Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

If she never earns $50,000 a year she will never have a call on the contribution that has been made to her by the taxpayer and for which she will bear part of the burden by paying it back. She will not have to pay it back if she does not earn over $50,000 a year. If she does earn over $50,000 a year, she will be asked to pay it back at the lowest interest rate she will ever receive for any loan in her life. Even then she will be asked to pay back only two per cent of the cost of that debt, until she starts earning a greater income. So the government has put in place something that previous governments did—the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments, which started the higher education loan program, HECS—because they could see that there was no such thing as free education, that somebody had to pay for it, and, without the students making a contribution, the taxpayer pays the entire burden of the cost, yet there is a major private benefit. I take my hat off to Cheryl for going to university, for taking the chance to improve her skills base.

Opposition members interjecting—

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