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Media Release
Lies, Damned Lies and Rudd’s Statistics
25 January 2007
The Leader of the Opposition’s rudderless “Education Revolution” is merely a cut and paste from various reports and his conclusions were based on selective and misleading use of outdated statistics.
The facts:
- Australia’s public spending on tertiary education has NOT declined by 7 percent between 1995 and 2003. The OECD figures exclude 75% of funding for vocational and technical education, which is included for other countries.
- When comparing apples with apples, OECD figures show total Australian expenditure on tertiary educational institutions actually increased by 25% in real terms between 1995 and 2003. Australian Government investment in Australian universities increased by 7.7 per cent in real terms over that period.
- Australia’s economy has grown significantly during the past 10 years which affects the percentage of GDP. Australia’s investment in all levels of education as a percentage of GDP increased from 5.5% to 5.8% from 1995 to 2003. Other countries showed a decrease, including Canada, Finland, Ireland and Germany.
- The OECD figures used by Labor do not include the impact of the Government’s major 2004 reforms (Backing Australia's Future), under which the higher education sector will be $2.6 billion better off over five years and $11 billion better off over a decade. In addition, the 2006-07 Budget provided a further $559.6 million over four years in new funding.
The latest report (2005) on university finances show they are in a strong financial position.
From 2004 to 2005:
- Total revenue increased by 8.1% to $13.9 billion
- Operating result increased by 36.6% to $838 million
- Total federal government funding increased by 9.3% to $7.8 billion
- Net assets increased by 7% to $25.7 billion
- Cash and investments grew by 17.8% to $7 billion
Media Contacts:
Ms Bishop’s Office: Murray Hansen 0417 886 155
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