Page 964 - Week 03 - Thursday, 19 March 2015
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We get to higher education. Higher education is important. This city was meant to be a city of education. This was—
Mr Barr: You have wasted a quarter of your speech before you even mention higher education.
MR SMYTH: It is quite interesting. The minister asserts that I have wasted a quarter of my speech. It is not a waste when you hold the government to account. The opening speaker had 15 minutes and went for six minutes and 40 seconds. If we want to talk about a wasted opportunity, let us remember that we had an opportunity brought on by the Labor Party and their lead speaker did not even manage seven minutes. We want to talk about opportunities, Chief Minister. There are opportunities there all the time to hold you to account, and we will do it. As I have said before in this place—
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR SMYTH: As I have said before in this place, this city was founded to be a city of governance, education and the arts, as then Prime Minister Fisher said. Kate Carnell, when she was the Chief Minister, understood that, and we started the process. I acknowledge that there has been some continuance. At least Chief Minister Gallagher set up the portfolio of higher education. One of the first actions of the new Chief Minister, Mr Barr, was the abolition of that portfolio. He has responsibility for it, but it does not exist in the ministry. The downgrading of higher ed as a portfolio is in stark contrast to the words of the Chief Minister and—
Members interjecting—
MR SMYTH: There we go. Please, Mr Assistant Speaker, I seek your protection from the constant interjection of the Chief Minister.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Dr Bourke): Mr Coe, stop interjecting, please.
MR SMYTH: Mr Coe? I don’t think he has—hardly.
I suspect this started out as another one of those stunt speeches to attack the federal government but that neither Ms Porter nor Mr Barr could raise the energy to do it. I suspect that fundamentally they know something has to be reformed in the higher education sector. Just remember what Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating said:
There is no such thing, of course, as “free” education—somebody has to pay. In systems with no charges those somebodies are all taxpayers.
This is a pretty important point: a “free” higher education system is one paid for by the taxes of all, the majority of whom haven’t had the privilege of a university education. Ask yourself if you think that is a fair thing.
You would have thought they might have raised a bit of a sweat, got a bit of energy up and had a go. But they would have been thinking of the words of Andrew Leigh, the
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