Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

Having listened to the member for Tangney it reinforces my opposition to the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill that is before us today. There is a complete lack of understanding, which demonstrates why there is such a huge difference in approach between the Liberal government and the Labor opposition. Labor actually understands the benefit to individuals, to society and to our economy of higher education. Plainly, that is not something that is understood by those opposite.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to meet with students at La Trobe University which borders my electorate of Jagajaga. I listened to a number of students, and I will just mention a few of them: Rose Steele, Betty Belay, Helen Morrison, Jenny Stramilos, Jasmine Ingram and Sebastian Horey. Each of them talked with me about their aspirations for the future. They told me how they wanted to use their university degrees to contribute to society and to make Australia a better place.

The students also talked to me about their fears. Having just listened to some of the contributions from the Liberal members opposite, these fears about this government's proposed higher education reforms are well founded. For these students, instead of planning their future careers with confidence, they are worried about how long it is going to take them to pay off their higher education loans. Instead of applying their creativity to whatever endeavours they might want to pursue, they are anxious about how they will deal with paying higher interest rates of up to six per cent on their student loans. And who can blame them for having such fears?

The real interest rate on HECS-HELP loans means a degree will end up costing a lot more than the course fee and will take a lot longer to pay off. With compounding interest, young people who are on lower incomes, or who take time out of the workforce to raise a family, will end up paying the most. I just want to go through some of this in detail. According to NATSEM, students could pay up to three times as much for their degree, even if fees only increase by 50 per cent. This is considered to be a conservative estimate, given the projected fee hikes. Assuming a compound interest rate of five per cent, the full impact of Prime Minister Abbott's higher education changes becomes evident.

A young Australian woman studying science at university currently takes around eight years to repay a debt of just over $44,000. According to NATSEM, under Tony Abbott's higher education reforms, the same degree would cost $170,863 and would take 20 years to repay. This is the real impact. This is what we are really talking about. These are huge debts that this government is going to saddle young people with. Young Australians should not be crippled with such debts.

It is not just NATSEM that have drawn this conclusion from the government's proposals. According to Universities Australia, a nursing graduate under a medium-fee increase scenario, who works part-time for six years after working full-time for six years,—obviously, someone who is going to work part-time because she is looking after her family—will pay off their student loan of $51,620 over 20 years compared with 17 years to repay a HELP debt of $24,500 under existing arrangements. These are the real impacts on young people who are going to be told by this government, 'You have the choice of getting a higher education degree or buying a home and starting a family.'

The Program Director at the University of Melbourne's L H Martin Institute, Geoff Sharrock, said that the Group of Eight universities will significantly increase fees. He said:

Most universities will raise fees to at least offset their loss of income from government subsidies. Many will go further to boost the total level of income they'd receive, above 2014 levels. Either way, Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debts will balloon.

Bruce Chapman, the architect of the Hawke g overnment's HECS program, said:

Fees will go up and they will go up quite significantly.

And, of course, higher fees will deter many students from undertaking a degree in the first place. Students, particularly those from low-socioeconomic families, may decide not to follow their dreams and enrol in university because the cost is simply too high.

And who do we have to thank for this higher education bill that will increase course fees, cut funding and create inequality? None other than the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, the member for Sturt—the man who himself denied before the last election that an Abbott government would increase university fees. Last year in an interview, the minister—before he became the Minister for Education—said that the Abbott government was not considering increases to university fees because:

We promised that we wouldn't—

increase fees—

and Tony Abbott made it very clear before the election that we keep our promises.

And there is more. Last year the minister said:

The public want a period of stable government where the government keeps its promises .... And there's much I can do in universities and schools while keeping all my promises.

And it goes on. In a media release on 26 August 2012, the then shadow minister for education—once again, Mr Pyne—said:

While we welcome debate over the quality and standards in our Universities, we have no plans to increase fees or cap places.

Yet here is this legislation that we are debating in this parliament today. It is a bald-faced lie. That is what we are debating today—a bald-faced lie that was told before the election. And the government does not even have any embarrassment about coming in and—

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