Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We won't be supporting this amendment. While we support the member for Indi in her intention and we very much agree with the intention, we think that differential HECS repayments are not the best way to support regional students, to support regional universities and to increase numbers of regional students at regional universities. We do agree with the intention of the member for Indi. We know how important it is to have vibrant universities supporting regional communities, we know how important it is to have regional students going to university and we know that these universities are very important in supporting regional jobs, but we do think that there are better ways of meeting these same objectives.

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