Jo Briskey (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to continue my contribution on this really important legislation and to reaffirm the difference that this is going to make for John who I spoke about earlier. John from Airport West is a local teacher who has a debt of about $27,000 at the moment, but, thanks to this legislation, he's about to see that slashed by over $5,000. This will be life changing for John, and I'm so proud to see this happen. I am proud to be a member of a government that is committed to the transformative power of education.

From next year changes will be implemented to the way universities are funded which will seek to help more people from our suburbs and regions get a chance to go to university, and from 1 July this year we will establish paid prac to support the 68,000 eligible nursing, midwifery, social work and teaching students to help them with their paid prac so they can get that done easily. This in particular is going to benefit Sally, another constituent of mine, who is currently studying nursing at Kangan Institute. Now that she'll get prac payments, she will no longer be faced with the stress of overworking herself as she tries to balance both making sure she can get those bills paid but also studying this incredibly important qualification that we need in our community. This will be life changing for Sally and so many others.

Labor fights for fairness. An essential tenet to our party is its belief in access to opportunity and belief in a pathway in life regardless of economic circumstances. That is why Labor has locked free TAFE into law, expanded the fee-free uni-ready courses and established the Independent Australian Tertiary Commission to drive reform of Australia's tertiary education sector. And then there's our bold agenda to reform early education and care and to fully fund our public primary and secondary schools. We are the party, the government, of education.

We stand in stark contrast to the previous coalition government that seemingly made it its mission to take a sledgehammer to higher education. They gutted the university sector funding. They lowered the HECS repayment threshold and used any opportunity they had to make life harder for low-income students. As their seats started to diminish one by one in capital cities across the country, as their support from young people hit record lows, did they learn to take younger Australians seriously? I'm not quite sure. Throughout the election they attacked this policy, dismissing it as profoundly unfair. They doubled down, seemingly, saying that there was no benefit to be had and, bizarrely, took to the election a commitment to increase student debt. Clearly, the Australian people did see a benefit, particularly young Australians, and voted accordingly.

The people of Maribyrnong put their faith in me and Labor to be progressive and to undertake the reforms necessary to build a better future. This legislation does exactly that. It seeks to reform a tired and frankly unfair system by implementing progressive changes that will make the lives of students just that bit easier. I'm proud to put my voice in support of this legislation and send a clear message to my community that this Albanese Labor government is listening to younger Australians and is working to make their future brighter and fairer. I commend the bill.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In a country that prides itself on giving everyone a fair go, we must confront the growing injustice that is the financial inequality and stress experienced by younger Australians. The rising cost of tertiary education and the mounting burden of student debt are not just economic issues; they are drivers of intergenerational inequity. Unless we address them now, we will leave future generations with fewer opportunities, heavier financial burdens and a diminished ability to shape their own futures. The Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 before us seeks to address the financial inequality experienced by younger Australians by cutting outstanding student loan debts by 20 per cent, by increasing the minimum repayment thresholds for student loans so people can earn more before they are required to pay off their student debt and by shifting to a marginal repayment system. These measures will no doubt bring relief to many Australians struggling with the cost of living and mounting student debt. Indeed I have heard firsthand from people in my community that the one-off reduction in their student debt will have a tangible impact on their lives, particularly as the cost of living is currently so high. I commend the government for responding to the concerns of a section of our society that is often overlooked.

But, while the measures outlined in this bill are welcome, they are not enough. A one-off reduction in student debts will not fix the systemic issues in our education and educational loan systems. Certainly, it will benefit the three million Australians who already hold student debt, but it will do nothing for the future students, who will face larger debts and longer repayment periods. There is far more work to be done to secure systemic changes, including reducing the cost of undertaking higher education itself, particularly for humanities degrees, where the cost of study has increased significantly since the introduction of the Morrison government's failed Job-ready Graduates Package. Systemic changes include expanding the Commonwealth Prac Payment to cover all students required to undertake pracs as part of their studies, and they include ensuring fairer accounting of HELP debt repayments so indexation is not applied belatedly to debts that have already been paid.

