Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Preventing Family Violence) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will not oppose the government's amendment to change the borrowing cap proposal from a one-off limit to a replenishable limit. I should say that although this amendment improves a poor bill, Labor continues to have concerns about the proliferation of full-fee degrees which cost more than $100,000 in the higher education sector in Australia. Extending borrowing amounts could lead to students taking on a very high amount of debt. More needs to be done to ensure that universities and higher education providers do not charge very high fees for courses.

Labor support in principle the idea of a price signal, but we are concerned that universities may continue to charge up to and above the borrowing limit. As the Senate inquiry on this bill demonstrated, there are too many students who must already find ways to cover the gap between tuition fees and the current FEE-HELP limit. It's not good enough that students have to resort to applying for special bursaries or asking their families for loans. Labor wants an accessible higher education system that supports lifelong learning. This could not be more important as the economy changes and the labour market changes. We support a system that allows students to defer fees, but we don't want to see the rise of American-style commercial student loans.

Experts have told us that students from poorer backgrounds are more debt averse. Higher fees for postgraduate or further study will deter poorer students from enrolling in these courses. As we become a highly skilled, knowledge based economy we will need to increase participation in post-secondary education. Labor will look at the loans system as well as price signals as part of our national inquiry into the post-secondary education system should we win government. All students across post-secondary education should be treated equitably, and they should all have the opportunity to develop the range of skills they'll need for a lifetime of work.

Australia should invest in education for the benefit of the economy and for the benefit of individuals and households. As I said at the outset, this amendment improves what was a very poor bill. We won't be opposing the amendment but we will continue to oppose this legislation, just as we have every single one of the Liberals' and Nationals' sets of attacks on higher education in this country. We opposed full fee deregulation. We opposed the 20 per cent cuts to public funding for universities. We opposed the 7½ per cent increase for student fees. We opposed the funding cut that went with that 7½ per cent student fee increase. We opposed the further funding cut on top of that 7½ per cent cut. We opposed the attempt last time to increase the HECS repayment threshold to $42,000. We oppose today the attempt to reduce it to $45,000. We are gravely concerned about the attacks by the Liberal-Nationals government on higher education in this country. They will have ramifications for higher education, not just as an important service export but as the pillar of our society that it is, in terms of creating the skills and knowledge that people will need for the jobs of the future, of giving people the opportunity to hold those jobs and of improving our economy, as well as mitigating against ever-increasing inequality.

As I say, while we will not oppose this amendment, we continue to hold grave concerns about the Liberals' and Nationals' attacks on higher education in this country.

Question agreed to.

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