Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loans Sustainability) Bill 2018. I oppose the bill, as it attacks student and it undermines the fairness of Australia's world-class student loan scheme. As we have heard, the bill makes a number of changes to Australia's income contingent loan scheme, the Higher Education Loan Program—HELP—and makes technical changes to the Student Financial Supplement Scheme. This is the first point on which I will focus.

This bill sets new repayment thresholds for HELP from 1 July 2018, starting with a new minimum repayment of $45,000 and with a one per cent repayment rate. There are a further 17 thresholds and repayment rates, up to a top threshold of $131,989, at which 10 per cent of payment would apply. It aligns the indexation of HELP repayment thresholds to CPI instead of to average weekly earnings and introduces a new combined loan limit on how much students can borrow under HELP to cover tuition fees from 1 January 2019. The combined limit would be $104,440, or $150,000 for students studying medicine, dentistry or vet science.

The government has previously tried to make changes to the HELP repayment threshold, attempting to lower the HELP repayment rate to $42,000 a year. Labor argued that this was too low. The bill did not make it through the Senate and was subsequently withdrawn. The proposal for a lifetime borrowing limit is a new proposal from the government and has significant implications for students. While the borrowing limit has been introduced in the VET student loan system—a proposal that Labor took to the last election—there has yet to be a limit for all loan schemes in the system.

Traditionally, Commonwealth supported places, or HECS places, did not have a borrowing limit for students. Students taking other courses that are not subsidised, like full-fee postgraduate coursework places, could take out a loan for the fees through the FEE-HELP scheme. Full fees were set by universities and higher education providers and have not been regulated, which has led to some students taking on significant debt. While there is some merit to sending a price signal through a lifetime borrowing limit, the proposal in this bill may have a range of unintended consequences and therefore must not be supported.

Labor referred this bill to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, and the committee tabled its report on 16 March. I support the position of the Labor senators in their dissenting report. This bill would have unintended and negative consequences on students, particularly students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and therefore must not be supported.

Income contingent loans have been a part of higher education since Labor introduced HECS in 1989. More recently, Labor's demand-driven funding, in conjunction with the HECS-HELP scheme and other equity and participation measures, has transformed higher education in Australia. As Universities Australia has shown, there has been a significant boost in university enrolments from underrepresented and disadvantaged students. This is such a critical point: universities are now open, more than ever before, to students from those underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. It is important that we spend some time looking at those numbers.

From 2008 to 2016 the following growth occurred: the number of domestic undergraduate students grew from 24,311 to 50,206, a staggering 106.5 per cent. The proportion of students with a disability participating rose from 4.3 per cent to 6.4 per cent. The number of Indigenous students grew from 7,038 to 13,320, an increase of 89.3 per cent. The number of students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds grew from 90,467 to 140,462, an increase of 55.3 per cent. The number of students from remote and regional areas, such as mine, grew from 110,000 to 163,292, an increase of 48.3 per cent. In total, the number of undergraduate students from all these backgrounds—students with a disability, Indigenous students, and students from remote areas—grew 39.6 per cent.

What a remarkable success story that we have nearly 40 per cent more students from these groups going to university. Why are they doing that? Because there are pathways available, because higher education is seen as valuable and it's accessible because barriers are being removed. We know that high student debt is a genuine barrier to study for students from low-SES and disadvantaged backgrounds, so we must remove barriers, not put them up again. In my electorate of Dobell, on the Central Coast, we have the Ourimbah campus of the University of Newcastle, which is playing a vital role in removing these barriers. I want to quote—I know she's been quoted already this evening—the Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Newcastle, Professor Caroline McMillen, who said to a parliamentary committee hearing earlier this month:

As our mission, we are committed to equity and excellence. We have some 37,000 students, 27 per cent from low socioeconomic backgrounds, which reflects our demographics in the regions we serve, and around 1,000 are Indigenous, which is the largest number of any Australian university.

She further said:

… this university since its foundation has served the demographics of the region by ensuring we do not trade equity for excellence.

'We do not trade equity for excellence' are important words, and that is an important mission. In higher education, excellence is vital, equity is vital and access is necessary. Yet this government wants to increase student debt and make it harder for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to get a foot in the door.

At the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle, health is a big area of study. The university partners with the Central Coast local health district, where I used to work, and the PHN. Health and social services, my area of training and background, is one of the largest employers in our region on the Central Coast. Importantly, it is also one of the growth areas for future work. With higher education comes jobs—local jobs, quality jobs.

