Australian taxpayer at the lowest interest rate for a loan that they will ever get. There’s been a lot of wild speculation about fees. A lot of wild speculation. One of the reasons I wanted these reforms to pass this year was so that universities could announce their fee structures, and my view is, having some inside knowledge about what those fees might well be, that the public would say what has all this fuss been about, because the fees will be nothing like the scare campaign being run by Labor and The Greens. The truth is that the higher education contribution scheme covers the cost of student’s fees. They pay it back at the lowest interest rates when they start earning over fifty thousand dollars. If that wasn’t generous enough, the taxpayer still pays sixty per cent of the cost of a student’s education. And after these reforms, they’ll be asked to pay fifty per cent of the cost of their education. I think a fifty-fifty split is fair, and I think most Australians think it’s fair. JOURNALIST: You’re obviously very optimistic that this will happen… MINISTER PYNE: I’m always very optimistic. JOURNALIST… but what, can you tell the senate crossbenchers what will happen if this doesn’t pass eventually in February? Are you going to try and get the same amount of savings through? Will you look at cutting research? Will you look at recapping places? What happens if this doesn’t get through? MINISTER PYNE: Well I’m not going to speculate about that Matthew. I needed six votes in the senate this week, I got four of them. I was told several weeks ago I wouldn’t get any of them, and I believe that we are making progress. I’m a great believer in forward momentum. I don’t like to take a step backwards. My view is that we had a defeat this week and I don’t think that there’s any shame in that at all. I think that if you believe in something, you should have a go. And I think that the Australian public will give you great credit for actually putting your money where your mouth is and not slinking away from the camp in the middle of the night hoping you won’t have to fight the battle. JOURNALIST: Mr Pyne, you were spokesman for a long time in opposition, in the education sphere. Presumably you gave this sort of plan some sort of thought then. Why didn’t you raise it before the election? MINISTER PYNE: Well Michelle when I became the Minister for Education I started to get a great deal of information from the university sector about the dire consequences, for universities in Australia, of no reform. When I was in opposition I was actually primarily responsible for schools; Sussan Ley was responsible for childcare and vocational education and training and Brett Mason was the Shadow Minister for Universities. When I was, became the Minister, I was given responsibility for universities and of course I consulted and talked to many, many people in the sector. The sector is saying that the status quo is not an option in Australia. Labor stripped $6.6 billion from higher education and gave the universities no capacity to replace that revenue with new revenue. I think the taxpayers have been squeezed enough, I think the students can contribute 50-50 to the cost of their education when you consider that on average they’ll earn 75 per cent more over a lifetime than people that won’t go to university. They’ll have better, longer life expectancies and better health outcomes and the lowest unemployment rates in the country. So I don’t think it’s too much to ask them to make that contribution and I think most Australians agree with me. Sure they’ve responded to the scare campaign and one of the things that Senator Madigan asked for was an information campaign run by the government to quell some of the concerns that people have in the community. Well, no, we’ll look at that of course, because I discussed it with Senator Madigan but the important point is, when I became the Minister it became apparent to me, and the sector advised me strongly, that the status quo is not an option. The future for universities without reform is slow decline, and stagnation. That’s not me saying that, that’s a quote from Belinda Robinson from Universities Australia. These reforms give our universities the best chance to be competitive in the world. Five years ago there were no Chinese universities in the top 200 in the world. Today there are six. If we do not give our universities the chance to be the best they can be, to be world class, our universities will slip, and our students will not get the highest quality education they can get. And mums and dads of Australia know that their kids are competing internationally now. We all know that. We can’t simply be complacent and pretend that Australia is not part of the world. So as part of those reforms, I’m massively expanding opportunity to tens of thousands of students from low SES background so they get the chance that I’ve had and that everybody in this room has had to get a university degree. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] So on information campaigns and so forth, the information I think that parents want most is what increase there will be in fees, you said earlier to Andrew [indistinct].. MINISTER PYNE: Well there won’t be any. JOURNALIST: There won’t be any? MINISTER PYNE: Well there can’t be, the Bill didn’t pass Mark. JOURNALIST: Well ok, once your Bill has passed, Andrew talked about 30 per cent being one estimate, I’ve heard higher, you said it’s going to be nothing like that so what will it be – is it five per cent, is it ten per cent? You say - MINISTER PYNE: Mark, there’s been wild speculation. The Senate should pass this Bill in the earlier part of New Year as I believe they should have passed it this week. Universities will then release their fees. But if you want an example of fees, the University of Western Australia has announced their fee structure. They’ve announced it will be $48,000 for a three year degree. $48,000. Not even half of $100,000 scare campaign degree that Labor’s been putting about. And that is for a G8 university, a top 100 in the world university. There are 11,500 universities in the world, a top 100 university in the world, charging $48,000 over three years, for an undergraduate degree. