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

I will not repeat my closing remarks of last night except to note that the government has, through the course of this year, acknowledged the importance of turning off the tap in relation to the way this scheme has worked. I also commented last night that in many ways those opposite are like an arsonist who has lit a fire and now complains that the fire brigade is taking too long to get here. We have long acknowledged the problems in this scheme. We have been working to try to resolve and rectify them. We have conceded now that to rectify them is going to require a wholesale rewriting of Labor's scheme, and we are committing to do so.

In relation to the measures that apply to the pausing of payments for new enrolments or to moving to payment in arrears for certain providers, those measures are powers that are to be provided to the minister and would be exercised on a case-by-case basis. In those instances there is not necessarily a specific time line for departmental implementation but advice will be received on a case-by-case basis.

In relation to the new entry requirements for an RTO wishing to become a VET FEE-HELP provider, if anything this will ease the administrative workload of the department. As they have indicated, there are hundreds of outstanding VET FEE-HELP applications. The passage of those amendments will allow the department to discard a number of those applications who do not meet the very clear terms that are set out in the amendments.

In relation to freezing the total loan limit for existing VET FEE-HELP training providers, that is a relatively simple measure. That amendment essentially takes payments over the first eight months of this year and averages them into a 12-month cap. The department already has data across that eight month time horizon for the 260-odd VET FEE-HELP providers who are registered, so it will be able to fairly neatly average out that eight months into a 12-month cap on what they would be eligible to claim as payments in 2016.