The reforms introduced last year by this government and secured through significant pressure from the crossbench began to address the systemic issues. Those changes included ensuring that the debts don't increase faster than wages by newly indexing debts to the lower of the Consumer Price Index or the Wage Price Index. It also included backdating the changes to undo the devastating indexation rise of 7.1 per cent that was applied in 2023. This was a positive start, but there is still more to be done.

Young people today have been hit by the triple whammy of rising housing costs, rising education costs and high living costs, resulting in growing student debt and housing stress. Significant numbers of students across the country are struggling financially and finding it almost impossible to find affordable accommodation while they study. Based on an analysis of more than 45,000 rental listings, Anglicare Australia's rental affordability snapshot revealed that no rental properties, including share houses, were affordable for a single person receiving the youth allowance. Clearly, there is a severe lack of affordable housing options for young people who are studying while on income support. The 20 per cent cut to student debt in this bill will provide welcome relief for many, but it does not address the root cause or causes of the problem.

To secure a more equitable future for young Australians, we need to ensure that they have access to affordable tertiary education free from crippling debt. A key to reducing repayment times is ensuring that the students accrue less debt in the first place. As a priority, we must reverse the impact of the record-high student fees caused by the job-ready graduates program, as recommended under the Universities Accord. The job-ready graduates program was introduced by the Morrison government in 2020. It increased the cost of law and commerce courses by 28 per cent and saw the cost of humanities subjects more than double. A three-year arts degree is now set to cost a staggering $50,000.

But it doesn't have to be this way. I was shocked recently when I found out that my children, who have EU passports, would be able to study for an undergraduate degree in Ireland essentially for free, with only a contribution required to cover services and exams.

The Australian Universities Accord: final report has clearly articulated the perverse impacts of the Job-ready Graduates Package, stating:

The Job-ready Graduates package needs urgent remediation … Many students have extremely high student contributions resulting in large HELP loans that do not reflect their future earning potential.

Students of history, philosophy, media and culture are now likely to pay twice as much for their degrees as students of science, IT, engineering or health. This is despite humanities degrees being essential to future jobs. At this time of unprecedented change, we should be supporting rather than deterring people from undertaking humanities degrees that promote critical thinking, problem solving, historical understanding, philosophical analysis and communications skills. Indeed, just recently we saw more than a hundred high-profile Australians urge the government to abolish the job-ready graduates scheme and implement an equitable university fee system that does not punish students who choose to study humanities and social sciences.

We must also address the perverse timing of student loan indexation so debts are indexed after the yearly repayments are taken off. Currently, students are facing indexation increases to portions of their study debts that they have already paid. This is due to the Australian Taxation Office practice of applying indexation to loans on 1 June but not processing loan repayments until after tax returns have been processed. Again, the Australian Universities Accord Panel has recommended that indexation be applied later in the year, after the compulsory payments that were made during the previous financial year have been deducted from a student's balance. This is a sensible recommendation that should be implemented as soon as possible.

And we must expand the Commonwealth prac payments to all students required to undertake placements as part of their studies. Currently, numerous degrees with time-consuming work placements are excluded from the payment, including many allied health degrees. Many of these professions, particularly across the health sector, are experiencing serious workforce shortages. They are critical sectors. As the Minister for Education has acknowledged, placement poverty is a real thing. In the words of the Australian Medical Students' Association, 'Nobody should be forced to make a choice between paying the bills and contributing to our healthcare system.' Without extending prac payments to all students that have to undertake them, we risk building a medical and healthcare workforce that is made up of a privileged few who can rely on the bank of mum and dad to get by.

For many students, undergoing their compulsory prac placement means physical exhaustion and financial and emotional stress. It means struggling to pay the rent and struggling to pay the bills. Students who visited Parliament House last week described how, despite needing to work to support themselves through university, they had to give up their part-time jobs to do prac placements. Added to this, some had to pay rent in two places or live in their cars, couch surf or drive hours every day to avoid the added accommodation cost. We are placing our young people in vulnerable, unsafe conditions and putting them under extreme financial distress. We are burning them out before they have even started working in their chosen career.

HECS and related student loan repayments are meant to make higher education accessible and fair, but today they generate more revenue for the government than the petroleum resource rent tax. Clearly, something is deeply wrong with the way we value education, opportunity and future generations. We must address the underlying drivers of escalating higher education debt which are deepening the intergenerational divide and worsening the cost-of-living pressures faced by young Australians.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to begin by congratulating the Minister for Education for making good on the promise made regarding this policy and cutting student debt by 20 per cent, which was our No. 1 priority at the commencement of the 48th Parliament. That was the promise that was made to the Australian public, to Australian students who had HECS debt, and our commitment at the last federal election. I'm very pleased to see this as the very first bill being debated in this House.

We know that this bill will improve the lives of more than three million Australians who have student debt, and not just them but also their families and their local communities. Whether they're just starting off in their career, saving for a home or juggling a mortgage and a young family, every single dollar counts, and this will go a long way for those people who have a HECS debt.

In my electorate of Adelaide, 37.2 per cent of constituents aged 18 and over have a level of educational attainment of a bachelor's degree or higher, and we have a number of educational institutions in the electorate, including Torrens University, Adelaide University, the University of South Australia and many other institutions. Therefore, I have one of the highest numbers of students in Australia in my electorate—as I said, the university campuses on North Terrace, City West and City East campuses, and of course the third-oldest university in Australia, the University of Adelaide.

Of course, in January 2026 the University of SA and the University of Adelaide will be merging to create a new university, Adelaide University, which will have its flagship campus in the city of Adelaide, right in the heart of my electorate. As the electorate is home to so many educational institutions, I'm constantly hearing from students and from constituents who were students how they are worried about the student debt, including parents, who come to see me to talk about their kids who are studying and how many years it will take for them to pay off the debt. That's why we're making these changes, slashing 20 per cent off every student's debt.

The average student debt today is about $27,600, and this legislation will cut that debt by about $5,520. That's an extra $5,520 for all those students, which will go back into the economy, generating jobs, helping the local economy et cetera. All up, it'll cut student debt by more than $16 billion. The legislation makes it clear that this cut will be backdated to 1 June 2025, before this year's indexation occurred. The policy applies to uni students, vocational education students and some apprentices.

The bill also makes important structural changes to the way the repayment system works. It raises the minimum amount you have to earn before you have to start making repayments from $54,000 and 2024-25 to $67,000 in 2025-26. It also replaces the current repayment system with a new marginal repayment system, and the current system is based on your entire income.

Currently, once you earn above the minimum repayment threshold of $54,000 you pay a percentage of your entire wage as repayment. Under these changes, students and graduates will only pay a percentage of their wage above the minimum repayment threshold. For example, right now if you earn $70,000 you'll pay $1,750 each year, and under these changes you'll pay only about $450. That's a saving of $1,300 per year in payments, which means you can still pay off more if you want to—there's no prevention of that, and no-one can stop you from doing that, and I'm sure some people will pay more. But it is absolutely vital that we as a nation continue to produce world-class health professionals who are working in our health system, who save lives and care for the vulnerable with health issues, as well as teachers to educate the next generation, agriculturists to produce our food and professionals in many other vital fields, all of which have a pathway that leads through tertiary studies. This bill will help this to become a reality.

Many Australians are wary of entering these fields, as they are worried about being able to pay off that student debt. That's what I hear from many people, especially parents who are contemplating, together with their children, the future in year 12 et cetera. I've heard that discussion many times. People are wary because of that debt that they'll accrue during the course of their studies. This will go a long way to removing that barrier and giving people more of an opportunity to study, go on and fill those skills that we require in this nation. The policy absolutely promotes intergenerational fairness, recognising that quality education can change lives and noting that the rising cost of tertiary education over recent decades has coincided with increasing demands for higher qualifications.

I'll give you an example; I mentioned this the other day in debate on the private member's motion. When I left high school, I went on to university. I dropped out very early; I found it very boring. A few years later, I went back to TAFE and found a course that suited me. At the time, the fees for TAFE were approximately $30 a semester. In the last few years I've always been asking what the TAFE fees are, and they've been in the thousands, which would prevent people who are in the situation I was in from going to TAFE. When I was at TAFE I was married with one or two kids—I can't remember how many I had at the time—and a mortgage. I was able to work full time and go to TAFE part time, paying $30 a semester. That is what changed my life. Through the policies of successive governments over the years, we've put up a barrier to that. We've put up a barrier to people wanting to change their lives for the better, because of the costs that are associated with it. So this will go a long way. I think it's important to give people the opportunity to be able to study, which then gives them a pathway to skills that will allow them to fill positions that we need, especially in health, but also in other areas. It will also allow them to turn their lives around.

We know that the easiest way out of poverty is through education. Through research that's been done throughout the world and here in Australia, we know that if you want to turn someone's life around and break the cycle of poverty, it's education that does it. We should be doing everything we can in this place to ensure we put all the levers in place to be able to assist that because, after all, we're here to help people do better in their lives.

We know that to build Australia's future productivity and prosperity, we need to educate and upskill more Australians. We've also locked free TAFE into law, as I spoke about earlier. This landmark policy has already seen more than 650,000 enrolments across the country, with 170 courses already completed. What we'll see through this in TAFE is more engineering skills, more mechanics and more trades, which we desperately need, especially in South Australia with our submarine building and shipbuilding. We will need more trades. I'm very proud that in SA we've set up a TAFE specifically training people for the submarine builds plus the shipbuilds that are taking place. We're going to need to train thousands of people in the near future. This government has also established the Commonwealth Prac Payment from 1 July 2025 to support about 68,000 eligible teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students while they are completing their compulsory practical training at university.

I am so proud that this Albanese Labor government will cut the student debt by 20 per cent. What this means is that the 28,520 students and graduates in my electorate of Adelaide with a HECS or student debt, including VET and TAFE loans, will enjoy an average saving of $5,825 per person. This shows that we on this side of the House are building Australia's future. Most of us in this chamber are aware it takes a lot of time, hard work and sacrifice to save or pay off $5,825.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. This bill will provide welcome debt relief to many people and make changes to the repayment of student debts. I support this bill because I know that higher education is essential to the success and prosperity of our country and particularly to people in our regions. At this point, though, I want to note that this speech is a statement on the bill and not part of the substantive debate, as the bill has already been passed. The Leader of the House has indicated to me and the House that this practice is unlikely to be repeated. It's important for our democracy that the government holds to that, and I certainly intend to hold the government to that.

Where higher education was once a specialised path for few, today it is required by so many jobs in our society. The landmark Universities Accord review, released in early 2024 and led by Professor Mary O'Kane, concluded that we need to increase the tertiary education attainment rate from the current 60 per cent to 80 per cent of Australians who are in the workforce by 2050. This is a nation-building task. The review makes it clear that we will not achieve this goal and thus fail to unlock the full potential of our workforce and our economy if we don't increase higher education participation rates, especially for disadvantaged groups.

One of these groups is people living in regional Australia. Across most of rural, regional and remote Australia, educational attainment rates fall well below those in the major cities. This exacerbates workforce shortages in our regional communities, limits economic opportunities for individuals and their families and can worsen health and social outcomes. It's clear that, as a country, we need more people to undertake higher education, but it's also clear that the significant cost-of-living barriers are preventing people from taking up the opportunities that higher education brings to both them and the wider community, which brings us to the bill before us in the House today.

The Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 makes three key changes to the higher education loan, or HELP program—also known as HECS. First, it will provide a 20 per cent reduction of loan balances for all students, regardless of the size of their debt. Second, the bill will increase the repayment threshold so that students will only start to pay their debt off when they're earning more than $67,000, instead of the previous $56,000. Third, the bill makes changes so that repayments are only made on the income earned above the $67,000 repayment threshold and not on the first $67,000 of income. I note that there is not broad agreement on whether the changes to repayment thresholds are absolutely 100 per cent the right way to go in balancing the cost-of-living pressures and sustainable ways to pay off HELP debts.

