Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

The parliamentary secretary should talk to his constituents. If he talked to his constituents, he would know that it is not just students, teachers and university lecturers who are upset; mums and dads are upset about this. They are angry about this. Grandparents are upset about this. He needs to start talking to his electorate and start paying attention.

Then we have the really important aspect that the minister was bragging about today—that is, indexation of student debt. The proposed changes will lead to indexation of student debt, a compounding rate of student debt. Many on the other side promised that they would lobby the minister and the Prime Minister on this. Unfortunately, their lobbying fell on deaf ears because in the proposal we will see the bond rate applied. This will have a significant impact on so many people.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

I hear the member for Bass interjecting. I heard with my own ears him saying: 'I am going to lobby the Prime Minister on this one. I am going to make sure that we do not have real interest rates.' Unfortunately, the member for Bass failed to be heard in his own caucus. What we are talking about is compounding interest not just for new students but for anyone with a HECS debt. In New South Wales over 340,000 Australians with an existing loan will be forced to pay extra. In South Australia 85,000 people with pre-existing student debt will be forced to pay real compounding interest. Queensland members will be asking 345,000 of their constituents to pay more.

This is a broken promise because I could not find in the Real Solutions pamphlet where they said anyone with a student debt will end up paying more for their debt. They will pay more interest on it. It is surprising that we are getting the Treasurer and the Minister for Education beating their chests about how important this is because they indeed protested against any increase in any fees back in their university days. I distinctly remember the Treasurer saying that $250 was a lot of money for students and they should not have to pay that. How times have changed. Now the Treasurer is asking students not to blink an eye at $100,000.

What we see here is a shocking piece of policy. It is an ideological frolic from this government. Most importantly, it is an absolute broken promise that throws out fairness. This is a budget of broken promises and a budget of unfairness.

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