Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too support the Education Legislation Amendment (Overseas Debt Recovery) Bill and the Student Loans (Overseas Debtors Repayment Levy) Bill 2015, but I do so with some reservations. By creating an overseas repayment obligation, it is expected that these bills, as they stand, will affect 46,000 Australians who live and work overseas, with the expectation that 38,000 of these Australians will make repayments to their current student debts. It seems a reasonable thing to put forward and, reasonably, we on this side are therefore supporting it. The debts are owed by Australians who have accessed the Commonwealth government's income contingent loans, which include HELP loans, HECS loans and now trade support loans. Because Labor has always stood up and supported education administration, and because this seems reasonable, the opposition is supporting the passage of these bills.

The government anticipates that these bills will save an estimated $150 million over the 10-year forward estimates, $26 million over the next four years. The mathematics in that is interesting. I can only assume that the mathematics has been done on existing HELP or HECS loans, because I am sure the figure would be much higher if it had been calculated based, projecting forward, on the $100,000 degrees that the government seems intent to introduce into this country. On the one hand, this legislation seems a reasonable thing, but I would take the time to make that point. It seems sensible to put these measures in place, but it rings alarm bells for me that the government should be planning to recover debts from people who are going to travel overseas when we know the government also has plans for students to incur an extraordinary level of debt to access their education. What has been very clear to me, throughout the last two years when we have been talking about the deregulation of universities, is that the government's plans would ultimately lead to $100,000 degrees for Australian students and therefore $100,000 debts for Australian students. It seemed to me, and I recall saying, 'If I were a 20-year-old looking at a future like that, I would probably look to going overseas.' So it is probably sensible that we are looking to recover that debt if we are intending to harness our young people to such huge debt, because for them it would have been sensible to take a few years and go overseas and build their career and not to have to think about the debt back at home. So covering that loophole is probably sensible. But I think the government does understand—they certainly do need to understand—that, from this side of the chamber, there is an absolute, absolute 'No' to that notion of $100,000 degrees, there has been an absolute 'No' to it in the Senate twice, and there is an absolute 'No' to it from the Australian public.

The notion that it is right and reasonable for Australians, regardless of where they are living, to be required to repay their students loans once they meet the income payment criteria is reasonable. In the past, most Australians' attitude has been—we have always thought—that young Australians will travel, whether as backpackers, or to visit family in other countries—for example, young people from my electorate travelling to Italy and catching up with uncles and aunts they have not seen for 20 years, or people travelling back to England, or the US—or just to explore the world. Australians are great travellers, and in the last 40 years we have also learnt to be great workers in other countries, with many Australians building careers and getting valuable experience overseas, whether in commerce or in mining or in other areas of work; Australians are often now travelling overseas for that. But I think there has always been an assumption—and it is taken up in popular culture—that Australians, ultimately, inevitably, come home. One is reminded of some famous Australians still calling Australia home. We have that tradition or that belief that Australians will go and get their experiences, but they will come home. We have been fairly assured that, when they come home successfully after having worked overseas, they will re-engage in the workforce here and will re-engage in repaying that debt. What the government is suggesting now—and I am not suggesting that they are wrong—is that perhaps we should be recovering that debt sooner. I do not have a problem with us seeking to do that, as long as the debt we are putting on our young people is reasonable debt and as long as their education has not sent them scurrying from the country hoping not to have to repay it. Part of that, too, reflects a changing world—a changing world where our young people are not necessarily going to return home. So I think, therefore, that this is sensible. I think asking Australians living and working overseas to repay their loans has long been argued as being fair and equitable, and it is reasonable.

On this side we also understand the importance of university education being affordable to all Australians, as I have said. That has long argued by Labor, and it is worth making that point in this discussion today. So, whilst we have this legislation before us, with the Turnbull government seeking fairness and equity in the repayment of Commonwealth student loans, we also need to be absolutely clear that the fairness test has to be applied to what debt people are going to take on.

Like the member for Kingston, I note the New Zealand and the UK experiences, in that these systems are being trialled by some of our neighbours, with some success. However, I still do have some concerns that a compliance of 70 per cent implies a default of 30 per cent, and that we need to look carefully at the communication strategies: we need to look very carefully at ensuring that our young people who are involved in this get the information in a timely way and understand their obligations. We need to ensure that this is tracked through to make sure that we do not end up with default rates of 30 per cent, to ensure that we are not chasing young Australians and that we are not putting any barriers to returning to this country in front of our young people because they have done that. So communication strategies are absolutely critical.

The revenue that this legislation seeks to ensure comes back to Australia, as I have said, also needs to be seen in these terms: that, in this space and time, right now, we are talking about HELP and HECS debts that are perceived by the Australian public to be reasonable, and therefore it is perceived to be reasonable to ask people, even while they are working overseas, to begin to repay that debt if they have met the threshold. But it is imperative that we bear in mind that, whenever we are talking about higher education in this place, in the current state, we are talking about a government that is hell-bent, it seems, on introducing a system of higher education that is Americanised to the point where young people, like the people in my electorate, may be locked out of higher education. That would be a very, very sad state of affairs for Australia. It goes to the very heart of who we think we are. It goes to the very heart of who we want to be in the future. We want to make sure that, in this country, access and equity are at the forefront of our thinking.

So I support the legislation, but I do so with those reservations, and I do so with a clear warning: that it is my understanding of this government's plans that, while it is seeking to close this loophole, that is perhaps in preparation for another pursuit of its unfair agenda of putting $100,000 debts on the young people in this country so that they can secure their future.

See this speech in context