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

I thank Senator Ruston for her continuing interest in this area of policy. The first thing I want to say and the single most important factor in this area is that under the Higher Education Loan Program no student needs to pay a cent up front and no-one needs to start repaying anything until they are earning over $50,000 a year. So the point is that higher education in Australia is and remains affordable and accessible for all.

But we have seen over recent months a quite irresponsible scare campaign, with sweeping claims that all students are facing extortionate fees. That scare campaign, which has come from some in this chamber—from those opposite, from members of the Greens, from the completely unrepresentative NTEU, the National Tertiary Education Union—unfortunately for them—