Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank my friend, the fantastic member for Higgins, for her question. We're wiping $3 billion of student debt for more than three million Australians, including more than 26,000 people in the member for Higgins' electorate. That legislation is in the parliament right now and it will be debated this week.

For someone with an average HECS debt of about $26,000 it means their debt will be reduced by about $1,200. For someone with a HECS debt of, say, $45,000, it will cut their debt by about $2,000. When the legislation passes, the ATO will automatically apply this to your student loan. And if you've paid off your loan since the first of June last year, you will get a tax credit. It's an important part of making HECS fairer.

That's not the only thing this legislation does. It also provides financial support for teaching students, nursing students, midwifery students and social work students while they do their practical training. It also massively expands those fee-free courses that are like a bridging course between school and university to give you those foundational skills you need to start a university degree. It's all part of building a better and a fairer education system.

Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the number of students finishing high school jumped from 40 per cent to almost 80 per cent, and that was nation-changing stuff. Now we need to take the next step. That's why we've set ourselves a target as a country that by the middle of this century it won't be just 80 per cent of young people that have finished school but 80 per cent that have got a TAFE qualification or a university degree as well.

To do that we've got to break down that invisible barrier that stops a lot of young people from the bush, the regions and the outer suburbs from getting a crack at university in the first place. That requires big changes to our universities, and it also requires us to fix the funding of public schools and tie that to practical reforms like catch-up tutoring. That's why I was pleased yesterday to see the Leader of the Nationals back the action that the government wants to take on this on television, proving once again that he is the driving force on policy in the opposition and I welcome his support for our reforms to school education. I genuinely do. I know that he gets it.

I hope the Leader of the Nationals will support the changes we're making to wipe more than $3 billion in student debt; to provide financial support for teaching students, nursing students, social work students and midwifery students; and to help to make sure that more kids from the bush and from the suburbs get a crack at university. Hopefully, just like everything else, he can persuade the Liberal Party to support it as well.

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