Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's always a pleasure to follow Senator Macdonald in a debate. I'm sure that I'm not the only member of this chamber, or the outside world, who has noticed that every single speech he gives at the moment is directed at the Young LNP. I wonder if that could be because of his preselection being up for debate right now and his dependence on the Young LNP for those votes.

Of course, he spends the rest of his time in this chamber consistently voting for measures that hurt young people, including the bill that we are discussing. But—oh!—will he use this chamber to grovel to the people who will determine his preselection. We can only assume that other Queensland LNP senators are worried about him and are giving him every opportunity to stay in this chamber so that he can be the first senator in this chamber to reach the age of 80 for some period of time. From my point of view, long may his reign he continue, because every time he gets on his feet I can hear the Labor primary vote going up! So I very much welcome Senator Macdonald's participations in these debates.

On a more serious note, I do rise, as other Labor speakers have done, to oppose this Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill 2018, which is just the latest attempt by this LNP government to again hurt the interests of young people. What this bill is about, more than anything, is putting more and more of the cost of university education onto young people, or onto those who undertake higher education, and forcing them to pay it back at a much earlier stage.

If there was a key point to Senator Macdonald's speech—other than, 'Please Young LNP, vote for me in the forthcoming preselection'—it was that we shouldn't be asking people who don't have the opportunity to go through university to shoulder the burden of paying for that university. I'm disappointed to hear Senator Macdonald have that attitude. I hope that's not an attitude that is reflected among other speakers on the government side in this debate, because many of us who have had the good fortune to attend university, like me, do not come from families of great privilege but come from families who didn't themselves have the opportunity to attend university straight out of school and did exactly what Senator Macdonald talked about and put themselves through work or night school.

In some cases they did have an opportunity to attend a university at a later stage of life. But I know many people who haven't had an opportunity to go to university and who do not begrudge for one moment that opportunity being given to other people. In some cases it is their own children, or their nephews and nieces. In some cases it is the opportunity for their spouses to go to university later in life. People who go to university do not begrudge paying a contribution through the taxation system for someone to do an apprenticeship to become a hairdresser, an electrician or a chef, because that is something where a taxpayer gives people an opportunity to get ahead in life.

If there is a dividing line between Labor senators and those from the Liberal and National parties, on the other side of this chamber, it is whether we believe that we actually are all about an individual or about a greater society and a greater community. We on the Labor side will always argue that we're not only here to advantage individuals' interests; we're also here to advantage the community overall. The higher education system, along with other aspects of our education system—TAFE, training, work experience, all those opportunities—is about giving young people, but also those who need to retrain later in their career, an opportunity to get ahead.

I'm currently chairing a Senate inquiry looking at the future of work. There is a big debate that is going on in our community, and we are looking at the fact that, as automation comes online, as we get greater technology coming into the workplace, there are going to be more and more people whose jobs are disrupted and, in some cases, eliminated. Without giving away key findings of that report, which is yet to be tabled in this chamber, it is very clear from the evidence we've received that more and more Australians, regardless of their background, are going to need retraining and upskilling to be able to simply get a job or retain a job in the new and emerging world of work that we have.

Measures like this higher education bill the government is trying to pass not only disadvantage younger people who are looking to undertake university studies straight out of school; they're also going to impact the many people, and the growing number of people, who will need to retrain from their previous occupation simply to have a job into the future.

So I ask Senator Macdonald and other Liberal senators to just reflect on the fact that, although they might like to come in here and play a bit of class warfare and try to argue that they are on the side of battlers who don't ever have the opportunity to go to university and who shouldn't have to pay for those who do, the fact is that we all have an interest in having a highly educated community, whether it be people educated through universities, TAFEs, apprenticeships or other forms of education and training that people obtain on the job. That is not only in the interests of the individual who is getting that education and training; it is also in the interests of our entire community to make sure that we are preparing people for the new world of work, which is increasingly going to require higher levels of skill and knowledge, and that's not what this bill is doing. What this bill is doing is actually putting more of burden on students to pay for their own education.

I have never objected to the idea of students making a contribution to their own education. Going back to student politics days, it wasn't always a popular opinion on the left-hand side of politics that students should make some personal contribution to their education, but I truly believe that, where we've got to at the moment—with the fees we're asking students to pay at the early stages of their career and with the requirement to repay those loans that they take out to undertake those studies—is a disincentive for poorer and working-class kids to have the opportunity to go through a university education.

Senator Macdonald and others might think that they are defending the interests of working-class and poorer people in supporting these kinds of measures, but what they are actually doing is taking university back to the pre-Whitlam days, when it was the preserve of rich kids only. If we're not careful, we're going to discourage kids from poorer and working-class backgrounds from undertaking university studies, even if they get the marks at school that would enable them to do so.

Specifically this bill will make students start repaying their higher education loans once they hit an income level of $45,000, well below average weekly earnings, at the very time when new graduates, if they are younger people, are looking at trying to save up for a house deposit, which we know is becoming harder still as a result of this government's failure to deal with housing affordability. At the very time when younger students are coming out of university, trying to put together a house deposit, trying to pay off other debts that they may have incurred while they were studying, through credit cards and other forms of debt, and while they are looking, in some cases, at starting a family—also an expensive proposition, as all of us who have a family know—at the very time when some of the students are finding it difficult to make ends meet, this government wants to throw another debt at them and start forcing them to repay the loans that they have taken out to undertake university studies.

Let's remember that, by and large, the only students who are taking out loans to undertake higher education are those from lower and middle-income families. If you're fortunate enough to come from a rich family, you've got parents who can pay what used to be known as HECS and now your HELP loans. But it's working-class and middle-class kids who are being faced with the prospect of having to repay their loans at a much earlier stage of their career while they are also trying to save up for other things like a house or a family.

This bill will also impose, for the first time, a lifetime borrowing limit, to constrain students' ability to undertake further study if it's going to be funded by loans. As I say, anyone who pays any attention to the Australian workplace of the present and of the future knows that, in order to get a job and keep a job in the future, Australians are going to need more education, not less. There are so many jobs that haven't required a post-school qualification that are disappearing in our economy as a result of technology, as a result of offshoring and as a result of other changes, including as a result of this government's failure to defend the car industry. We've seen Telstra announce 7,000 job losses over the last week. The banks are shedding thousands of jobs too. What is needed for people who are being made redundant from their existing employers, to ensure that they will get a new job in the future, is more education, not less. But what does this government want to do? It wants to say, 'Sorry; if you want to go and get some more education so that you can get another job, we're not going to continue supporting you in the form of loans.' Why would any government do that? Why would any government put in place active steps that are going to discourage people from undertaking further education and training, when that is exactly what people need to do to be able to compete for jobs in the future?

In essence, this bill is simply a continuation of the trend that we have seen from this government to put more and more of the burden of university education , TAFE education, traineeships and apprenticeships onto students themselves rather than onto all of us, as part of the community. This government has continued to cut general funding to universities as well as putting more pressure on students to pay more.

One of the most concerning aspects of these cuts to universities that we have seen from the government is the impact they are particularly having on regional Australia and regional Australians. Very often I come into this place and highlight the ineptitude of National Party senators and members of parliament, who say that they are the defenders of regional and rural Australians and consistently get done over by their Liberal counterparts, who are very good at putting through measures which help high-income people in big cities around Australia, to the disadvantage of people in rural and regional areas. This is another example. Universities in regional Australia have played a very important role in preparing the local community for higher skilled jobs, which tend to pay more. Also, they are very big employers in their own right in regional Australia. Many of the regional universities across Australia are some of the biggest employers in their towns and their regions, so if we're cutting funding to regional universities, as is happening under this government, what we're actually doing is cutting jobs in universities and making it harder for regional Australians to get the university education that they will need in the future.

We already know that rural and regional Australians have some of the lowest levels of participation in higher education anywhere in the country. We all know that fewer people in regional and rural Australia than in big cities get the opportunity to go to university. Wouldn't a National Party member or a National Party senator who's keen to get behind rural and regional Australia actually want to be fighting for more funding for regional universities and making it easier for regional students to get a university education? That's what they should be doing, but of course that would involve standing up to the Liberal Party, which we know our National Party members and senators are completely incapable of doing.

The cuts that this government is imposing on regional universities are twice as bad as those we're seeing on universities in the big cities. If you tally it up across the country, you find that regional universities are going to be suffering cuts of seven per cent to their funding, on average, while universities in the big cities are only suffering cuts of 3½ per cent. I don't think we should be cutting funding to the universities in the big cities either. I think we have a massive national interest in increasing funding to universities, as we do in increasing funding to TAFEs, for apprenticeships and for traineeships, but this government has the opposite view. It wants to cut back because it's got to find a way to pay for its big-business tax cuts somehow, so it says, 'Let's take money out of universities, traineeships and apprenticeships,' even though in the long term it will do massive harm to our economy, 'and instead shovel it into the pockets of our mates in the banks and big business.'

Of all the universities across the country, the university that is worst hit by the cuts this government is making to university funding is Central Queensland University. Its main campus is in Rockhampton, but it has campuses in Gladstone, Mackay, Bundaberg and other parts of Central Queensland. In fact, it's been so successful that it's now got many campuses all around the country, particularly attracting international students, who bring more revenue into the university. But, as a reward for its success, what are the government doing? They are cutting its funding by 15 per cent—more than double the amount that regional universities are getting cut overall and, on my maths, four to five times worse than the cuts we're seeing to urban universities.