At the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle, enabling programs such as Open Foundation and Newstep are trusted pathways for students to get started, pathways to further study. Almost one in four commencing students at our campus starts their education through these enabling programs. They are the pathway for so many, for nurses like Michelle, who was recognised as Wyong hospital nurse of the year last year. I have spoken about Michelle before. She would not be a nurse without enabling education. She would not be serving our community at Wyong hospital without access to higher education. I've also spoken about Sam, who is now a speech pathologist and whose sister is training to be a teacher. Sam said she really noticed the impact on her sons of seeing her study. They could see their mother was studying at university, and they could see that they might be able to study at university too.

Today I'd like to speak about my friend Renee, a graduate of the Central Coast campus Open Foundation course, and now a neonatal intensive care nurse. These are Renee's own words:

The fact that there is an opportunity like Open Foundation has given me the confidence to do something I never knew I could do. I never thought I was smart enough when I was at school to commence university. Never once did I ever think that I would complete a bachelor degree. I ended up completing a bachelor of nursing with distinction. Now I work within one of the elite hospitals and it's my privilege to work with vulnerable families in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Labor understands the benefits of education to families. We understand that it can transform lives. Dr Joyleen Christensen, who I went to primary school with, is a program convener for enabling education at the same campus. Joy speaks about the impact of higher education on students who are the first ever in their family to go to university. She said:

These students have so many obstacles already. The reason many of them are involved is to improve the financial situation for them and for their families. They are taking time away from work. They are taking time away from their families and money away from their families to find out whether they can do this. They have incredible potential. This program is life changing for them, their families and our community. It transforms lives.

It's transformed the lives of Michelle and Renee, and the contribution they make through their nursing is invaluable to our community.

The Dean of the Central Coast campus, Dr Brok Glenn, told me earlier today that in 2018 more than half of commencing students, 55 per cent, are the first in their family to go to university. It is an outstanding achievement. This, he said, is about enabling programs, working with high schools and actually getting students and their parents onto the campus so they can see for themselves what is possible. On the Central Coast, only half of students have the opportunity to finish high school, and fewer than half of the working-age population, 45 per cent, have qualifications post-school. Access to higher education is making a difference.

The effect on women of the changes to HELP repayment thresholds must also be considered, as women will be disproportionately affected by these changes. Sixty per cent of Australians with outstanding HELP debt are women, and two-thirds of the Australians who will be dragged into the debt pool with the proposed new repayment threshold will be women. This bill should be rejected on that premise alone.

Labor believes that the time for an inquiry into Australia's post-secondary education system has come. We must have a scheme that is fit for purpose, that intersects with our tax and social security systems and that treats all students equitably. We must have a system that suits the needs of a changing post-secondary education system; that suits the needs of lifetime learners.

While Labor is not opposed to sending a price signal through a loan cap, this bill would have unintended consequences. Under the current FEE-HELP scheme there are a range of courses which have fees in excess of $100,000. Labor fully supports a system that allows Australians to defer fees for postgraduate and further study. These days many students will choose both vocational and higher education qualifications. The proposal for a one-off borrowing limit is clearly inadequate for lifelong learning needs. Labor is concerned about reckless fee setting, and a price signal needs to be accompanied by further reforms. We must not have a system that forces students to take out commercial loans to pay for the gap between fees set by universities and the loan borrowing amount. This bill does nothing to discourage reckless high-fee setting. Student debt is a major concern for students, for their families and for all of Australia. The contribution Australian students make to the cost of their university education is already the sixth-highest in the OECD, and two-thirds of Australian students in 2012 were found to live below the Henderson poverty line, with one in five regularly skipping meals.

This government often talks about choice, but choice is a privilege. We need to make pathways to higher education easier, not harder. Labor is determined to end the war on young people in this country that's being waged by this government. We must not put barriers in their way, and the barriers to higher education are ones we have started to break down. This government continues to cut services and to try to charge students more. It is not the way to equity and it is not the way to excellence. Students at the Ourimbah campus of the University of Newcastle cannot afford cuts to education. They cannot afford to pay more.

As I said at the outset, I oppose this bill as an attack on students and an attack on the fairness of our world-class student loan system. Labor will not support any legislation that puts education out of the reach of the most vulnerable people in our community, people who are starting out in life, people who are starting over in life and people who have never had a start in life.

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