The Government’s university reform Bill, which sought to remove caps on university fees and cut course subsidies by an average of 20%, was defeated last night in the Senate, going down 33 against to 31 for.
While the Coalition managed to secure support from Family First senator Bob Day, Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm, the Australian Motoring Enthusiast senator Ricky Muir and the independent senator John Madigan, it ultimately wasn’t enough as Labor, the Greens, the two Palmer United Party (PUP) senators, and independents Jacqui Lambie and Nick Xenophon voted against the Bill.
The defeat of the reforms would blow a $3.5 billion hole in the Budget over the next three years, although education minister, Christopher Pyne, has vowed to fight on with the reforms and will re-introduce a new Bill to the House of Representatives this morning and attempt to gain support over the summer break before a vote in the Senate in the new year. According to The Australian:
The Coalition will introduce amendments proposed by Senator Madigan to give new parents a five-year pause on repaying their HECS and include an amendment from Senator Day to keep HECS indexation at CPI levels rather than the long-term commonwealth bond rate.
In order to secure the support of Senator Muir, the government will include a university transition fund and create a new scholarship scheme for disadvantaged and rural and regional students.
The new bill will also allow the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to monitor and act on price-gouging or unfair fee rises in a deregulated market.
Securing passage through the Senate will be tough, however. Labor has vowed to continue opposing reforms that it claims would mean $100,000 university degrees, whereas PUP senator, Glenn Lazarus, described the reforms as “a revolting proposal” and vowed that he would not saddle his children with debt. Independent, Jacqui Lambie, is equally opposed, whereas Nick Xenophon appears the most likely to compromise, noting that “I do not believe the current system is sustainable”.
The defeat of the higher education reform Bill back ends a terrible year for the Coalition, which has failed to pass many of the reforms outlined in the May Budget.
A key issue is this instance is that the Government has failed to adequately justify the need for reform, which appears based more on ideology than sound evidence. As noted by Fairfax political correspondent, Mark Kenny:
By failing to publicly establish the initial problem – that being a structural and worsening funding outlook for universities – the government had once again embarked on the fool’s errand of expecting voters to embrace a solution to a problem they were unaware they had…
If the policy was so fundamentally sound, it must have been botched in the sales stage publicly and in the negotiation phase privately.
That, along with its dogged pursuit of paid parental leave and the Medicare co-payment medical slush fund – the mother of all entitlement programs – along with failing to address upper class welfare in the form of tax concessions, has left the electorate confused about the Coalition’s message.
