2023-06-14
I move:
That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
Labor is refusing to support students who are bearing the brunt of this cost-of-living crisis, including from soaring rents, ballooning student debt, woefully low income support payments and unpaid placements, whilst splurging hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy and dangerous nuclear submarines.
It must be depressing and overwhelming to be a student right now. Students are struggling to afford groceries, to pay for medicine or period products, to afford train or bus tickets even, and to pay weekly bills. They are surviving on instant noodles and lining up in queues for free food. Students are struggling to pay rents to keep a roof over their heads. They're facing rent hikes from greedy landlords. International students are pitching tents in lounge rooms and sleeping in bathrooms.
Students are caught in a debt spiral. Labor allowed student debts to rise by an astronomical 7.1 per cent on 1 June, handing down even longer and larger debt sentences to millions of students. This is on top of the 3.9 per cent increase last June and a predicted further 3.9 per cent next year. Student debts will have ballooned by 15 per cent in just two years under the Labor government. The situation gets even worse for students who are required to work for free as part of the degrees they will be paying off for decades. It should be the other way around. Degrees should be free, and students should be paid for the work that they do.
Last week I joined Students Against Placement Poverty to launch their campaign against yet another unfair and unjust aspect of our education system: unpaid placements. Hundreds of thousands of students are working countless hours without pay or compensation. Work placements are especially common in feminised fields of study, and this further entrenches gender inequality. One student spoke, through tears, about completing a placement in a hospital and needing to work seven days a week just to afford to live each day, saying, 'You can't process anything when you have to work seven days a week. How do you learn and how do you get better?' Students are being pushed to the limit, going months without a day off. They finish their placements at 5 pm and go straight to paid shifts at the pub or the grocery store. Students are choosing between putting petrol in the car to get to a placement and putting food in their stomachs. Inflation is increasing because of corporate profiteering, and it's students who are suffering. Students are working multiple jobs and cutting back on necessities but still barely scraping by.
It's an absolute travesty that a Labor government is allowing this to go on. How is it that senior executives and CEOs of some of Australia's largest listed companies are pocketing 14 and 15 per cent average pay rises when so many students can barely stay afloat? It is absolutely atrocious and outrageous. Young people's futures are being stolen from them. Yet whenever someone points out to the government how bad things are for students, Labor's response is to either defend the current system, which is clearly cooked, or deflect to the universities a court process—a process that could take years to implement.
This is not good enough. Something needs to be done right now, and the government has the power to do it. An education system that pushes students further into inequality is a completely broken one, and a welfare system that doesn't lift people above the poverty line is an utterly cruel one. Labor knows students are struggling now. To say anything different shows how out of touch with reality they are. Labor could lower the age of independence for youth allowance from 22 to 18 and raise all student social security payments to above the poverty line, to at least $88 per day. Labor could take meaningful action for renters by freezing rent hikes. They could wipe student debt, pay students a living wage for placements, and make university and TAFE free.
There is absolutely no doubt that we can afford these measures. It's just a matter of priorities. Labor has made the terrible choice to give $313 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest and $368 billion for dangerous war machines, while supporting struggling students and those doing it toughest is apparently too costly. Despite the hardship that students are facing, their courage to speak up, to organise and to mobilise to turn things around has not diminished. They are rallying in the streets. They are bravely telling their powerful stories. They are building a powerful movement for change.
So, thank you to all the students for being such staunch activists and showing grit in the face of the such difficult circumstances that they face. The fight goes on.