Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forrest for her keen interest in education, not just school education and the national curriculum but also the independent public schools' model in WA that is having a very genuine impact on outcomes of students and the quality of teaching and management of schools.

One thing the member for Forrest did not mention, which she would have been quite within her rights to do so, is her very keen interest in the Youth Allowance and ensuring that young people from rural and regional Australia get the same opportunities to go to university as students in metropolitan Australia. In fact, the member for Forrest has been at the spear tip of the debate within the coalition—in opposition and in government—about trying to ensure there is a fair approach to students from rural Australia in getting to university. I do not want to steal the thunder of the Minister for Social Services. He certainly did make changes to the assets test, which will allow more students from rural and regional Australia to access the Youth Allowance and therefore achieve the same levels of engagement in higher education that metropolitan students are achieving.

The member also asked about the HELP debt—the HECS debt, as most people tend to call it—the Higher Education Contribution Scheme. The Higher Education Contribution Scheme in Australia is a world-beater. It is the envy of the rest of the Western world, in terms of education. It was initiated here, in 1988-89, by the previous Labor government, the Hawke-Keating government, which was a government that actually cared about policy—unlike the current Labor Party, which is much more interested in politics than policy. John Dawkins, as the minister for education, recognised that so-called free education initiated by the Whitlam government simply meant that the poorest Australians paid for the richest Australians to go to university. The Hawke-Keating government changed that error of policy by introducing the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which we thoroughly support.

We currently collect four out of every five dollars of the HECS debt. To put that into perspective, Great Britain collects about 50 to 60 per cent of its debt through its similar scheme to our Higher Education Contribution Scheme. We are very good at collecting the debt. That is a good thing. That means that students who get to go to university get a major private benefit from that, and there is also a public benefit, and they pay back through the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which is the an extremely generous scheme. And so it should be, because we want to encourage Australians to go to university. It means that nobody in Australia is locked out of university education because of the cost of education. No Australian turns up to university and thinks they cannot afford to go, because they can access the Higher Education Contribution Scheme.

We are expecting the HELP debt, the HECS debt, to rise from about $36½ billion in 2015-16 to $62.7 billion in 2018-19. That is due to a combination of factors. It is the expansion of opportunity to go to university, under the government's reforms to higher education, and a feature of the vocational education and training system coming into the Higher Education Contribution Scheme. We think this is a positive move, because it allows all Australians, whatever their choice of career or education, to access government support.

For the first time, ever—the member for Forrest is quite correct—we are tackling the issue of overseas HECS debt, which previous governments put in the too-hard basket. It is not as high as we had expected and it does not return as dramatic a dividend to the budget as you would expect. The mythology about the number of Australians and the value of Australians' HECS debt overseas has been inflated, particularly by the tabloid press. But there is a very important principle involved here: if you do go to university in Australia and get a fantastic high-quality degree it does not mean that just because you move overseas you should not pay back that debt you owe the Australian tax office. And we are going to collect that debt. Starting next year we will collect that debt. Whether you are in London, New York or anywhere else in the world, if you are earning over the threshold for the repayment of HECS, you will be expected to pay. That is fair on all those who stay in Australia and pay their debt. If you are overseas in London, as a banker or a financial analyst, then you should pay back your HECS debt. (Time expired)

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