Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Student Measures) Bill 2014. This bill seeks to encourage students who have been inadvertently overpaid while on various government payments—including Austudy payment, fares allowance, youth allowance for full-time students and apprentices, and ABSTUDY living allowance—to enter into an arrangement to repay their debt and to act in a responsible manner. The way this bill seeks to encourage people to do the right thing is to make those who are repaying their debt, or have at least made an arrangement with the Department of Human Services to pay their debt at some time, exempt for the imposition of interest to that debt.

This bill does not set out to apply interest to each and every cent owed to the government by students who have been overpaid. This bill applies to the small percentage of people who finish their studies and either stop making automatic repayments through the social security system or those who have made no attempt to meet their obligation under the act to repay overpayments in a timely fashion according to their ability to do so.

While discussing this bill with my staff I found that two of them had been affected by an overpayment at least once during their studies at university, but both repaid their debt by paying a small amount from their regular Centrelink payment. Surely this is not too much to expect and not too difficult to organise. Both staff members told me it took just one phone call to make the arrangement and it was a set-and-forget payment. The government took $10 per fortnight from their usual payment to repay the debt.

All this bill proposes is that students take responsibility for their obligations. We hear a lot about rights these days but with rights come responsibilities. In this country it is your responsibility to repay the government if you receive money from the taxpayers to which you were not entitled. Taxpayers are very generous to students in Australia. They pay for the majority of their tuition costs and only expect a modest repayment of just four per cent and then only when a student's income reaches more than $53,000 per year. As well as that, the taxpayer provides most students with a living allowance called Austudy, youth allowance or ABSTUDY which does not have to be paid back at all. If you are on the highest rate of Austudy payment as a single parent, that amounts to more than $14,000 per year. In return all the taxpayer asks is that students who are overpaid respect the support they are being given by the social security system and repay their debt.

I should like to point out to students that their bank will never be as generous when it comes to money they owe the bank, and that lesson is best learnt now by being a responsible member of the society that has supported them. For those few who continue to shirk their responsibility, their debt will be subject to an interest charge which is the same rate as applied to all debts owed to the Australian Taxation Office, the 90-day bank accepted bill rate plus an additional seven per cent, which is currently around 10 per cent. So I encourage students who have been overpaid to do the right thing—pick up the phone and make a payment arrangement and avoid any interest charges.

These moves were first proposed by the now opposition during their chaotic stint in government in the 2012-13 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and the 2013-14 budget, but were removed when the budget passed in March 2014. Accordingly, we should expect the full co-operation of those opposite in supporting a slightly amended version of their own policy. However, given their current track record of rejecting common sense decisions, it would appear as though common sense is in short supply on the other side of the chamber, even though it was their proposal in the first place.

In order for students with Centrelink debts to have time to make a payment arrangement with the Department of Human Services, the application of interest to a debt will not start until 1 January 2015. The quicker this bill passes both houses and is signed into law, the more time students will have to make arrangements before interest is applied. I therefore call on the opposition to support this bill to ensure a quick passage for the sake of the students.

This bill also makes changes to the Student Start-up Scholarship by making the scholarship a repayable loan. The $1,025 loan is totally voluntary and is available twice a year at the start of each semester to help with the cost of books, stationery, laboratory fees and other equipment which students need to successfully complete their studies. This loan is similar to the old Student Financial Supplement Scheme except in one very big way. There is no requirement for a student to trade in 50 per cent of their Austudy payment in order to access these loans

Those students on the Student Financial Support Scheme used to have to repay the full amount of their loan including 50 per cent of their Austudy money, and it had to be repaid at the same time as HECS-HELP was being repaid. So a student who has an outstanding HELP and SFSS debt and earns $1,025 a week has to repay six per cent of their income to cover their debt.

However, under this new scheme, no repayments for the student start-up loan will have to be made until after the student or former student has repaid the HELP debt in its entirety. In this case, courtesy of our taxpayers, the students are getting a pretty good deal—a low-interest, long-term loan in order to ensure students have their tuition heavily discounted, their educational needs met as well as a living allowance.

For the 2014-15 tax year, this financial year, if a student earns less than $53,345 per annum, they are not obligated to make any repayments on HELP or SFSS. Interestingly, after the member for Lilley became Treasurer, what was the income a student had to earn before beginning to repay their student debt? I will tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker: it was just $39,825 per annum. This government, the coalition government, is giving students an extra $13,520 in earnings before they have to begin to repay their debt. While the Labor Party continue to oppose their own advice on the restructuring of the higher education sector, they stand damned by their own track record of being harder on students than the coalition government is.

In summary, the coalition has increased spending in the higher education sector in actual dollar terms. The coalition is the highest spending government on education in Australian history. With this bill, all we are seeking to do is make students responsible for their obligations to the taxpayers who generously support them and provide a level of support to students so that they can continue their studies to go on to become vital members of our society. I support this bill.

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