Gillard has more front than the MCG

Julia Gillard's reported admission that there will be no funding for the Higher Education sector in the upcoming budget is the final nail in the coffin of her so-called Education Revolution, according to Christopher Pyne, Shadow Minister for Education.

"Ms Gillard's claim that the "global financial crisis has been pounding the budget" and that she can no longer afford to fund the recommendations of her own Higher Education review is a shameless attempt at smoke and mirrors that would embarrass even the most amateur magician," Mr Pyne said.

"The Australian public know this government inherited a $22 billion dollar budget surplus and zero government debt. They have witnessed Ms Gillard's and Mr Rudd's spending spree on pink batts and cash splashes," he said.

By choosing to fritter away billions of dollars that could have been pumped into the higher education sector, the Government has utterly undermined the credibility of Ms Gillard's so-called education revolution.

The sum total of action that the Government has taken in Higher Education sector since November 2007 is a sorry list:

a new $250 tax on students;

the abolition of domestic full fee places - one of the very few growth areas for universities;

the renaming of the Higher Education Endowment Fund as the Education Investment Fund.

"The Higher Education sector, which was promised the world by this Government, has been left with precisely nothing," Mr Pyne said.

After the Government has splashed out over $50 billion in ill-conceived and poorly targeted stimulus packages, they now have the audacity to say it is not their fault that there is nothing left for higher education - Julia Gillard has more front than the MCG.

"This would not have happened if Australia had the full-time Education Minister it deserves," he said.