Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, where is your evidence that there is strong demand for students to sign up to and spend $11,600 on courses they can do for nothing? What student in their right mind would take on that sort of debt when currently we have no evidence at all that these courses are going to be any better than the ones currently on offer? You talk about incentives; this is a perverse disincentive. Why would a student sign up? It would have to be something incredible to justify a student paying this sort of money. This is a perverse disincentive to do a Startup Year accelerator course, because the government didn't even have the decency to provide these places with Commonwealth subsidy. The government were so committed to this scheme that they thought they would hit students with a full-fee-paying debt. So I again return to my question: where is the evidence that any student would sign up? Do you have any testimonials from any student group—or anyone at all—who said, 'Minister and Prime Minister, we want to sign up and do a course and pay $11,600, $11,800 or even $23,600, if we do two courses; we want to take that debt on rather than do a course for no cost'?

This is why this is such a hairbrained scheme. If the accelerator courses being offered by the universities were not working, if there weren't accelerator courses, if the universities weren't investing, I could understand it. But the fact of the matter is the university sector sees great value in delivering this incredible wide range of courses, and they are, right across this country. As I say, you have presented no evidence at all that any student is going to be unwise enough to take on this level of debt to do a course they can currently do for nothing. I would again invite you to provide the Senate with evidence that students are going to sign up to this course.