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

Labor opposes the amendments. Labor is very concerned about the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill 2018 as a whole. We voted against it last time it was before the House, because of the reduction in the repayment threshold for higher education contributions. We think that this is another example of the Turnbull government's war on young people. We've just heard this week of young people going without food while they're studying at university.

This government seems to be making it harder and harder for people to get a higher education. They've tried to cut university funding every single opportunity that they have had throughout the entire period that they've been in government since they were elected five years ago. They originally tried to implement a 20 per cent cut to public funding for universities and a reduction in the HECS repayment threshold. They then tried to make it a 7½ per cent cut, plus an additional cut on top of that. That also failed in the Senate. Then, last year, what did they do in MYEFO? They implemented a $2.2 billion cut to university funding, and that is being felt on university campuses around this country.

Why does this government have such a problem with higher education? Why is this government seeking to find ways to cut higher education funding every time it gets the opportunity, and why does it seek to make life harder for students and people who have recently been to university? Make no mistake: that's what this bill does. HECS, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, was supposed to be an income-contingent loan scheme, because it purported to represent the private value of higher education.

See this speech in context