Luke Howarth voted very strongly against increasing funding for university education

The majority voted against an amendment to the usual second reading motion "that the bills be read a second time", which is parliamentary jargon for agreeing with the main idea of the bill. Since this vote was unsuccessful, the second reading motion will remain unchanged.

Amendment text

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government has damaged the quality of Australia's world-class higher education system, having cut billions from universities by effectively capping undergraduate places and slashing research funding".

The majority voted against a motion that asked the House to disagree with the main idea of the bill. In parliamentary jargon, they voted against a motion to "declin[e] to give the bill a second reading".

Motion text

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House declines to give the bill a second reading because this bill:

(1) cuts university funding by nearly $4 billion;

(2) hits students with higher fees;

(3) saddles students with bigger debts which they will have to pay back at the same time as they are trying to buy a house or start a family;

(4) compromises teaching and learning, and undermines research; and

*(5) slashes investment in universities at a time when the Government should be investing in both universities and TAFEs in order to guarantee a strong and productive economy". *

What is the bill's main idea?

The bill makes changes to the way higher education funding works. For example, the bill proposes to:

• reduce Commonwealth funding of tuition costs for undergraduate courses at universities through increasing the student contribution towards these costs, and reducing the funding universities receive to cover these costs; and
• make changes so that those in the workforce will commence repayment at much lower income levels and at higher rates.

The bill also proposes to change arrangements for permanent residents and New Zealand citizens by:

extending access to HELP loans to students in this situation, but at the same time removing access to CSPs [Commonwealth Supported Places] ... [so they will] effectively be treated the same as domestic full-fee paying students.

Find out more about the bill in its bills digest.

The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a second time,( Read more about the stages that a bill must pass through in order to become law here. ) which was moved by the Minister for Education Christopher Pyne. This means that the majority agree with the main idea of the bill.

Background to the bill

The bill was introduced to remove the HECS-HELP up-front payment discount for units of study with a census date on or after 1 January 2014 and remove the HELP voluntary repayment bonus for repayments made on or after 1 January 2014.(Read more about tertiary education fees and funding in Australia here.) It also applies an efficiency dividend of 2 per cent in 2014 and 1.25 per cent in 2015 to Commonwealth contribution amounts under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme.