Clive Palmer rejects new university reforms as ‘rubbish’

CLIVE Palmer has declared his party won’t vote for the government’s new higher education bill.

CLIVE Palmer has declared his party won’t vote for the government’s new higher education bill, calling the legislation “rubbish”.

The revelation comes as Palmer United Party senator Zhenya Wang broke away from Mr Palmer and PUP senator Glenn Lazarus over the reforms, telling The Australian an overhaul of the university sector was needed by 2016.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne has vowed to push ahead with his university shake-up after the Senate voted against the legislation on Wednesday night.

The Abbott government’s new bill was tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday.

But today Mr Palmer said the new amendments would not win over his party.

“We’ve got an obligation to look at anything the government puts before us as elected members of parliament,” Mr Palmer said. “But if it’s anything like the current bill … we won’t be voting for that bill.

“I’ve gone through it, we’ve seen it … It’s just rubbish.”

Mr Pyne may need to further amend the legislation to win crucial votes from the crossbench, including from the two PUP senators.

Mr Palmer denied Senator Wang believed reform was necessary, even though the senator has told The Australian consultations with the university sector convinced him change was needed.

Senator Wang also said he’d be “willing” to look into the legislation “in more detail” if he thought it helped rural and low-socio-economic students.

He is calling for a national scholarship program for these students, which Mr Pyne has included in the new legislation, and a financial support package.

But Mr Palmer said: “If you’re talking about Christopher Pyne’s bill, (Senator Wang) doesn’t believe it’s necessary. If you’re talking about general reform, we are looking at reform in education.”

Senator Wang yesterday said deregulation of university fees was “tricky” but that he could vote for it if there were appropriate amendments in place.

“Deregulation promotes competition and in a way that helps the universities increase their quality of education but, the problem is, once its deregulated we’re in a situation where we’re going to have wealthy students subsidising the poorer students,” he said.

“It wouldn’t be a good atmosphere. The last thing you want is a rich kid pointing a finger at the poor kid saying: ‘I’m paying for your uni degree’.”