Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Parliamentary Secretary. I know you will be interested in these details, although you would know them anyway, I am sure. The new fee, if introduced—and I reiterate: if introduced—by higher education providers comes with some room to move. I see my good friend the member for Dunkley at the table is now listening to the actual contents of the bill. So as not to introduce a financial barrier, eligible students will have the option, if the fee is introduced, of a HECS style loan under a new component of the Higher Education Loan Program, SA-HELP. The fee will be indexed along with other loan programs. So, importantly, if it is introduced by a higher education provider, it is capped and if somebody finds it financially difficult then they can take a loan to help them pay that fee.

Contrary to comments made by many opposite, particularly by the member for Indi in her contribution to this debate, this bill is not about a return to compulsory student unionism. I point out to those opposite that section 19.37(1) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, which prohibits a provider from requiring a student to be a member of a student organisation, is unchanged in our legislation. We knew that there would be scaremongering about support for political activities on campus, but the amendment is very clear on this point. This is very interesting, given that the member for Indi, not surprisingly, carried out a scare campaign about this legislation, mainly driven by what I regard as ideological motivations.

I reiterate that the new provisions prohibit the fee from being spent by a higher education provider on support for a political party or a candidate for election to the Commonwealth, state or territory parliaments or local government. It is strictly prohibited. So I do not know where the idea of ‘Labor Inc.’ being reinforced by this legislation comes from, except in the somewhat warped neurological domain of the member for Mayo and others. This restriction also applies to any person or organisation which receives any of the fee revenue. So we are not harking back to the old days when, as the member for Canning reminded us in his earlier contribution, there was tremendous warfare on the campuses, with support for the PLO, if you remember them. They are ancient days. I could well imagine how some people might have been upset at how student fees were used for contentious political debates; however, we have moved a long way from those heady days of the sixties and seventies. That is strictly prohibited in this legislation—but you would not believe that if you listened to those from the other side.

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