The thrust of the budget announced Tuesday night contains no surprises as far as higher education is concerned. I doubt that anyone in Australia would not have expected the major funding focus to be on defence.

Any cuts or enhancements for higher education in this budget would have undermined the credibility of Minister [for Education, Science, and Training] Brendan Nelson's discussion paper, Higher Education at the Crossroads, and consultation that he has promised.

Central Queensland University looks forward to ensuring that the discussions during the remainder of this year are well informed about the importance of the role regional universities, and CQU in particular, play in meeting the educational, training, research and community support needs of rural and regional Australia. Given the critical role of higher education in ensuring that our country has a well educated, tolerant, caring population we look forward to demonstrating that the maintenance and further development of our current universities is fundamental to having a country worth defending.

The Government will have the opportunity in Budget 2003 to demonstrate its commitment to investment in Australia's future as an educated nation. While the credibility of Minister Nelson's consultation on higher education would have been tarnished by budget changes at this stage, that credibility will be totally destroyed if Budget 2003 does not allocate very significant resources to the development of our universities.