The Government’s higher education reform package is facing defeat in the Senate, largely due to proposed cuts to tuition subsides and fee deregulation for domestic undergraduates.
Less controversial reforms to the demand driven funding system also face defeat because they are in the same piece of legislation. These reforms would open up Commonwealth supported places to higher education students in private universities, TAFEs, and private higher education providers. They would also remove restriction on the number of diploma-level courses in public universities.
These were recommendations of the demand driven review conducted by Dr David Kemp and Andrew Norton, which reported in April 2014.
This Senate inquiry submission from Andrew Norton proposes a way of proceeding with the demand driven reforms, including Budget savings measures that would ensure that there was no increase in total Commonwealth spending.
The submission was to the second Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee Inquiry into the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014.