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

I rise to contribute to this debate today in relation to the government's Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill 2018, and to put clearly on the record the Greens' opposition to this piece of legislation. We all know that this government goes on and on about not wanting political debate to get drawn into class warfare, and yet what we've got right in front of us today is a piece of legislation that takes the heart out of our higher education support scheme, right down to making it more and more difficult for students who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to get a university education, and, even if they do, to never be able to do further training or study because of the difficulty of being able to afford to pay back this loan.

Over and over again we hear this government talk about aspiration. Last week we heard from the Prime Minister, with all of his might during the income tax debate, that this was about aspiration and supporting aspirational Australians. Yet, with one fell swoop, this legislation cuts out the ability for young people right across this country to be aspirational about what level of education they get, how they go about getting it and how they set themselves up for the future, because what this bill does is widen the gap between the rich and the poor. It widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It says to young people in this country, 'Unless you've got a bank balance, probably funded by your parents, that is big enough to support your university education, you're going to have to do it pretty tough.' That's what this bill does, and it does it in two ways.

Firstly, it reduces the threshold at which students have to start paying back the debt on their university education. At the moment, on average, students have to start paying back their debt once they start earning $53,000. But this bill wants to drop that down. It wants to drop it down so far that it falls well below the average weekly earnings. It wants to drop it down to about $45,000, which is not much better than the minimum wage in this country. It is astounding that what the government wants to do here is punish students and young people who've gone out of their way to get a university education. It's going to punish them for going to university if they didn't have enough money to pay the up-front fees or to clear the HECS debt on the day they graduated or if they didn't ask mum and dad to foot the bill.

The second thing that this piece of legislation does is cap the amount of money that a student can borrow in order to further their education. At a time when we know that retraining is absolutely essential, when young people are going to enter the workforce in one job and change positions, careers and skills over and over again throughout the journey of their working life, this bill makes it more difficult for young people to get retraining and to further their education as life goes on.

Here, in this place, I think it's really important to look at the lack of vision that this government has under Malcolm Turnbull and the education minister, Simon Birmingham, for aspirational young people and for investing in education in this country. Compare that with the vision that is put forward by the Greens. We argue for an investment in lifelong learning. We know that investing in education is the best bang for buck that any government can spend. That starts with early childhood learning and goes right through school, tertiary education and lifelong learning. We know that we have to enable members of our community to train, to engage in the workforce and to retrain. That is the changing nature of working life right around us. And it's not just here in Australia, of course; it's happening right around the world.

Putting a handbrake on the ability of young people in this country, or anyone, to go back to university to complete another degree and further their skills is a stupid, stupid idea and shows a lack of vision from a government that says it cares about aspiration. It's all lip-service. Perhaps it's all about aspiration for the millionaires and the big income earners and the big banks, but there's no aspiration being put forward by this government in relation to allowing young Australians to get an education to further their opportunities and to be job ready for the workforce.

This bill comes at a time when there is a widening gap already between the haves and the have-nots. Inequality in Australia is getting worse. We know that two-thirds of students live in poverty. Poverty, of course, is one of those areas where, once you're in it, it's very, very hard to get out. It's a tricky cycle. And what this bill does is make it even harder for young people to get out of that cycle. It locks them in. If you're a young person who needs income support from the government, through youth allowance, in order to study, because your parents can't afford it, and if you need to take out a university loan because you're not lucky enough to have a mummy and daddy who are able to sign the cheques at the university down the road, then this bill locks you into a cycle of poverty right from the beginning.

It's not about whether a young person has enough spare cash in their back pocket to have a beer at the uni bar. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about being able to put food in one's belly, pay for the rent so that you've got a roof over your head, pay for the public transport that you're going to need to get to classes every day or wind back on study to take more part-time work or full-time work, paid at a ridiculously low rate, often with very few penalty rates—this government wants to cut them. We are keeping young people trapped in a cycle of poverty at a time when we should be supporting them to take up more and more opportunities for education. In fact, the best way of dealing with inequality would be to better fund education, to ensure that it's more accessible and to ensure that it's affordable for people so that, when students are studying, they are able to actually focus on their studies. This isn't just about being able to make the university degree itself affordable; it's also about ensuring that students have the support in order to be a student.

Youth allowance is ridiculously low in this country. It is well below the poverty line, so of course you can't live on it. University students struggle every day to be able to go to university, study, get an education and further their careers in order to contribute to society, while struggling on pitiful amounts under youth allowance. We need a better deal for young people in this country, particularly those who are doing everything they can to get an education and to contribute to society.

Of course, higher education isn't all about just what the market gains or about what profits can be gained. This bill sends a very clear message that that's all this government care about, that they only really care about whether there is a commercial return for a university student's university loan. What happened to the days when we understood that educating the next generation was good, in and of itself, for the society and for the community? Education is essential for a decent society. It shouldn't be simply measured against whether the government of the day thinks it offers the certainty of a commercial dividend.

