Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, is a strange bloke. In what was arguably D-Day for his university reforms, he gave the above weird interview on Sky News whereby he went all ‘Clark and Dawe’ at presenter David Speers:
Speers: “It was very clear yesterday…”
Pyne: “I’ve dealt with it”…
Speers: “That you have to get the reform bill through…”
Pyne: “I fixed it…”
Speers: “Otherwise 1600 positions would go…”
Pyne: “I’m a fixer…”
Speers: “How did you fix it…”
Pyne: “I’ve fixed it by funding it in another way which you will find out in the Budget…”
Speers: “Why can’t you tells us?”
Pyne: “I want it to be a surprise for you [laughs]”
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. The lunatics (not the adults) are in charge of the asylum.
Thankfully, Pyne’s university reforms looks doomed, despite the minister’s compromise dumping of plans to sack 1700 scientists by denying the research sector ongoing funding, along with deferring the 20% uni funding cut to the May Budget.
As of last night, Pyne had failed to convince the required six senators to back university fee deregulation, with Nick Xenophon, Ricky Muir, Glenn Lazarus, Dio Wang, and Jacqui Lambie all saying they intended to still vote against deregulation.
Bob Day is the only senator openly supportive of the uni reforms, whereas David Leyonhjelm has reportedly shifted from supportive to opposed because of misgivings about the generosity of the HECS student loan scheme. John Madigan is understood to be undecided.
Good riddance to what would amount to another kick in the guts to Australia’s youth.
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