Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In respect of the VET Student Loans (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016, I move the Australian Greens amendment (1) on sheet 7971:

(1) Schedule 1, page 8 (after line 16), after item 20, insert:

20A After subclause 46A(1) of Schedule 1A

Insert:

(1A) The *Secretary must also re-credit a person's *FEE-HELP balance with an amount equal to the amounts of *VET FEE-HELP assistance that the person received for a *VET unit of study if, as a result of information provided to the Secretary without the person applying for the re-credit, the Secretary is satisfied of the matters in subclause (1) (other than paragraphs (1) (d) to (f)).

(1B) Before making a decision under subclause (1A), the *Secretary must give the person and the *VET provider a notice in writing in accordance with subclause (3).

(1C) In deciding whether to make the decision under subclause (1A), the *Secretary must consider any submission received from the person, and from the *VET provider, within the 28 day period given for the person and the VET provider to provide submissions.

(1D) The *Secretary must give written notice of a decision under subclause (1A) to the person and the *VET provider. The notice must be given within 28 days after the day the decision was made.

There are a number of amendments that have been circulated. I have circulated an amendment that goes directly to the heart of this issue. We know that the system we are reforming with this bill is one that has been rorted, abused and exploited by those who have wished to make a lot of money and a private buck off the goodwill of vulnerable students and the willingness of this place, the parliament, to offer support to students who desperately want to get qualifications.

I said right at the outset of my speech in the second reading debate that a number of the Australian Greens, along with a number of other voices, warned at the time that if this sector was to be so deregulated people would take advantage of it and abuse it. That is exactly what we have seen unfold since 2012 to a point where now billions and billions of dollars are being wasted and pocketed by for-profit providers who have no interest in educating students and no interest in contributing to the welfare and a wellbeing of an educated workforce but are mostly interested in pocketing taxpayer money for running a sham type of learning facility. The stories are myriad on the type of exploitation and rorts that have been going on—the fraudulent behaviour of signing up students to courses they did not even know they were being enrolled in, bribing students to enrol in courses and, in fact, outright lying to individuals about the fact that they would be saddled with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of debt.

This amendment of the Australian Greens understands this system and says, 'This was abusive. A lot of students and other individuals were caught up in this and exploited through this process by these dodgy scumbags who tried to make money off the vulnerability of these people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We do not want to see those students now saddled with thousands of dollars worth of debt in years to come.' I am sure we will hear the minister explain that the government is doing a number of things to claw back lot of the money that has been stolen, effectively, from the Australian taxpayer, but I want to make sure that it is those who have actively participated in this fraudulent behaviour and rorted the system who are punished, not the vulnerable students caught up in the middle of it.

The only way we can guarantee that it is not students who are punished for this terrible deregulation mess that has been created is by ensuring that anyone who was manipulated, exploited, abused or lied to automatically has their debt to the Commonwealth waived. It is essential, because all of the bluster about what a terrible, chaotic sham and mess the current VET HELP system has become will be meaningless if students are left with debt to their name. Of course, in years to come, the Australian Taxation Office will be coming after that money.

I know the government does not like to admit how much money is actually owing—how much money has been ripped off and stolen from the taxpayer—but we have to fess up here. We have to be honest with ourselves and with the Australian taxpayer that this system was destined to fail. This is what happens when you deregulate a system like this—when you start providing taxpayer funded profits for for-profit providers without proper regulation, rules, checks and measures. Of course people were going to rort the system. We do not want students to be the ones who have to suffer for it. I hope that we can get some support for this amendment. It is important that students are not punished and saddled with this debt. It was a mistake of successive governments to allow this kind of rorting to continue for years. It was right under their nose.

There are other questions to be asked about who exactly in the education department knew this was going on and why something was not done about this much sooner. There are a lot of questions yet to be answered in relation to this. Everyone accepts that it was a problem and now needs to be cleaned up, but no-one wants to take responsibility for it. Well, I do not want students to be the ones who end up carrying the can because governments of the day were too obsessed with the idea of letting the market rip. It has proven that the privatisation of our education system has been a mistake. It has created a fraudulent system, an abusive system and an exploitative system. It is time we cleaned that up and made sure that sure that students are at the heart of this system and that they are the ones that are protected as we try to clean this up.