The changes in this bill will benefit some, but may not benefit all, and we don't know the full impact. This is complicated, and the government has stifled debate on this bill, meaning these matters can't be fully explored in detail. The 20 per cent reduction will provide a one-off much needed debt relief, while the changes to the repayment system could make a difference to those balancing their repayments while the cost of living is so high. It will also reduce the rate of repayment for students earning below the average wage. Despite my desire to have more detail about the impacts of the payment threshold changes, I do welcome and support this bill because ensuring that higher education, whether that be at university or at TAFE, is vital to the prosperity of our community, and nowhere more so than in regional Australia.

In Indi, there are almost 14,000 people with a HELP debt, with an average level of debt of $21,000. This means that the average student or graduate in Indi will receive a $4,200 reduction if this bill passes the parliament. For these people and their families, this will of course be welcome relief. Of course, though, not everyone in Indi has studied at TAFE or university, and tertiary attainment rates are indeed low in my electorate by national standards. But the reality is that we all benefit from our higher education system. When university or TAFE is hard to access or out of reach financially, it can lead to exactly the kinds of workforce shortages people in regional electorates such as mine know all too well. Increasing costs and debt burdens are exacerbating existing barriers to study and discouraging young people or midcareer people from choosing to study.

So I support this bill because it is getting harder to study—right when we need to be making it easier. This bill builds upon reforms made in the previous parliament, such as changes to the indexation of HELP debts. However, there is more work to do. HECS is not fixed yet. I strongly support the member for Kooyong's amendment to change the timing of indexation to deduct compulsory repayments before applying indexation. The current indexation arrangements are unfairly adding thousands of dollars to Australians' debts. It could be fixed and it should be fixed by this government.

Another key recommendation of Mary O'Kane's Universities Accord review was the paid prac placement system that's now being rolled out for a small number of degrees. Those studying to be teachers, nurses, midwives and social workers will receive payments while they undertake compulsory work placements in order to earn their qualifications—a welcome and overdue change. I've made it clear that the government needs to go further and expand prac payments to other areas of study, such as allied health professions and medicine. Last year, I was glad to secure an amendment to ensure a review of the prac payment system is undertaken after three years. This review will specifically look at the possible inclusion of allied health placements. Although I hope that this will happen sooner, it's good that this date is now locked into the calendar.

I'm pushing for more paid placements because I hear from so many people having to choose between study or work. Some are even putting their degrees on hold because weeks and months of unpaid placements are simply not an option when there are mortgages, rents and bills to pay. Last week, I heard from Zac, a mature-age student in Wodonga. Zac is a dental assistant who's now training to become a dentist in the public health system. He's currently completing a placement six hours away in Bairnsdale. Not only is he paying for rent while on placement; he's unable to earn an income. As he says, 'This burns both ends of the candle.' Gemma in Wangaratta is studying diagnostic radiography and works full-time hours to meet her placement requirements. She completes course work and placement work and has an additional job on the weekends. She's had to relocate for three of her four placements, each costing thousands of dollars.

While Gemma is incredibly making it all work, some of her peers are not so fortunate and have had to stop studying because of the pressures of placement requirements. Are we the kind of country that forces students to choose between food and housing or their studies? These are the choices students in Australia are forced to make. It's wrong and fails our next generation of doctors and allied health professionals.

One key outstanding recommendation of the Universities Accord review is a new needs based funding model for universities. This model must recognise the added costs of delivering tertiary education in regional areas. Regional universities in my electorate undertake influential research and drive regional employment and economic development, but the status quo is failing them, their staff and their students, and the government must ensure they're set up to succeed.

I support further reforms to the sector, including to the job-ready graduates program, which has punished students simply because of what they choose to study. While I voted for the bill that implemented the job-ready graduates program because it implemented other important reforms for regional communities, such as the tertiary access payment and regional university study hubs—both of which have been implemented and are going well—I criticised the job-ready graduates program fee structure at the time for its lack of an evidence base. With evidence now showing that Job-ready Graduates has failed to achieve its stated goal, it is more than overdue that we fix this system. Changes like the ones we're debating today will not have their full impact on making higher education more affordable until Job-ready Graduates is addressed.

