Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot help myself. I am sorry. Senator Wong, you have got it right: I cannot help myself. I feel very strongly about this issue, because I was the minister who introduced the opportunity for Australians to invest in themselves. For those people who could not get a government supported place, the answer was, ‘No, you go off and choose another entirely different career.’ By saying to them, ‘If you want to take a chance on yourself and invest in yourself, you can’, we gave them the opportunity simply to make that choice if they wanted to.

It seemed extraordinarily unfair to me, in the extreme, that Australian universities would allow overseas students and their families to invest in themselves but have the hide to say to Australians: ‘I’m sorry, the government’s only got so much money and so you don’t get a government funded place. You cannot possibly invest in yourselves, but we’ll allow overseas students to invest in themselves. We’ll take their money, but yours isn’t good enough. You’re not entitled to a place.’ We all know the TER scores that are used to ration places into degrees have got nothing at all to do with whether you need to have that level of memory skill to get a TER of that height, and they have got even less to do with whether you will be any good in that faculty. They have got nothing to do with whether you will be a good doctor, a good engineer or a good whatever.

I was happy to introduce full-fee-paying places for another reason. The reason is this: it is important that we focus on our higher education sector; it is a tremendous asset that provides great opportunities to Australia and to individual Australians. But, if we do so at the expense of others who do not get to go to university, then I am not in favour of it. When I had this ministry, I certainly tried to make changes that would create further opportunities for the 70 per cent of kids who do not go to university. It is still a damn disgrace when you go to a school and you ask someone what they are going to do if they define themselves in the first instance by saying, ‘Well I won’t go to university.’ How disgraceful is that?

So one cunning ploy that is mentioned in my notes—I have digressed, and I am sorry—is if a student does not get their first choice, they do not have to go into their second or third choice faculty. They can perhaps borrow the money or, if their parents are rolling in it, I suppose they can buy a place. That is a good thing, because students who are in faculties that are not their first choice do not do as well. There were so many disparaging remarks made about kids who were born into rich families, as if it is okay to give them a kick in the backside when it is never okay to give someone, just because they are poor, a kick in the backside. I accept that. But I equally think it is not okay to give someone a kick in the backside just because they happen to be born into a wealthy family. It is not their fault. Whether you are rich or poor has nothing to do with who you are and whether you will be good at anything.

Having listened to the chants of ‘make the rich pay’ when I was at university, I actually liked the idea. All right, perhaps we cannot make them pay, but I tell you what we could do: we could let the rich pay. The consequence of that—when there is a kid whose family can afford it or who is prepared to borrow and invest in himself or herself—if that child would otherwise get a government funded place, is what? The government funded place is freed up, because the government gives out a certain number of places. If there are kids from wealthy families who say, ‘I didn’t get my choice,’ and they shift to another place, yes, I am pleased that this policy lets them have their place. But I am more pleased that it frees up a government funded place for a kid who otherwise would not get in.

So those who are opposed to full-fee-paying places for Australian students should say to all the kids who did not get in, ‘Listen, the rich would like to pay and they’d like to free up some spots for you to get in, but, I’m sorry, it doesn’t suit our ideological bent, so you will just have to miss out.’ That is where we differ. I am happy to let the rich pay. Let them pay in spades, and let a kid who cannot afford to pay get the government funded place that the rich kid would otherwise get.

Now, having got that off my chest, I shall return to the notes, which advise me that this is all about choice—that is true; it is. There have been full-fee places since 1998; I did not think it had taken us quite that long to introduce it. They do not take away from government funded places—that is a point that has already been made. Students are no longer forced into their other choices. This new general $80,000 FEE-HELP limit for students of other than medicine, dentistry and vet science should cover the full costs of the vast majority. It is an income contingent loan. It is like HECS-HELP; you do not pay back until your repayment income reaches the minimum threshold, which is $38,149. In other words, you do not pay back until you are above the regional minimum salary level for skilled migration. Until you are earning more than that, we do not take a cent from you. I have some personal views on that matter. I am tempted, but I will not give into the temptation, to share those at this point.