House debates

Monday, 9 November 2015

Bills

Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Reform) Bill 2015; Second Reading

8:44 pm

Photo of Ed HusicEd Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

No, you be honest, Parliamentary Secretary. Stump up. How many times have we had to sit in this place and listen to the coalition use the disgraceful term 'man up'—' man up and accept responsibility'? Well, why don't you take your own advice? Man up and accept that under your watch the amount of money that has gone to VET FEE-HELP has nearly doubled from—what is it?—nearly $600 million to $1.7 billion. You have known for ages that this has been a problem, and all you have engaged in is to blame, to distract, and to try to make other people look the other way. When you have always claimed that you think you have the answers, you have been unable to step up and put forward a solution. Instead of playing the blame game, why don't you work out what is going on?

Mr Chester interjecting

Well, it is nice that you can sit there and read that. Why don't you go and talk to the students who are saddled with the debt? Why don't you talk to the students in the two years of your administration, more and more—

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