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] So you know, why wouldn’t a medical degree be $100,000? MINISTER PYNE: And the wonderful thing about medical degrees, Andrew, is that our doctors are the highest paid people in the community. So they will pay back – [indistinct] so they will pay, no I didn’t say that, so don’t put words in my mouth, I said the wonderful thing about the medical degrees that we’d do in this country is that doctors are amongst the highest paid people in our community so they’ll be able to pay their degrees back faster than anybody in society. MINISTER PYNE: [Indistinct] This is your inaugural question. Welcome to the Press Gallery. JOURNALIST: Thank you very much. MINISTER PYNE: It’s a very cheerful place. JOURNALIST: Minister, if you believe you have right on your side and these reforms are so important, would you be prepared to dissolve the Senate and have the electorate test it? MINISTER PYNE: Well we had an election Sarah, at the end of 2013 and the Coalition was elected. The Daily Telegraph published a poll two weeks ago showing that 66 per cent of Australians thought the Senate was being obstructionist. The senate should listen to those, to what the people are saying, and they should collaborate with the Government on good reform. This is good reform, its inevitable reform because it’s necessary. It will pass the Senate at some stage. I believe in it fervently. Do I think the Australian public want another election? Absolutely not. The Australian public want the government to get on with governing as we have been this year, delivering three free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and China, abolishing the mining tax, abolishing the carbon tax, getting 75 per cent of 400 measures from the Budget through the Parliament. We’re going to keep on doing that. Sure there’ll be setbacks, and this is a setback, but does that mean the Government gives up and calls an election? Absolutely not. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] Thank you, part of the problem you seem to have identified with the crossbenchers is that they want time, because you never announced this policy before the election. Why not take it to the next election and get the mandate, you can then go back to the Senate and say you then have. MINISTER PYNE: Because the university sector and students can’t wait Latika, We need to get on with governing in Australia. We can’t have stasis because the Senate feels that it can’t deal with a difficult and important reform. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] On that issue, Minister Pyne, what is the purpose of introducing these Bills today, you say you need time to negotiate and say that you’re hopeful, why not negotiate with the crossbenchers, negotiate with Glen Lazarus and the Palmer United Party and wait until the next sitting session and introduce them there when you’ve had a bit more certainty about these crossbenchers positions? MINISTER PYNE: Well thank you for your advice, but I think the truth is that if we introduce this Bill today, it will give six, seven, eight weeks of consideration over summer. The House of Representatives might well want to have a Committee that investigates the new reform Bill. It’s a very significant Bill. They might wish to do that and if they did I wouldn’t be against it. The truth is eight weeks is a long time to consider it. Then we come back to Parliament and then we have the debate. The Senate will probably want to have a Committee stage as well and if they do I welcome that too. I’ve never been against debate; I’ve never been against a battle. I think this is important reform; I’m committed to it and we will continue with it. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] Given you’re offering University of Tasmania a special package, can those crossbenchers who are still holding out expect that their favoured institutions can also get some special deal? MINISTER PYNE: Well that’s a false report and Sabra Lane should correct it. Daniel? JOURNALIST: What’s the total value of the concessions that you’ve offered, in the Bill that’s enshrined? MINISTER PYNE: The costs of the new reform Bill will be revealed in their entirety in the normal course of events. I think you can probably work out generally speaking what it is from what I’ve announced today but MYEFO is the proper place for the government to announce the books in the Commonwealth and I’ll wait and allow the Treasurer the clear air that’s necessary to make that announcement. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] The original start date for this was 2016. Are you, happy to move that timetable back given the [indistinct] passed through the Senate? MINISTER PYNE: No. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] Thank you Mr Pyne. Why are you actually introducing a new Bill? Why not just amend the existing one? MINISTER PYNE: Because the new reform Bill is so different to the last Bill, that its cleaner, but it adds a great deal, it adds a great deal more. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] Can’t you just amend that? [Indistinct]. MINISTER PYNE: Well I think that’s messy, and I think this is cleaner. [Indistinct] And it’s not, this isn’t because, we don’t want to have a double dissolution trigger, this is because this is the new reform Bill that I think needs to be passed. It’s cleaner to introduce a new Bill than it is to amend the old one. That’s simply a stylistic choice that I have made. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] How confident are you that you’ll actually get a face to face meeting with Senator Lazarus and are you going to continue your same lobbying tactics given they haven’t necessarily worked that well? MINISTER PYNE: Well, just to deal with the Senator Lazarus issue, Senator Lazarus is the only crossbencher who has not met with me since he was elected. I’ve had numerous requests, I’ve written to him of course, and modern technology means you can communicate with people by SMS so I chose to do that. Senator Lazarus surprisingly told your colleague Sam Maiden that I could text him any time I wanted in the cafeteria yesterday afternoon so I’m a bit confused and this morning he said I was a very good Minister and a very nice bloke so I think I have an excellent relationship with Senator Lazarus as I do with all the crossbenchers. I’m happy to meet with them any time. I’ve met with them, some of them, six or seven times. My office meets with them a great deal, in fact, Senator Xenophon said publically yesterday that I was the easiest Minister and office to deal with in terms of these kinds of negotiations. I look forward to meeting Senator Lazarus face to face. I have written him a Christmas card so I hope he doesn’t send that back but I sense that it will be alright. MINISTER PYNE: [Indistinct] You’ve had a lot of questions, better make this the last question. [Indistinct] Last question. JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] The argument was raised this morning that part of the reason for putting these Bills to the House today was that the savings on the Bills would be available for you to put on the books in MYEFO, do you accept that that’s a reason to put these Bills to the House today so that you can point to these savings that might be passed in MYEFO before Christmas? MINISTER PYNE: No. Thank you very much.