Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise is to speak about one of the many daggers being sunk into Australian people during the cost-of-living crisis. Amidst this hail of blades, this particular dagger is engraved with the acronym HECS-HELP. For 35 years Australians have been living under a system that settles them with a debt that many do not pay for decades. It was a Labor government that made university free for all Australians, supplying a generation with free education, which set them up for a better future and better opportunities. Many who were born in the fifties and sixties took the government up on its offer, becoming the first in their families to attend university. From the son of a Gosnells butcher to the daughter of a Cottesloe doctor, a tertiary education was within the reach of all.

How times have changed. Today, unless you can handle a debt of $50,000 or more for most of your working life, that door to higher education has been shut. Apprentices are being similarly burdened by the rising price of TAFE courses. To the surprise of no-one, Labor has once again clicked 'remind me later' on their 2023 national platform, where they declared that Labor believes all Australians, regardless of their background or where they live, should have the opportunity of higher education. Why is there such a disconnect between the Labor caucus and the platform they have been elected to implement? Where is the tremendous courage we witnessed during the visionary leadership of the Whitlam government? Why are we on a path towards the corporatist system we see in the United States? This government needs to act now for the coming generations of Australians.