Recently, on the 2TM News Podcast, the Member for New England, Barnaby Joyce responded to a question regarding UNE funding by saying, "I'm just about there ... and I've got about 450 positions, which is worth about $7.76 mil ... now we've got another $1bil in grant funding for research, I'm going to grab some of that for UNE".
Mr Joyce also mentioned that the big cost of Universities is not in the buildings themselves, but the Commonwealth funded positions for the students.