2023-02-07
I wish to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022. I will come to the Greens' position on this bill in a few minutes. I want to start by saying that this bill is a massive, missed opportunity, both with respect to student debt and changes and with changes to the terrible, punitive and cruel Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill that was pushed through by the Liberals and that hiked fees and cut university funding.
The entire job-ready graduates package was a complete disaster. It's not sufficient just to fix the grandfathering error, nor is it sufficient to pretend that nothing can be done to fix that disaster until after the university accord process, which is only due to deliver its final report at the end of this year—with recommendations years away from being implemented. When current policy is causing problems for so many people and is deeply flawed, like the job-ready graduates, urgent action is warranted.
Job-ready graduates raised student fees and cut billions from Commonwealth contributions to teaching and learning. It failed in its attempt to encourage more enrolments in priority courses—such as science, engineering and mathematics—and burdened hundreds of thousands of students with billions in additional collective debt, shifting the overall cost of university education away from the Commonwealth and on to the students. Job-ready graduates, as designed, had an unfair and disproportionate impact on students who may already be marginalised, subject to structural discrimination or at greater risk of dropping out, including women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, low-SES students, first-in-family students and students who live in regional areas. It entrenched pre-existing inequalities. As the CEO of the Grattan Institute, Danielle Wood, stated in relation to the Job-ready graduates bill, back in 2020: 'I honestly think it's one of the worst-designed policies that I have ever seen … Even if you accept its stated rationale, it doesn't go anywhere near achieving it.'
The current bill that we are debating is a missed opportunity with regard to this particular grandfathering requirement and also with regard to the student debt. Education is a right, not a privilege reserved for those who can afford to pay for it. It should be universal, and it should be free at all levels. It is a travesty that student debt exists in the first place. It should be completely wiped. Tinkering around the edges and reducing student debt for certain cohorts is totally insufficient. The need to address ballooning student debt in this country has never been greater. Again, it's not a problem that should be palmed off until after the accord process has wrapped up. If inflation continues to rise, as is expected, student debt is likely to be indexed by around seven per cent on 1 June this year. This means that a person with an average HELP debt of around $24,770 will face an increase of over $1,700 to that debt. This is pretty staggering, particularly in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, which is hitting young people the hardest. The increase in debt will be much higher for those who are shackled with a bigger study debt burden. For the close to 600,000 people who have a HELP debt of $40,000, debts could rise by almost $3,000. These debts are holding people back from being able to get a car loan or a loan to purchase their first home and are severely limiting the amount that people are able to borrow.
Ballooning student debt is already causing harm. Last year, I heard from so many people about how rising student debt was holding them back. I want to put on the record what some of them said. One said: 'I'm literally 20 and I already owe more than $20,000. That's more than $1,000 for every year of my life.' Another one said: 'My HECS and student loan comes to $80,000. Indexation will mean all I have paid in the last 12 months comes to nothing.' Then there's this: 'I've just finished my degree—mum of two who staggered through it during lockdowns—and about to enter the full-time working world, feeling I'm behind before I even begin.' Another person told me: 'I'm going to pay about $3,500 in HECS this year, and at the end of the year my HECS debt will increase by $4,760—absolute nightmare.' This is the last one I'm going to read out today, although there are plenty more: 'This year, my debt went up by more than the compulsory payments reduced it by. Paying thousands to still have my HECS debt growing is so disheartening.' That is why I say that this bill is just tinkering around the edges and not sufficient. At the very least, we need to freeze indexation now to stop pouring fuel on the student debt crisis. We also need to raise the minimum repayment threshold to the median wage so we can ease the cost-of-living pressures for millions. That's why I have introduced a bill to do just that.
The bill we are debating amends the grandfathering provisions in the Higher Education Support Act to make them fairer and introduces a scheme for eligible doctors and nurses to have their HELP debts reduced or wiped if they live and work in rural and remote areas for a period based on the length of their degree. The bill also allows for the waiver of indexation in relation to eligible health practitioners' HELP debts while they're working in rural or remote areas. The Greens will support this bill because it does fix at least one broken element of the Liberals' Job-ready Graduates Package: the current unfair grandfathering of fee increases, which saw students who enrolled in honours courses hit by such high fees. It does also at least introduce measures to lower and wipe student debt for one cohort of students, so that's a step forward. But what we really need to work towards is the complete wiping of all student debt in this country and making education free for all.
I'm proud to be a member of the first and only party in Australia to commit to this vision. That's why I will be moving a second reading amendment to this effect—to make sure that student debt is wiped and to recognise that tertiary education, like all education, is an essential service, and it should be universal and free.