If you look at who is representing the electorates that Central Queensland University is largely based in—in Central Queensland—you see that, of course, they're all National Party members. You've got George Christensen representing Dawson, Michelle Landry representing Capricornia, Ken O'Dowd representing Flynn and Keith Pitt representing Hinkler. Every single one of them is a National Party member. But have you heard anything from any of them about the cuts their own government is making to the university that is employing hundreds and thousands of people across their communities; and that is giving kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have never had a parent go to university, the opportunity to go to university and be the first person in their family to have an opportunity for a university education? Not a peep—because what would that involve? It would involve standing up to the Liberal Party. They never do it on university cuts; they never do it on health cuts; they never do it on school cuts; they never do it on apprenticeship cuts; and they never do it on cuts to big-business taxes, which are not going to benefit Central Queensland either. I really wonder why these people are in parliament. I thought the job of being a parliamentarian was to come to Canberra to defend the interests of your community, whether it be on universities, TAFEs, schools or hospitals, but these people just seem to want to get a flight down here and spend a nice week in the cold in Canberra. Frankly, I'd rather be spending a week in Central Queensland, where it's a lot warmer than here in Canberra. If you are going to come to Canberra and be cold, you might as well actually do your job properly and fight for the interests of Central Queenslanders.

The Vice-Chancellor of Central Queensland University has labelled the cuts that this government is making 'a tax on success'. I thought that the government—the Liberal and National party members—were generally about no tax and limiting tax. The vice-chancellor of this university has labelled the cuts a tax on success. So maybe any one of those four members of parliament or Senator Canavan, who's also based in Central Queensland, can listen to the vice-chancellor of the university there and do something about these cuts. I'm pleased that Russell Robertson, the Labor candidate for Capricornia, is actually doing something and speaking up about the need for these funding cuts to be reversed, because, unfortunately, the member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, has yet again been missing in action on this issue. It is good to see there is at least one political representative who is taking up the issue.

The same can be said of Griffith University, whose main campus is on the Gold Coast, where my office is based. They're facing funding cuts of $92 million. Again, has anyone heard a peep out of any of the Gold Coast LNP members of parliament? Just like Central Queensland is currently a total stranglehold for the LNP, so is the Gold Coast, but these people aren't doing anything to deserve their places in parliament. They are completely lazy, completely complacent and completely happy to just nod along and let Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison make whatever funding cuts they want to make to their universities, even though it's their own constituents who miss out. You've really got to wonder why any of these people bothered getting elected to parliament if they don't want to come to Canberra and make a difference for their communities.

The real effect of this bill, in forcing students to repay their higher education loans at an earlier stage and in imposing a lifetime limit on the amount that students can borrow to undertake university and other forms of education, is that students are going to miss out on the opportunity to go through university or to go through vocational education and training through TAFE, apprenticeships and traineeships. At the very time that we are trying to get more Australians to undertake more study to prepare themselves for the new world of work—for the high-tech, high-knowledge jobs that our country is going to be producing—this government is cutting funding to those institutions and forcing students to pay more and to pay earlier in their career. It's the complete opposite of what we should be doing as a country. It's for that reason that I and the other Labor senators will be opposing this bill.

In conclusion, I also want to point out that this bill is a continuation of another trend we're seeing from this government. What this bill does is force students to repay their loans at an earlier stage, and in the background we've also got massive funding cuts that this government is making to universities and traineeships. Right now it's students in universities who are in the gunsights of this government, but it really doesn't matter what kind of young person you are in this country—you are in the sights of this government. It's got to come up with ways of paying for the big-business tax cuts that it wants to give, and the way it's doing it is increasingly by going after young people. If you're a young person who is working, this government is coming after your penalty rates, with more cuts to penalty rates coming in another five days. If you're an unemployed young person, this government is coming after you by tightening eligibility and wanting to drug-test you. If you're in training, this government is cutting funding for apprenticeships and cutting funding for TAFE, making it harder for the young hairdressers, chefs, boilermakers, electricians and chippies to get an opportunity to start their career. Now, with this bill, if you're a university student, it's coming after you by forcing you to pay more for your education and by forcing you to pay it back at an earlier stage. Why is it that this government has such a problem with young people? No matter what kind of young person you are, this government is coming after you, and, at the same time, it's using the funding it's stripping away from you to pay for a tax cut for big business. We all know what this government's priorities are. They are to support its friends in big business, even if it's young people who suffer. The parents of those young people are noticing it, as well.