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

Very briefly, I want to correct the record in relation to the student debt that Australians have faced under this government. One of the drivers for this bill is that student debt is out of control under Labor, and this is a direct consequence of Labor's high inflation and economic mismanagement. Labor has had to desperately scramble to change HELP indexation and the way it is calculated because we have seen student debt rise by nearly 16 per cent under this government—by 3.9 per cent on 1 June 2022, by 7.1 per cent on 1 June 2023 and by 4.7 per cent on 1 June 2024. For someone with an average loan of around $24,700 as at June 2022, this has meant a crippling increase of around $4,000. Contrast that with the average annual indexation of 1.7 per cent under the former coalition government. Even if this bill comes through, effecting the change in HECS indexation, Australians are not going to forget. This still means an increase in student debt of 11.1 per cent.

As for the rubbish that we're hearing about $3 billion being wiped, the bottom line is that, out of three million debtors, it's estimated that only about 200,000 of those Australians will receive a refund. For most Australians, this adjustment will appear in their HELP loan account and, of course, whatever adjustment does occur in their HELP loan account will be eaten away by future indexation.

This government has failed students who have a student loan. We've seen this government's inflation—high inflation, homegrown inflation—drive student debt sky-high, and now this government is scrambling to rewrite history. But I can assure the minister, and I can assure the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education: Australians will not forget what you have done to them, including the three million Australians with a student loan.