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Christopher Pyne says cuts to research funding as an alternative to the higher education reforms that face being blocked by the Senate could be a “worst-case scenario” and has called on student protesters to “get some perspective” because the government is “not exactly asking for their left kidney”.
On Thursday Pyne will introduce legislation to implement his plan to deregulate university fees, decrease course funding by an average 20% and increase the interest rate charged for student loans.
But Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United party are opposed to the reform package.
Fairfax newspapers reported on Sunday that the government is considering cutting billions of dollars in research funding from universities if the Senate blocks its higher education changes, and Guardian Australia understands Pyne has raised this “worst-case” possibility in private meetings and negotiations.
Interviewed on Channel Ten’s Bolt Report, Pyne repeatedly refused to rule out the threat but reiterated it was a last resort.
“Well, the worst-case scenario … is cuts without reform. And I think the university sector gets that and I want to work with the crossbenchers to make sure that we all understand the high stakes that we are playing for … and that’s why I believe our reforms will pass in the end because I think we’ll all be able to work together to get a better future for our universities,” he said.
He suggested student protesters who this week tried to burn an effigy of Pyne had lost perspective and were greatly exaggerating the magnitude of the proposed changes.
“I think what they’re protesting about is the election of the Abbott government. They really don’t have the kinds of problems that they are protesting about that deserve the burning of effigies. We’re asking students to pay 50% of the cost of their education … We’re not asking for their left kidney to be donated. I think they need to get some perspective and proportion,” he said.
He mocked the protesters for being unable to properly set fire to the effigy, saying he was “thinking of doing a YouTube video showing the protesters how to burn an effigy because everyone knows you need more cardboard and rag than being able to burn oil core flutes. I think it speaks volumes when they hung their banner, they hung it upside down. They tried to wish me an unhappy birthday, but I had a happy birthday,” he said.
Pyne said the reforms were essential to prevent Australia’s education sector from “sliding into mediocrity” and from being “overtaken by Asian competitors”. He has said his policy aimed to lift some Australian universities into the top 50 in the world, but in most of the world university rankings, research spending and outcomes are a major component of success.
In the Times Higher Education rankings, for example, which the minister cites as an example of Australian universities’ sliding status, research is worth 30% of a ranking and citation of research another 30%.
Labor’s higher education spokesman, Kim Carr, said Pyne was trying to “blackmail” the Senate and called the tactic “dishonourable”.
“Christopher Pyne has repeatedly claimed the reason for the government’s changes is to lift the international standing of Australian universities. To cut research funding therefore becomes self-defeating,” Carr said.
“Not only does it defeat the purported purpose of the changes, it exposes the fact that Christopher Pyne’s agenda is driven entirely by short-sighted objectives around funding cuts and ideology, not by any positive long-term vision for Australia’s future.”
Australian Greens deputy leader, Adam Bandt, said the Greens would not give in to blackmail.
“If Tony Abbott threatens cuts to research funding, he will be met with the mother of all protests. Australia’s future depends on secure and adequate funding for research,” Bandt said.
The threat to cut research funding is based on the assumption that it could be done through an appropriation bill, which would not normally be amended in the Senate. But that convention is limited to appropriation bills supplying the government with funding for existing or normal running costs, and is not applicable to bills that use funding changes to make major changes to policy.
Labor has already shown its willingness to block or amend those kinds of bills – for example with amendments to the asset recycling bill during the last sitting of parliament.
The clerk of the Senate, Rosemary Laing, has given clear advice that those kinds of appropriations bills can be amended.
Pyne said he had been negotiating with the sector and Senate crossbenchers for “months and months” and would this week “even be meeting the Greens”.
He has indicated a willingness to compromise on the proposed increase in the interest rate for the repayment of student loans, and on some form of compensation for regional universities, but has said he will not compromise on the deregulation of the sector or the cuts to course funding.
The president of the national union of students, Deanna Taylor, said past and current students had very legitimate concerns, including unpredictable increases in fees and higher interest rates on their loans. She said the minister did not seem to be listening.
The changes to interest rates are scheduled to save $3.2bn and the cuts to course funding $1.1bn.
The chairman of the Group of Eight Universities, Ian Young, has described the idea of cuts to research programs as “disastrous”.
And Belinda Robinson, chief executive of Universities Australia, said big cuts to research funding would be a disaster for the Australian economy.
“Our research and knowledge is the source of our new industries, of our future economy ... The public would be entitled to ask what is the plan for future economic growth if the government made good on this threat,” she said.
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