Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I will be very happy to be still in this job, because I am very passionate about this job. I am very passionate about cleaning up the mess that you left and making sure that we leave this place as a much better environment.

We banned those inducements. We have banned withdrawal fees. It was apparently the case that some providers were charging students up to $1,000 to exit from a course, so we have banned those withdrawal fees. It took effect from 1 July this year. We have banned advertisements that talked about VET FEE-HELP being free or government funded or that suggested that you will never earn enough to pay it back. That is because we want people to know that it is a loan. It is not a grant and it is not a giveaway; it is a loan. It goes on your credit rating and it impacts on your capacity to borrow for a house, a car or anything else and you are expected to earn enough from that training to get a job and to be in a position to pay it back.

Importantly, and particularly importantly given today's media stories, the reforms we put in place from 1 July make a registered training organisations responsible for the actions of their brokers. No more will anybody be able to say, 'Well, it wasn't one of our employees who did this awful act and who was out there targeting vulnerable people and engaging in some terrible behaviour.' That is because the RTO will be responsible for the actions of those brokers. The consequences for RTOs if the brokers to the wrong thing could well be the loss of their status as a VET FEE-HELP provider and the loss of their registration as a training organisation, as well as fines, penalties or otherwise. I am determined that if we have to put people out of business to fix this system, then that is exactly what we will do.

We have applied a two-day cooling-off period, which will take effect from 1 January, between enrolment and being able to apply to the VET FEE-HELP loan. This, of course, is about trying to stop door-to-door activities and trying to stop people being targeted in the supermarkets, because there will have to be at least two points of contact from the individual before they can get the VET FEE-HELP loan. They will have to be enrolled first and a there is cooling-off period before the loan application can be signed and made.

We will be banning, from 1 January, the up-front levying of the full debt load in one hit, regardless of the student's progression. Once again, we are changing the incentive. Under the program that Labor set up, the incentive is far too loaded towards simply enrolling people: getting a signature on a piece of paper, having them enrolled and having them signed up for the loan, so then you can slug them for the entire $15,000—or whatever the cost of a course is—up-front and in one hit. That practice will end under this government. We will be making sure that there must be four separate payments and that the incentive changes from one of just signing somebody up to one of actually having people who will progress through the course and that will ultimately deliver qualified people who are there for the right reasons.

Importantly, in addition to that, we will be putting in place minimum standards of educational qualifications—year 12 standard or equivalent—to make sure that those who are signing up for those courses actually have the capacity to do them. That is because VET FEE-HELP only applies to high-level vocational education qualifications—to diplomas and advanced diploma courses. We want to make sure that the Australians who sign up for those courses are the people who have the capability to undertake those courses and complete those courses to earn the qualification. It is all about shifting the incentive, as I say, from just signing people up to knowing that you actually have to sign up people who can do the course, who intend to do the course and who are capable of completing the course.

We will be applying new infringement notices that will hit providers with fines for breaches of all of these standards and guidelines from 1 January. We will have the power to remit the debt and recoup costs from providers, plus penalties, from 1 January. We will make it easier for students who have been unfairly targeted or unfairly treated in any way to get their debt waived. Importantly, we want to do that in a way where it is not the taxpayer who has to foot the bill, which is largely the case under the arrangements that the previous government established. If the debt is waived because the provider has done the wrong thing, then the provider should pay. Not only should they pay for that waiving of the debt but they should pay a penalty for doing the wrong thing as well. Our reforms will ensure that that is the case. We are going to raise the bar on the standard of providers who can access VET FEE-HELP too. From 1 January, only those with a proven history of operating for at least three years and in doing so offering high quality, high-level VET courses will be able to be approved for VET FEE-HELP.

I will not accept coming into this chamber and being lectured by Senator Carr, who sits there, cries out and says that we are negligent and we are not doing anything about it. We are doing a lot about it. We are doing an awful lot about it.