Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

What Senator Shoebridge doesn't understand is the history of HECS. Back in those days when the Hawke government invented HECS, most of those people hadn't actually been to university. What HECS was able to do is expand the number of people from working-class families who could go and study at university. That's what it did. You oppose that with hypocrisy, by actually pursuing this issue when it's Labor who have done more for people to attend university than any government.

We're proud of our record when it comes to HECS and the opportunity that it has provided. We are also passionate about ensuring that when we lower it, it goes through a proper process to ensure that it has the impact that we want it to.

So we will absolutely defend HECS and the role it has played in expanding the number of people who go to university. Our aim is to see more and more people be able to go to university. That's what the Accord process was all about. That's what we're trying to implement here today, to ensure that that opportunity is open to more Australians, particularly those from rural, regional and remote locations and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This is the first part of that legislation. It's really important that we do it but that we do it in a considered way, and this bill has gone through that process.