Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Faruqi, for the question. I'm very happy to take a question about access to higher education because of course the Labor Party is the party of access to higher education. Under Labor governments going back to the Hawke-Keating days, university and higher education participation in this country has gone up significantly, without the addition of crippling fees like we saw under coalition governments, so I am always happy to take questions about access to higher education.

We understand that many students do face significant issues in relation to the debt that they incur, particularly as a result of changes that were made under the coalition government to university funding arrangements.

I know Senator Henderson and her colleagues supported increasing fees to very high levels when they were in government, and the Labor government is taking this very seriously. It is important to remember that HELP loans, which are particularly the subject of the question that Senator Faruqi has asked, are not required to be repaid until a person reaches the income payment threshold. And, of course, HELP repayments are a set percentage based on your income. They don't go up unless someone's salary goes up. But we do recognise that this is an issue facing many young people in the community, and that's why the issue of affordability is one that will be looked at as part of the government's Australian Universities Accord. When HECS was introduced, in 1989, 7.9 per cent of Australian adults had a university degree. Now it's almost 33 per cent, so that is the legacy of past Labor governments in making higher education much more accessible, whether it be in the cities or even in the regions—and I would have thought some coalition senators might be a bit concerned about providing access to higher education in regional areas. Labor will always support higher education accessibility. (Time expired)