Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It is a good university—Charles Sturt University. If the member was, indeed, thinking about Griffith, I am pleased to say I have just been able to see a cloud arrangement coming into the fine city of Griffith—which I know the member for Throsby is well aware of—to help university students in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area get access to a tertiary education they would otherwise not be able to receive. The member for Throsby rightly points out that Charles Sturt University, Deakin University and universities in Sydney and Wollongong are fine institutions. The member for Throsby, who is from Wollongong, obviously understands how important the university in the Illawarra area is. Many, many Wagga Wagga students avail themselves of the fine law degree that they have in Wollongong. The member for Throsby would know that. But they need help and support.

I will just quickly talk about schedules 3 and 4 and the removal of the up-front payment discount and voluntary repayment loans. Schedule 5 talks about the interest charge for certain student income support debts. This bill is an important piece of legislation that needs to be passed. I certainly commend it to the House. These are savings measures announced by the former government. They have not passed the Senate. They need to. Labor need to understand that we have to pay back the debt. We cannot just put it off. There has to be some sort of sunset clause with the debt and deficit that we as coalition members of a coalition government did not inherit; indeed, it was inherited by the taxpayers of this nation, who are already suffering from overregulation forced upon them by Labor. I urge Labor to get on board with this legislation and help pay back the debt.

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