The government can't get over its preoccupation with the Budget deficit. Despite the fact that the deficit is both tiny and completely manageable they insist on cutting government spending.
In one way their determination is admirable if they truly believe that the accumulated debt will harm Australia in the long run. However their decision to cut education funding can do nothing but harm Australia in the long run.
The Guardian article below has most of the details. The essence of it is that the price of going to university in Australia will go up if the measures ever pass the Senate and so fewer Australian people will go to university.
The real problem is that the people who won't be able to afford to go are exactly the ones that need to. They will come from lower and middle socio-economic groups who have traditionally gone into low tech and manufacturing employment.
Australia's future prosperity depends on building a better educated workforce able to compete in the global 'knowledge based' economy. For that it needs well educated graduates and a key feature will be getting more people through degree courses. This will help shift the Long Run Aggregate Supply curve to the right that much faster than otherwise and will assist in maintaining non-inflationary growth.
Of course raising the low standard of Australian degrees is out of the question under this scheme. All students must do honours to compete globally. To cut education funding as proposed makes no sense at all.
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