Government also reaffirms plan to bring higher education bill back to parliament before end of year despite being blocked twice by Senate

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The federal government has incurred more than $20,000 in legal costs fighting the release of figures showing the impact of removing limits on university fees.

The government also reaffirmed its plan to bring its higher education overhaul back to parliament before the end of 2015, despite the Senate’s decision to block the unpopular policy twice in the past eight months.

Officials revealed the cost of the freedom-of-information battle and declared the government’s intention to press ahead with deregulation in newly tabled answers to outstanding questions from budget estimates committee hearings.

The Department of Education and Training said: “The department engaged the Australian Government Solicitor to represent it in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal [AAT].”

“The cost for this service was $20,932.78.”

The FOI applicant, Crispin Rovere, failed in his bid to obtain the government’s higher education modelling, which included the effect of the policy on students and public funding levels.

The AAT found the modelling was “speculative” and accepted the department’s argument that price signalling before the changes took effect could undermine genuine competition in a deregulated market.

The department reinforced its position in answers to questions on notice. It said it would be “inappropriate” to release the modelling because it could prejudice the market, but maintained that the government had “presented a detailed rationale for its higher education reforms to the public”.

In other answers to questions on notice, the department said the education minister, Christopher Pyne, wanted to try a third time to legislate the package and was “open to negotiation”.

“The minister has indicated that he intends to bring back the higher education reform package for parliament to consider in the spring 2015 parliamentary sittings,” the department said.

“The minister has also indicated that he will continue to work with senators and other stakeholders to achieve passage of the government’s higher education reforms. The government has not at this stage announced any changes to the reform package that was rejected by the Senate on 17 March 2015.”

Pyne has not revealed a detailed timeframe. The parliamentary calendar lists the “spring” sittings as occurring between next week and the first week of December.

The previous legislation sought to remove limits on student contributions and extend funding to sub-bachelor programs and private colleges from 2016. It would also have cut subsidies for bachelor degrees by an average of 20% – although Pyne offered to move this measure into a separate bill in an unsuccessful bid to win over crossbench senators.



The bill blocked in March 2015 was not identical to the legislation the Senate blocked in early December 2014 so the outcome did not create a “trigger” option for Tony Abbott to call a double-dissolution election.

Labor’s higher education spokesman, Kim Carr, said the government had already spent millions of dollars advertising its higher education package. “Now we discover they’re spending large sums of money on legal fees to prevent public disclosure about their own funding models,” he said.

“The Labor party would welcome an election fought on $100,000 degrees. There is no evidence that the Senate has changed its attitude after already rejecting this twice.” Carr accused the Coalition of retaining the policy to sustain the “fantasy” budget figures that were based on savings unlikely to pass the parliament.

Officials said the Coalition’s proposed cuts to course funding required a change to the law.

“If the government has not secured passage of the higher education reforms by 1 January 2016, the department will not withhold the average 20% reduction to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme for the 2016 calendar year,” the department said.