Labor’s Tanya Plibersek has challenged new education minister Dan Tehan to debate “schools, unis, TAFE and childcare.” It wlll take more than Mr Tehan to cover all that. For a start he would have to bring Paul Fletcher and Michelle Landry for childcare. And Michaelia Cash for voced.

But CMM suspects none of them will want to talk, certainly not Mr Tehan. There are no votes in cutting costs and if ministers even mention money they will be shouted down by student, union and most university lobbies calling for a return to demand-driven funding.

And while Ms Plibersek still wants to talk, probably just not as loudly or as long as she wanted to before the Liberals committed idiotcide.

All Labor need to do to win the next election is to promise not to govern by pie-fight. While restoring demand driven funding is a very public promise from the Labor leadership she need not state it as loudly or as often as when the election could have been a contest. Labor will also have to find new funding for TAFE which has to come from somewhere.

What this means for higher education this side of the election is not much.