Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to join with my Labor colleagues today in opposing the insidious bill that is before the House—the Liberal plan for higher costs, higher debt and higher interest rates for our past, present and future university students; the Liberal plan for making regional universities, like my University of Newcastle, suffer greatly. It was very interesting to listen to the contribution of the member for Robertson just prior to me, because she would understand the role that regional universities play in a community like the Central Coast or indeed Newcastle and the Hunter. I would hope that she might appreciate, too, some of the stark regional demographics that play a very important role in this debate. Her constituents on the Central Coast, for example, have a median household income that is $444 less than those in greater Sydney, which equates to some $23,088 difference over a year. Likewise, the people of Newcastle have a lesser household income than the people of greater Sydney. So there is very much a question about people's capacity to pay for some of these higher costs, higher debts and higher interest rates in regions that have a vastly greater proportion of students and families from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014 seeks to implement the government's budget announcements on higher education. I would like to take a moment to emphasise that. The timing of these announcements was the budget in May this year, some four months ago now. This was not a position taken by the Liberal Party to an election. There can be no claim for a mandate for these so-called reforms. This was a budget announcement. And you would think that a government that continually references that they are there to deliver on their mandate from the Australian people, to deliver on their election commitments, would actually be doing so. But we know that that is not the case. We know the long list of promises broken by this government.

Now, for a moment, let us put aside the words spoken by the Prime Minister and the education minister about funding of education, because we know those words do not really mean much at all. We know well the famous commitment from the Prime Minister 12 months ago, when he said: 'No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no cuts to the ABC or SBS.' We know now—as, indeed, we suspected at the time—that the Prime Minister's words were untrue. All commitments have been broken and the cuts to funding are hurting Australians everywhere.

But it is not just the spoken words of the Prime Minister that are cause for concern. I refer to the government's famous pre-election brochure, Real solutions. Some would claim it is their mandate to govern—although it is hard to find a government member today who will proudly stand beside their blueprint for governing. What did that Real solutions booklet have to say about higher education? Apparently, a Liberal-National government would strengthen higher education and encourage Australians of all ages to further their education so that they could gain a comparative advantage and get ahead in the new global economy. And the Australian people were assured that current arrangements for university funding would continue. There was no ambiguity about these statements. This was the commitment on higher education that members opposite took to the last election. That was their so-called mandate.

On the front page of the Real solutions brochure, this book of broken promises, there is a badge with three simple words: 'hope', 'reward', and 'opportunity'. I will outline today how this government, through their proposed higher education reform, is in fact crushing hope, denying reward and cruelling opportunities for the students of today and tomorrow.

This higher education bill will increase the cost of university for students, increase the debt for students and increase the interest rates that students will have to pay on these increased costs and their spiralling debt. The Leader of the Opposition put it simply in his contribution to this debate yesterday:

Opportunity in education is a pact between generations … a solemn promise to pass on an education system that is better than the one you inherited … You do not meddle carelessly with one of the great markers of life—and education is indeed one of the great markers in the line of life.

Labor firmly believes that this government is breaking its pact with the Australian people and is recklessly tearing up the fabric of our educational foundations.

Labor believes in equality of opportunity. Labor believes in affordable, accessible higher education for all Australians. We will vote against the doubling and tripling of university fees. We will vote against a real compounding interest rate on student debt. We will vote time and time again against this government's cuts to university research. We will never consign the next generation of Australians to a debt sentence. We will not support a system where the cost of university degrees rises faster than the capacity of society to pay for them. We will never tell Australians that the quality of their education depends on their capacity to pay. Education is a birthright in Australia, not a privilege for the few.

We stand by these values not solely because we believe they are right; we stand by them because they are the want of the Australian people. Unlike the government, we have been listening to our communities—not talking at them or ruling over them, but listening to them.

In May, before the budget announcements of higher education vandalism, I attended a student rally at the University of Newcastle's city campus—a campus, I might add, that is to be significantly expanded, thanks to Labor's contribution to Newcastle through the higher education investment fund. At this rally were the students of today and the students of tomorrow, parents and their children, the retired and the elderly, the workers of today and the workers of tomorrow—in essence, our community at large. Their message was loud and clear. They did not vote for these changes to higher education funding; in fact, nobody did. They did not vote for grossly inflated education fees. And they most certainly did not vote for increased debt or higher interest rates on degrees. Again, last month, when I visited the University of Newcastle's main campus with the shadow higher education minister to meet with more students and educators alike, their message was the same as that at the rally in May.

I mentioned the story of one student in particular, who I met with the shadow minister, in a separate statement in this House yesterday, but it is worth repeating her story today. The woman I met was a prospective mature-age university student. She completed her Open Foundation program last year, and she was intending to attend university as a student for the first time. She had raised a family and worked in retail for more than a decade but wanted to undertake university study to try and improve her future employment prospects. She knew it would be tough to balance work, study and family life, but she was willing to work hard and thought that getting a degree would be worth it in the long run. But these so-called higher education reforms were a step too far. She told me: 'I've already got a mortgage, and I can't afford another one.'

I know this woman is not alone. I know that there are many more potential university students reconsidering their choice to study, based on this government's cruel reforms. I am sure she is not the only woman asking herself: 'Is it really worth it?' The people hurt most by these changes to higher education will be women who take time out of the workforce to start or raise a family.

NATSEM modelling estimates that an increase of just 20 percent in the cost of degrees, a conservative estimate in a deregulated environment, combined with the changes to the interest rate on HECS debts, will mean: a woman with a nursing degree is looking at the doubling of her student debt, from $23,000 to $46,000; a woman graduate teacher is looking at a debt of $63,000 and 16 years of repayment, compared with $32,000 over nine years for the same degree today; and a woman with a science degree will be looking at nearly tripling her student debt, from $44,000 to a staggering $123,000.

Again the government's conflicted commitments ring loud and clear. On the one hand—

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