Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will not be supporting coalition amendments on sheet 1936. We do, in principle, support the establishment of the Startup Year program. What convinced me was that, throughout the Senate inquiry on the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill held in April this year, we heard broad support from stakeholders and universities for the program. I have not heard from one single stakeholder of mine asking me to oppose the Startup Year program. Of course, there is a big issue with how the student loan system operates at the moment. The Greens' views on that system are well known. It is a broken system, and it needs to be overhauled. That's why I moved the second reading amendment a few minutes ago to wipe student debt and to make university and TAFE free. But the coalition voted against that. If the coalition is genuine about wanting to do something about indexation, there is an opportunity coming up in the next half hour where we have amendments to scrap indexation. If the coalition really cares about it that much, it should vote for the amendments.