Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Those who choose to scream from the rooftops, perhaps not. As you know, at the moment student debts are indexed by the CPI. Our proposal is to increase it to the 10-year bond rate. The reason for that is that the bond rate is the same as what it costs the government to borrow the money that it lends to students in the first place. On budget night though the minister did announce two working groups on the higher education issues. The first on legislation and financing is being chaired by Professor John Dewar, the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University. They have considered a number of options on the interest rate on student debt and in fact have proposed three alternatives to the government's measure. They are summarised in the regulation impact statement to the reform bill. (Time expired)