Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Despite what we heard from the Prime Minister in question time today, we on this side of the House absolutely believe that no country has ever gotten smarter, has ever become more equal or more prosperous by putting up barriers to education. We on this side of the House know that an investment in education is in fact the smartest investment this country can make. We know that this government's $5 billion in cuts to higher education will damage our universities, will damage our research capacity, will damage our economy but, importantly, it will also damage the opportunities and the prospects that young Australians have today, which is the subject of this matter of public importance. Today in this matter of public importance we make absolutely clear that Labor will not support a system of higher fees, we will not support a system of bigger student debt, and we will absolutely not support a system of reduced access and greater inequality in our higher education system, as this government and that minister would put forward.

We recognise that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education can say whatever they like when they come into this parliament and try and spin their stories and tell us that black is white. We on this side of the House absolutely recognise that there is no question that it will deter some people from going to higher education, if what they are being asked to do is to shoulder a greater debt than they or their families have ever encountered before. Of course it will. It will shut the door to higher education and to a university degree to those individuals not because of their capacities, not because of the number of brain cells they have, but because of the weight of their and their parents' wallets. That is what those opposite put forward and that is what we absolutely reject.

No-one can deny that deregulation will mean fee increases right across the board. The Prime Minister today admitted that in question time. We will see fee increases go up at each university right across the board. What this will do is that it will mean an end to fairness, an end to equity in our higher education system and it will undo generations of reforms which have been based on trying to make sure that the young people of today have greater opportunities than their parents and the grandparents—not the other way around. The Whitlam and Hawke reforms—gone. Getting 100,000 extra students into our universities under the last Labor government—gone. This is why we will absolutely vote against the government's cuts to university funding and to student support.

This is a government that we hear over and over again is obsessed by the ideas of debt and deficit. It is a deeply spurious claim, given that they themselves doubled the size of the deficit as soon as they came to office. We know that they are all talk; we know that they are all spin. But they continue with this spin despite doubling the deficit when they came to office. But what are they proposing to do right now? They are proposing to put on the shoulders of young Australians who aspire to get a great education more debt than any generation before them has faced. What they are doing right now is driving up the debt of every student at university now and every student in the future. Students will be charged more for their degree, they will then be charged more in interest on their degree, and they will then be made to pay it back sooner than they otherwise would of. They are hitting young Australians and hitting them again and again. None of them opposite can deny this because it is their proposal, it is their vision for higher education. We will not share that vision.

Combined with the government's $5 billion in cuts to higher education, deregulating fees will see universities asking how much they can charge students and not how best can they educate students. This government has put absolutely no ceiling on how much a degree will cost. In question time today the Prime Minister was unable to guarantee that science degrees would not go through the roof, he was unable to guarantee that the cost of getting a nursing degree would not increase so that it was bigger than the starting salary of a nurse, and he was not able to guarantee that it would take a mother up to 36 years to pay off her university degree. That is what those opposite are defending. No guarantees, no caps, no limits to the amount of debt that you can place individually on the shoulders of young Australians.

So those opposite should not talk to me about debt and deficit. They should not talk to me about that when they come in here and ask 17-year-olds to take on debts of over $100,000 for the simple task of going to university. That is what those on the other side of the chamber are asking. Those young students are not old enough to vote; they are not old enough to get a bank loan. The are not old enough to get a credit card but this government would see them have over $100,000 of debt on their shoulders. We will oppose that every step of the way.

Recent modelling has shown how fees will increase dramatically. Fees for courses in dentistry, medicine and veterinary science will triple to $180,000 or more. Education will go from $24,000 to $40,000 or more. Nursing will go from $18,000 up to $40,000. Those Nationals keeping their heads down low in the back row should know that this will make it harder for students from regional Australia to go to university, after the Labor government's reforms to open the doors and see more regional students flowing to universities.

We know that prices will rise. We know that the big, old, sandstone universities will be able to charge a premium for those students who can afford to buy into their alumni. Those universities will therefore have more resources. We know the consequences of that: it will create a US-style, two-tiered university system in Australia—or at least the perception of one. And it is not just the Labor Party that is saying that. The Vice-Chancellor of the Swinburne University of Technology has said:

… deregulation will inevitably lead to much higher fees for our students. … Over time, full fee deregulation will lead to a higher education system characterised by the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.

That is a vision which we reject. This would be to our entire nation's detriment. We believe that all of our universities are only as strong as each other. But the biggest impact—the real tragedy of this—will be on those who choose never to go to university at all as a result of these changes. We can expect that teenagers, 17-year-olds, will make decisions about potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. This government would load up these young Australians. As Sydney University Vice-Chancellor said:

It's the ordinary Australians that I think aren't getting enough of a guernsey in this conversation.

We agree. And we stick up for the ordinary Australians. We stand up in this chamber because we promote a higher education system which is accessed on merit, not based on your bank balance.

As if the extreme cost of a degree was not going to deter young people, students would have to start paying it back sooner and with much higher interest rates. We have seen that that will have the biggest impact on women. We heard in question time today about how, in Australia—where it is still women who do to majority of work associated with raising a family, the majority of caring and the majority of part-time work while they do that—a graduate who has time off work or who reduces her hours to have children will take an extra decade to repay her debt and will pay tens of thousands of dollars more in interest. In the early years of her family, this same graduate's debt will continue to spiral. In many cases it will grow to be even bigger than when she first finished her degree.

The Vice-Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology has commented on this too, saying:

However, the proposal to index HELP debts at the long-term bond rate, up to an amount of 6%, instead of CPI, will lead to a rapid increase in individual debts. … This will disadvantage women more than men, who take longer to pay their HELP debt back. It will also disproportionately affect older individuals, people of lower socio-economic backgrounds and Indigenous students.

Those on the other side of the chamber must be very proud! They hit the weak; hit those that can least afford it.

With this Prime Minister we should not be surprised at efforts that will increase the gender pay gap in this country. It comes on the back of the minister who is sitting at the table, who has attacked and slashed the wages of the overly feminised industry of childcare workers. We have seen hits to age care workers. We have seen, time and time again, that this government will attack women disproportionately and make sure that they bear the brunt of these consequences.

But we also know that this whole nation benefits from us having an educated population. It is not about taking flowers and chocolates to your next-door neighbour; it is about recognising that we all benefit from having doctors, nurses, scientists, teachers, engineers and artists. In a globalised knowledge economy we, as a nation, need these skills to create jobs and to drive economic wealth. Everyone who does not go to university also benefits from the skills and capabilities of those who do. That is why we created a system where you get some personal benefit so you make a contribution—but it is balanced so that it does not deter people from going to university. Labor create this system and Labor members will stand up in this parliament and oppose any attacks which would see those who are the first in their families to access university having to close the door after them because their children will never afford it. (Time expired)

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