Doorstop: cuts to universities; Energy crisis; Marriage equality

The Australian Government is proposing that we cut almost $4 billion from universities, meaning that students will pay higher fees, they'll repay them sooner, for a poorer quality education. I've been delighted in the last few days to hear that the Xenophon Party, Jacquie Lambie and others will be opposing this Bill, because they know this is not about reform of our universities, it's simply about cost-cutting. Now we've had more information overnight from the OECD showing that Australian students are already receiving lower support for their university education than students around the world, and that Australian spending on education continues to slide. One of the most concerning elements of the report that was released overnight is that Australia particularly continues to slide in STEM areas - science, technology, engineering and maths. And that's why Labor went to the last election with some very strong proposals to increase the study of STEM subjects at school, at TAFE and at university. Any questions?

 JOURNALIST: Quite a lot of money that isn't being paid back by graduates though, do you think the crossbenchers might be convinced to lower the HECS threshold?

 PLIBERSEK: What a nutty idea. Here is a Government that actually supports charging students more so they will have higher debts, and then it points to debt as a problem. If you don't want students to have big debts, stop charging them a fortune to go to university.

 JOURNALIST: What about these reports the Government is redesigning the Clean Energy Target. What impact is that going to have on households?

 PLIBERSEK: This Government promised that power bills would go down by $550 if we got rid of action to promote clean energy. In fact, energy bills have gone up, on average, by about $1000 a year in Sydney. So instead of going down, they've gone up, because renewables are becoming cheaper than dirty old coal-fired power. Here you've got a Government that is so at war with itself that it can't do anything on energy policy. The Prime Minister once said he didn't want to lead a party that wasn't as committed to real action on climate change as he was. Well he has dumped that as he's dumped every other single thing that he used to stand for. He's now on a short leash, jerked by the coal enthusiasts in the party room who say if it's not coal it's nothing. We say there should be more gas, more renewables, more storage, and more certainty. We need more certainty so that new entrants into power generation will come into the marketplace. More gas - we've supported a domestic gas reserve for years. We were told that we were economic vandals by this Government for supporting keeping Australian gas to use in Australia. We know that this summer, we will have blackouts unless we act on better storage. And we know that renewables are becoming cheaper than coal-fired power. Why would we invest in more expensive power that's also dirtier? I'll tell you why - because this Prime Minister can't lead his party room to any sort of sensible decision. He's completely lost authority.

 JOURNALIST: Will these safeguards for the postal survey do enough to stop the debate from becoming ugly?

 PLIBERSEK: No. The debate's already ugly. I've already had the homes of my constituents graffitied, I've seen all sorts of appalling stuff distributed unauthorised and completely inaccurate and all sorts of foul stuff. The very fact that we're having this debate is bringing out some of the worst commentary and personally, I hold the Prime Minister responsible for that. This is a $122 million waste of money that we didn't need to have, because this Parliament will ultimately decide this question in any case. However, some protections are better than none, so we have worked with the Government to offer some protections because it's better than leaving people on their own. Will this stop the hate speech? No, I don't believe so, because I've seen too much of it already. What I would remind people is that ballot papers hit this week. As soon as those surveys hit your letterbox make sure you fill them in and send them back. Because if you don't send them back in the first day or two, if you're anything like me, the dog will eat it or it'll get lost or be recycled. Make sure you get those survey forms back as soon as possible.

 JOURNALIST: Just on media reforms, the Government may have struck a deal. Surely that's a win for the Coalition?

 PLIBERSEK: Well it's not a win for Australians, is it? I mean, we've got one of the most concentrated media environments in the world, to further concentrate it is doing a great disservice to Australians. Thanks.