www.millionreasons.com.au

The Greens have launched a new campaign that allows current students, future students and their allies to let key cross bench Senators know the enormity of their vote if they support the Abbott Government's education cuts and deregulation.

Greens spokesperson for higher education Senator Lee Rhiannon said:

"The Abbott government is waging a war on public education in Australia and we are gathering our allies to fight back to defend it.

The Australian Greens have said new polling released by the National Tertiary Education Union shows the Abbott Government should come clean on exactly how many millions of dollars of public money was spent on its dishonest higher education propaganda campaign.

NTEU polling released today shows that only 22 per cent of people have seen the ads and 55 per cent of people think it is inappropriate and unacceptable for the Abbott Government to spend public money to make the case for its higher education bill.

The Australian Greens spokesperson for higher education Senator Rhiannon has criticised Education Minister Christopher Pyne's use of public money to run television advertisements in order to sell his higher education cuts which were voted down by the Senate last week.

"Running a TV ad campaign shows how out of touch Mr Pyne is with students. If there are still students left watching TV, these ads will surely make them rush to Netflix and other online services in order to avoid being subject to the government's spin whenever they try and watch TV," Senator Rhiannon said.

The Australian Greens have welcomed the defeat of the Abbott government's higher education cuts that would have left students with 100k debts and massive cuts to university funding.

"This is a significant win for the tens of thousands of students, staff, and the education unions who have run such a strong and visible campaign for the past few months.

"The Greens opposed these cuts from day one and are proud to have stood with the advocates for public universities right from moment these cuts were announced in the May budget.

Australian Greens spokesperson for higher education Senator Lee Rhiannon has today congratulated crossbenchers for taking a strong stand against the Abbott Government's plans to cut $5 billion out of higher education and massively increase student fees.

It is expected that the vote on the Pyne higher education bill will occur this evening.

Commenting on Christopher Pyne's amendments to the Higher Education bill Greens higher education spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon said:

"Christopher Pyne's desperate attempts to force through his damaging plans to deregulate student fees and cut university funding should be scrapped in its entirety because it will hurt students, staff and the community.

"Christopher Pyne's amendments don't provide the protection they seem to offer - giving the ACCC ‘price monitoring powers' will result in a higher education equivalent of the much derided ‘FuelWatch' scheme.

The Australian Senate today unanimously passed a Greens motion moved by higher education spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon to establish an inquiry into the operation, regulation and funding of private vocational education and training providers in Australia.

Senator Rhiannon said: "This inquiry is urgently needed as governments across Australia are ripping hundreds of millions of dollars out of TAFE funding - leading to hundreds of job losses and massive fee increases for students.

MEDIA COMMENT
24 November 2014

In response to a letter sent from Universities Australia to all crossbench Senators today, Australian Greens spokesperson for higher education Senator Lee Rhiannon has published the following reply:

An open letter to Universities Australia

Dear Universities Australia,

Like you, the Greens are very aware that without strong and sustainable universities, Australia risks being left behind.

The Senate Inquiry hearing into higher education in Brisbane today has heard evidence that the Abbott Government’s planned university loan interest hikes could stop mature-aged students in regional areas from studying.

“The Abbott Government’s uni attacks, which the Greens will do all we can to block in the Senate, are designed to hit those struggling financially the hardest,” Australian Greens Senator for Queensland Larissa Waters said.