Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

It's been interesting listening to the contributions from many of the members present in the chamber—as though students are some sort of distant concept to be observed on the way to the train station. As a student myself, I think it's always fascinating being immersed in university life and how important it is that people continue their education throughout the whole of their life. I know you too, Deputy Speaker, consider your ongoing education to be a very important part of your responsibilities as a member of parliament. We all need to continue to grow and meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Education is at the heart of the great Liberal project of this country. Universal education was one of the proudest achievements of the Liberal project, and it is something that we continue to fight for. But it's important to get it in perspective. We need to make sure that, when people pursue education, they take responsibility for themselves. They enjoy benefits from that education—not only private benefits, but public benefits as well.

In the lead-up to the last election, there were a number of occasions when I talked to residents about the Labor government's policy of wiping off student debt. I remember I was at North Brighton train station, and a lovely young fellow came up to me and asked me what my policy position was in the context of what had been put forward by the Labor Party. I said that, as somebody who's paid off all of their tertiary education debt and is representing an electorate of many people who have paid off all of their tertiary education debt, it seemed challenging to turn around to future generations—as well as to those who've done it previously—and say simply that people should pay off other debt when they've already paid off their own debt. In my case, I'd already paid off my debt, and I was now being asked to pay off somebody else's. He hadn't quite considered that, and he accepted that what was being put forward by Labor was a challenge.

I remember standing at a polling booth, and a mum said to me, 'Well, you know, I haven't got anything particular I'm voting on, but Labor's promising this, so I might as well vote for it because it'll help my kids'. And I said: 'Yes, but there's one little problem. Labor created the problem you're trying to solve. Because they can't control their spending addiction, inflation continues to be a problem. They've created a problem. Their solution then is to take that debt—it doesn't disappear—and to chuck it onto the taxpayer. As a consequence, not only are future generations going to pay for it but, in fact, your son or your daughter is still going to have to pay off that debt for their education. They're just going to give them a temporary reprieve. So, in the end, the whole of society is going to pick up the consequences of buying Labor a pathway through this election, because they can't control their spending addiction.'

This is the problem. While Labor members come into this chamber and boast about their incredible achievement because they somehow managed to take private debt and put it onto the taxpayer, what they're not doing is addressing the root cause of the problem that they created in the first place. The problem of spiralling increases in HECS debts was caused by inflation. Inflation was being driven by the federal and state governments borrowing from the future to spend today, which meant there was too much money chasing too few goods and services. That stoked inflation. That debt spending meant inflation was higher, which meant interest rates were higher, which meant the Australian people were paying more in interest rates. And, of course, it meant that they were having to pay higher repayments on their HECS debts. Labor created the problem. They haven't actually solved it. They've just pushed it further into the future.

So I can't celebrate this incredible achievement of the Labor Party, because it is the boast of a thief to claim that they have solved any problem. In fact, it is the reverse. It is the greatest example of spin over substance—the perpetuation of debt and an unresolved issue of inflation which continues to persist. We hear this regularly from the Treasurer, where he talks about how he thinks he's slayed the inflationary dragon, yet it persists. Inflation is not going down. Interest rates are not going down. And they're stoking it further so that at the next election they can promise that they're somehow going to be able to cut further HECS debts—because they are continuing to drive them up.

We need to be honest. When a Labor government actively stokes increases in HECS debts, as it's doing right now and as it did before the last election, and then comes along and moves that private debt onto the taxpayer, it's not just hurting young Australians today; it's hurting them into the future. The idea that we should celebrate that is one of the most despicable things that I have ever seen a Labor government seek to do.

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