Government backbencher Rick Wilson announces “more tertiary opportunities for regional students in Albany”

It’s a federally funded resource centre in southwest WA “for students to access tertiary education and training close to home.”

This is a good-news natural for a government member to share with Education Minister Alan Tudge. And there used to be more like it. For a while when Dan Tehan was in the portfolio government backbenchers got to announce research funding on their patch (CMM yesterday).

But that seems to have stopped. This is not great for higher education – which needs friends on the coalition backbench. There is no better way to make them than funding announcements in their electorates.