I support this bill because it will help many people facing cost-of-living pressures in my electorate, and it's a step forward to making our Higher Education Loan Program fairer. However, this is just a step. This parliament must act to make higher education affordable, available and accessible to all Australians, regardless of whether they live in a regional area or come from a low-income background or have other barriers to participation. Studying at university or TAFE should not send you broke.

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's with great pleasure that I rise today to speak in support of this measure to reduce student debt by 20 per cent. This issue featured prominently in the election in my electorate. I was approached by many people in support of this policy, particularly young people, of course. We promised that this would be the first bill that would be introduced to parliament this term after the re-election of the Albanese government, and that's exactly what has happened.

The Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 will make education more accessible and income contingent loan programs fairer and more affordable. This bill reduces by 20 percent student loan debt that was incurred on or before 1 June 2025. It increases the minimum repayment threshold from $54,435 in 2024-25 to $67,000 in 2025-26. It ensures that people have more money in their take-home pay by smoothing out the time and the pace at which they have to repay debt.

This will have an impact across the broader community as well as in my own electorate. Three million Australians will see their debt reduced by 20 per cent. The average student debt is $27,600, and this legislation will cut that debt by around $5,250. But of course that's the average. There are a significant number of people who have more debt than that, and they will benefit by an even larger amount.

In my own electorate of Fraser, an enormous number, 28,000 people, will benefit from this policy. This assistance will reduce debt, thereby helping with cost of living and enabling more home loan applications. On that issue, I'd like to reinforce the point that complementing this policy in terms of the debt reduction itself is the fact that we as a government have pledged to make it easier for people who have student debt to enter the housing market, by asking regulators to review lending rules. That work is now complete. This will complement the debt reduction in a very important way. APRA and ASIC have finalised guidance that the Treasurer requested in February.

Specifically, that includes guidance from APRA which means there have been amendments to guidance to banks so as to remove HELP debt from debt-to-income reporting and also to clarify that it may be reasonable for banks to omit HELP debt from serviceability assessments where a borrower is expected to pay off their HELP debt within 12 months. ASIC has also updated its regulatory guidance to acknowledge the income-contingent nature of HELP repayments. As I said, these measures will complement the debt reduction and will help thousands of students and graduates across the country who have invested in their education and who now want to invest in their homes.

I want to compliment the Treasurer on his work on this and say that this is a very important additional set of measures. I also note that this bill is part of the broader strategy of the Albanese government to make education more accessible and fair for young people. This builds on the significant work we did in our first term. We established a Commonwealth prac payment to support eligible nursing, midwifery and social work students while completing their practical training. We established free TAFE, a policy that has already seen more than 650,000 students training in important careers like construction, aged care and cybersecurity. And in visits to TAFEs across my electorate I've seen incredible outcomes for students. They're given opportunities for lifetime careers through those measures. We've changed the way HECS is calculated, meaning that it is based on the wage price index or the CPI, whichever is lower. Those indexation changes are an extremely important affordability measure. And we invested $90.6 million to boost the number of skilled workers in the construction and housing sectors.

We took this policy to the election, but I must note that a number of members opposite called it 'profoundly unfair' and said that Australians would see little benefit from this policy. Well, that's not the judgement that Australians made and certainly not the judgement that young Australians made. Could I also cite an expert—indeed, many would say the father or the architect of HECS—Bruce Chapman, who supported this important legislation. He said changing the income repayment threshold is the most important thing that has happened to the system in 35 years. So this is a very important reform—a key reform for young people, for graduates, for people in tertiary education—and, as I said, complemented, importantly, by a number of housing measures.

This change will be implemented by the Australian Taxation Office. Those with HECS debt need not do anything. They will receive a text message when the ATO has completed the work at their end. This will take awhile to process, but once it's done people will get that text message and know that their debt is down by 20 per cent. Once the legislation is passed, the 20 per cent HECS cut for all of those who have a HECS debt will be locked in.