We heard Senator Macdonald speaking on this bill. And while he talked about the importance of having young National and Liberal members educated at university—I think he was doing, as Senator Watt suggested, a pitch for his preselection rant—ultimately he missed the key point, which is that any young person in this country should have the opportunity to go to university, to get an education and to contribute back to the community and the society. We, as a decent society, pay for the opportunity for some of those young people to go to university because we know we get a dividend back in what that contributes to the community.

Nurses don't earn very much. They should earn more. But would anyone in this place begrudge a university graduate who's done a nursing degree next time they're confronted with them at an emergency ward in a hospital? Is the Prime Minister going to turn around to the next nurse he sees when he falls ill or a member of his family falls ill and say, 'But have you paid back your university debt yet?' Of course not, because we know the role of these people in society is absolutely paramount and essential.

It shouldn't be that, just because you're not rich enough to pay your university degree off either upfront or quickly, you don't deserve support from the government. University education is getting more and more expensive. These days, the average fees that students pay and debts that students graduate with range anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000—sometimes more. If you've studied medicine, you're more likely to have a debt of $60,000 to $70,000. If you do a combined degree, your debt is closer to $100,000. University students today are graduating with debts of this magnitude, and yet we expect them to start paying back their debt when they've just exited university, they've just entered the workforce and they're only earning $45,000 before tax. This is absurd. Either we value education in this country or we don't. Either we value the dedication and determination of young people in Australia to go to university, get an education and become our nurses, our doctors and our teachers or we don't.

Why is it that rich kids, because money doesn't matter for them, are the only ones who can pick which university degrees they would like? The reality is that those lower paid jobs are essential for our community but those who are in them still aren't paid what they are worth. Teachers, nurses and early childhood educators are the people who are going to be graduating with debts and having to pay them back on pitiful wages. It is simply unfair. Inequality is a problem in this country, and the sooner this government works that out the better. If they don't, they are going to cop it at the ballot box. Australians are not silly. The voters can see what's going on here. The government has prioritised giving $140 billion in tax cuts which primarily help high-income earners. Later on today, we're going to be debating a bill that gives $85 billion in tax cuts to big corporations—and then the government turn around and say, 'We don't have enough money left to fund education.' It's absurd. It says everything you need to know about the priorities of this government. They don't care about young people, and they certainly don't care about young people from low-income families. They'd prefer that teachers, nurses and early childhood educators went off and did their university degrees, started paying back their loans and then shut up and weren't heard from again.

The problem with this bill is that the government's argument is that these thresholds need to be lowered because somehow, apparently, wage growth is stalling, yet the argument for why we need to give income tax cuts to the rich is that wage growth is going to explode. This government picks and chooses which arguments it wants to run on a bill being debated based on what is going to satisfy the big end of town. 'Let's keep low-income workers down and let's keep kids from low-income households locked out of the system.' This government has already cut $2.2 billion from our university sector. Not only are they making it harder for students to be able to cover the costs of their education; they're making it harder and harder for universities to cover that gap.

I fear that we are sliding into a future Australia that says, 'If you come from a low-income family, if you're not part of the rich kids who went to the best private schools in this country, then you don't deserve a quality education; you can stay over there.' I'm worried that we're sliding towards an Australia that says, 'You can only go to university if your parents are rich.' I'm worried that we're sliding towards a future Australia that says, 'If you come from a poor household, you should stay poor. Don't get in our way. Do the jobs we don't want to do, but don't complain.' That's not the kind of Australia I want, and I don't believe for a second that it's the kind of Australia that anyone else out there in the real world wants either. The Prime Minister talked about aspiration. Well, this is the exact opposite. Aspiration for some but not for all is what this bill says. That's the attitude of the Prime Minister. It is going to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and that is not the Australia that I want to see.

At a time when the workforce is so rapidly changing, we need investment in our education system across the board—in our early childhood sector, in our schools, in our universities and in our TAFEs. It's going to be a normal thing for people to have to re-enter education and get retraining. Why on earth we would be making that harder is beyond me. It shows a total lack of vision from this government—unless, of course, the vision is to look after the rich and shut out the poor. You can't read this piece of legislation as anything else. It is part of that narrative from this Prime Minister and his government, and it is the exact opposite of the decent Australia that we should all be striving for.

Tax cuts for big banks and big corporations, and tax cuts for millionaires—and then all the money is spent, so there's nothing left to be spent on educating the next generation. That is what is before us today. This is a matter of priorities. I say to the crossbench: Don't fall for this. Don't fall for this false argument from the Prime Minister that we can't afford to invest in our young people. We can afford it, but it means that we can't afford tax cuts for the banks. I move the second reading amendment standing in my name:

At the end of the motion, add:

“, but the Senate notes that:

(a) the government is at war with young people, pursuing policies that put the aspirations of young people to get a degree, own a home and pay the bills further out of reach;

(b) the government is cutting $2.2 billion from universities around the country, without a vote in the Parliament or a mandate from the public;

(c) this bill makes students pay back more of their debt, sooner, rather than doing anything to assist people with the cost of living while studying or to boost wages upon graduation; and

(d) no government that genuinely supports aspiration would make it harder to study at university.”