Lin Thorp voted a mixture of for and against increasing funding for university education

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, which means that it was successful. The motion is:

That the Senate-

(a) notes that in its first budget the Abbott Coalition Government is cutting $5.8 billion from public higher education, including:(Read more about the 2014 federal budget and its impacts on higher education on Wikipedia here. )

(i) $3.2 billion from changes to the HECS-HELP repayment threshold and increased interest rates for HECS-HELP debt,

(ii) $1.1 billion from cuts to Commonwealth funding for course fees,

(iii) $504 million from removing the grandfathering provisions included in the conversion of Student Start-Up Scholarships into loans,(Read more about this budget initiative here.)

(iv) $290 million from cutting funding to Relocation Scholarships,

(v) $204 million from decreasing indexation rates for grants,

(vi) $170 million from research training cuts,

(vii) $121 million from cutting higher education reward funding,

(viii) $87.7 million from removing the HECS-HELP discount for priority courses redundant,

(ix) $75 million ARC funding cuts,

(x) $51 million from cuts to Access and Participation Grants, and

(xi) $31million from cuts to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standard Agency;

(b) acknowledges the crucial role played by public higher education in providing millions of Australians with skills that benefit the broader community; and

(c) calls on the Government to immediately reverse these budget cuts and commit to a well funded and accessible public higher education system.

References

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by Senator Kim Carr, which was:

"No. 1—That the Commonwealth Scholarships Guidelines (Education) 2013, made under section 238-10 of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, be disallowed, and"

"No. 2—That Amendment No. 1 to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines 2012, made under section 238-10 of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, be disallowed."

Because this motion was successful, this 2013 Guideline and amendment to the 2012 Guideline are now disallowed and therefore cease to have effect.(Read more about what it means to disallow a legislative instrument here. )

Background to the motion

The amendment to the Commonwealth Scholarships Guidelines (Education) 2012 and the Commonwealth Scholarships Guidelines (Education) 2013 were introduced to implement an efficiency dividend to university funding as part of the 2013-14 Budget.(See the explanatory statements of the amendment to the 2012 Guideline here and the 2013 Guideline here. Learn more about these cuts on Lateline here.) The efficiency dividend is a reduction in loading per Commonwealth supported place.

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, which means that it was rejected. The motion was:

That the Senate-

(a) notes that:

(i) the University of Western Sydney (UWS) has foreshadowed planned cuts to economics and community languages courses and academic staffing cuts across various schools,

(ii) UWS claims the cuts are in response to budgetary pressures due to lower than expected student enrolments following the uncapping of university places, however the university still carries a budget surplus and can expect a steady increase in enrolments over time,

(iii) in 2003 UWS allocated 62.5 per cent of student fees earned to teaching and learning, whereas in 2012 only 38.3 per cent of student fees earned went to teaching and learning, with a corresponding increase in administration expenditure,

(iv) teaching and learning is under resourced at UWS, with one of the highest staff to student ratios in Australia as well as one of the highest staff casualisation rates, and further staffing cuts will deny the students of Western Sydney a quality education, and

(v) UWS plans to close its student learning service that targets academic skills support to socially disadvantaged students and students who are the first in their family to attend university, which applies to a large number of students from Western Sydney; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) urge UWS management to retain its current courses and academic staffing resources, and

(ii) immediately increase public funding by 10 per cent per government supported university student, as recommended by the Bradley review, to give budget certainty to universities.