Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

If only I had more than a minute! This government has been focused on cleaning up the disastrous VET FEE-HELP scheme that you set up. You put fewer protections in place than exist for universities. You put a pile of money on the table. Over the last 18 months this government, led by my predecessor, Senator Birmingham, has had to put measures in place to stop brokers getting students in shopping centres with free iPads—something you did not do.

I might say that, in the press release that was released yesterday by the opposition, they did talk about their plan. I want to go through a few comments. You said you wanted to establish a VET ombudsman, to cap tuition fees, to lower the lifetime limit for VET FEE-HELP loans, to ban or place restrictions on brokers and to give the minister power to suspend payments to a private college under an investigation. None of those is in place in the scheme you set up. None of those powers currently exists. We are constrained by the flawed legislation you put in place.