Labor education shadow Tanya Plibersek was backing open access yesterday, but not necessarily to university. “We believe that every Australian who is prepared to work hard, to apply themselves, who has got the intellectual gifts should be able to gain a place in a university. Not based on their parent’s income but based on their ability to work hard and their smarts.” Good-oh, so that’s demand driven funding sorted. Um, not necessarily, Ms Plibersek continued;

“But we see also that university is not the only path for young Australians. At the same time as we’ve seen university funding continue to grow at a more modest pace in recent years, we’ve seen massive cuts to TAFE, to vocational education and to schools. We need to have an education system that works for children, before they start school with well-funded pre-schools, right through the school years, through vocational education and university.”

What, like Labor education minister Craig Emerson’s 2014 plan to spend more on schools by spending less on universities?