Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees)

Senator JOYCE (Queensland) (4.21 pm)—Mr Acting
Deputy President—

Senator Lundy—Mr Acting Deputy President, I
rise on a point of order. According to standing order
186, when all else is in doubt you should call the senator
who rises first. This is the third time I have risen to
speak in this debate—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator
Brandis)—I saw Senator Joyce rise first.

Senator Lundy—That is because you were looking
in that direction.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT—There is
no point of order.

Senator JOYCE—There have been many good arguments
posed, and I will endeavour—

Senator Lundy—Mr Acting Deputy President, I
rise on a further point of order. Perhaps you could advise
me when I will be able to seek leave to incorporate
my speech on the second reading, seeing that I am obviously
going to be deprived of the opportunity for the
third time this week to give such a speech.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT—Senator
Lundy, that is not a point of order either. The debate
has not long to go.

Senator Lundy—Can you give me that—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT—No. It is
not a point of order. Sit down.

Senator JOYCE—As I said, there have been many
good arguments posed here today, and I will endeavour
not to replicate them. I do not support—

Senator Bob Brown—On a point of order, Mr Acting
Deputy President: I ask you when honourable senators
who want to incorporate speeches will be able to.
Can you make sure that that opportunity is available?

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT—That is a
matter for arrangement between the managers—not for
me.

Senator Bob Brown—At your behest.

Senator JOYCE—I do not support compulsory
student unionism. We have the chance today to end that
process, and it is quite obvious that it will end today. I
have moved an amendment to allow the ending of
compulsory student unionism but to facilitate continued
facilities at universities. The inception of it is in a resolution that comes from my state conference. I will
read it out to completely clarify my position, because I
was sent here by Queensland to represent Queensland
and to follow or be guided by it. It reads:
That this State Conference of The Nationals Queensland:
· Declares its full and unequivocal support for the concept of
voluntary student unionism;
· Notes the concerns of the Federal government with regard
to wastage of funds by university student unions;
· Requests the Federal government ensures that an alternate
funding mechanism with comparable—that means the same—
levels of funding to existing fees is provided to maintain—
that means forever—the level of services and the provision of facilities on universitycampuses—
That backing—coming down in my first term to represent
my party at the federal level—is what is driving
me. I would like to thank Mike Horan and Stuart Copeland
for raising this issue at the start and for sitting
down with me to cover the issues of the University of
Southern Queensland. I would like to thank Lawrence
Springborg and the Queensland Nationals for their support.

As a starting point, I see there being a number of
pieces to the philosophy. I see a university as any other
business, and so at this moment I have a problem. Universities
should be able if they so choose to not charge
a fee. If we get rid of compulsory student unionism and
put the matter under the auspices of the universities,
they should be able to choose to charge a fee or not to
charge a fee. If they pick up students, who are like clients,
and start making a way into the market because of
that reduction of fees then they will continue on with
that. But we should leave them the option if they so
choose to charge a fee at the university level, audited
and covered by the university—a bill that goes to the
university. It seems peculiar, from a conservative party
point of view, to be telling a business what it can and
cannot charge for.
Universities are not just purely academic institutions.
They never were and they never will be. I hope
they are never turned into just purely academic institutions.
They are to embolden the whole spirit of a person
and to broaden their social dynamic. And to
broaden a person’s social dynamic they must have
things around them that entail and encourage that—that
bring that out of them. That is why we have playgrounds
for the kindergarten, we have playgrounds for
the primary schools and we have fields for the high
schools. And so it should be the case at universities that
we create the mechanisms for people to go out and
mix.
If you are going to have those mechanisms for them
to have a greater social engagement then you have to
have them in place. To say a user-pays facility will
work does not tend to countenance the argument that
some of these facilities take 10 or 13 years to pay off—
maybe 150 years of funding is needed to build them up
to a certain level. We are about to take Australia to a
form of funding for these facilities that is only replicated
in one other country in the world—that is, the
Republic of China. The package speaks of $80 million
to cover $170 million worth of fees. There would be a
residual of about $25 million. So we have $145 million
a year or $20 million a year taken over four years. That
is about a $120 million shortfall. That is not a comparable
level of funding. This means that there is going to
be a large black hole at the end of that period. It is going
to fall to a political process as to who gets the funding.
Yes, I am driven by the fact that I went to the University
of New England. It holds on by its nails to being
a relevant university. I am passionate about it because
I believe in the collegiate spirit that it has. I believe
that this change is going to take them down so
that they start losing relevance. I believe that when
they close down 14 hectares of sporting fields, as they
say they are going to, they will become a second-rate
choice university to go to. I believe it will build up the
status quo for the sandstone universities and the little
universities, such as the University of Southern Queensland,
the University of New England, James Cook
University, the University of Central Queensland and
Charles Sturt University, will be detrimentally affected.
We will be saying to people who go to one university,
‘This is the experience you will have here,’ and to the
people who go to another university we