Lapdog,You said:That Pyne handled the situation ineptly and...

Lapdog,You said:
That Pyne handled the situation ineptly and provided grossly inadequate answers was revealing into just how inept and ideooligcal driven the Abbott Govt is.

You got it wrong. Pyne made two major points. The first was that the USA has a very good two tiered system, the full Uni model and the teaching Uni only model. He suggests we should have teaching only Unis. There is something to be said for that. One still gets a Degree and if good enough one can go on to get a higher degree at a top Uni. In the US success at top Unis while getting a higher degree makes no difference where you get your basic degree.
The second was that Students eventually pay only 40% of the cost of their degree, if they pay the Hecs debt but 20% never pay. I think it reasonable for students to pay more. I paid my way through Uni but I was part of that 5% whyo got to Uni in those days. When Whitlam introduced free Uni my youngest sister, part of a relatively small cohort that was at the top, could go to Uni. But then there were about 10 Unis and now we have over 40 Unis with students in the top 40% of the cohort able to go to Uni. Ee can no longer afford such luxuries.
Note by the way I was taught by Professors, how many are now taught by PhD students in excessively large classes. Some must change, while allowing those lower down an opportunity to go to Uni.