This is one of the key measures that was discussed at the last election. As I said at the beginning of my contribution, this was a policy that featured very prominently in my interactions with people throughout my electorate. It was something that young people felt was very important. It is a measure which increases the affordability of their income-contingent loans but also, when complemented by the measures that the Treasurer ensured would be in place through ASIC and APRA guidance to banks, a measure which helps people with housing affordability. This bill enables young Australians who are building the nation's future to have a better chance to have a home loan, while also providing real cost-of-living help with more money in their pockets.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. It's a welcome first step to cut student debt by 20 per cent and ease the cost-of-living pressures for so many of them. But let's be really clear: it's only the first step. Our education system needs much bolder reform to better support all of those undertaking further studies so that they can play a vital role in meeting the skills needs that we know Australia has for the future. They will be the ones who boost our productivity.

We hear a lot, in this place, about the value to Australia of our resources and everything else. Our most valuable asset is our people. Training and educating them has to be the No. 1 priority, and ensuring they have access to those opportunities is incredibly important. My office is full of brilliant young interns—passionate, driven, ambitious and caring—but they're struggling. They're juggling degrees, casual jobs, unaffordable rents and high HECS debts. Their story is not unique; it's the norm for students across Australia and young people. A university education should challenge you intellectually, not cripple you financially.

We know this bill is very welcome, when it comes to reducing the debt by 20 per cent, as of 1 June 2025. It provides an average saving of some $5,500 for students. It does wipe $16 billion in total student debt, so I commend the government for that. By raising the payment threshold, it gives young people, in particular those starting out, the opportunity to get to better employment before having to start repaying debt. And that lower repayment rate does indicate a saving per year. So these are meaningful cost-of-living reliefs for millions of Australians.

But let's be clear: the timing of indexation is highly problematic. It is unconscionable that the ATO can withhold, during the course of the year, the ongoing payments, the HECS repayments for a former student, without applying it to the debt prior to indexation. The student does not have the benefit of the use of those funds, but the ATO does. So there has to be something done about the date of indexation. It is unconscionable that, in every other sector of our lives, it is possible to apply repayments in real-time, but, for some reason, it simply can't be done in relation to HECS repayments.

So, while this is positive, there is still so much more that needs to be done. In fact, I was in this parliament during the 46th parliament, when the job-ready scheme was introduced by the Morrison government. I spoke out loudly against that, because it was so fundamentally unfair to move the dial and to change the payment system—to try and pick winners in that way—and impose on a whole cohort of students an absolutely unreasonable fee structure.

The job-ready graduates scheme is a completely failed policy. It doubled the fees for arts, humanities and social work. It unfairly targeted critical degrees and pushed students into higher debt. Personally, I have two degrees. I have a Bachelor of Arts in media and communications and a Diploma in Law. To me, it was unconscionable that we were changing the dial and making it so much more difficult for students to achieve their goals and to be able to contribute back and that it would make their degrees so much more expensive.

The Universities Accord recommended it be scrapped, but the government has not yet acted. So, before there's too much patting on the back and congratulating itself for this move, it also needs to focus on the rest of the recommendations to make sure they are enacted without delay so that more people are not being crushed by debt.

There's no doubt that the job-ready graduates scheme entrenches inequality and devalues democracy. It's enriching disciplines, and it should be repealed.

As I said, the other issue is that indexation of 1 June. The repayments are held throughout the course of the year and then not applied in real time. When I took the time during the election campaign to explain that to people, they were shocked and horrified. All too often they don't realise that is what's happening. So, if the government really wants a big tick of having acted on this generational inequity and the issue of student debt, then it has to address the issue of timing of indexation. The ATO says it lacks the resources to fix it—with respect, I don't buy that. Where there is a will, there is a way, and it's a question of prioritising the resourcing and correcting this design flaw.

University governance is an issue that is brought to bear for me quite frequently: the integrity we need in university structures. It's all too relevant here in Canberra because of the situation with ANU. I've had a lot of contact from ANU students lately in relation to the changes at ANU and the impacts they are having on students. The ANU restructure is gutting courses, overworking staff and sidelining students. External consultants, instead of students and academics, are making decisions. Education quality must be paramount. If the university needs to make cuts or changes, it must not be at the expense of students.

Funding gaps are an issue. Government contributions per student are down six per cent on pre-JRG levels. The universities over-rely on international student fees, which is problematic, but we saw prior to the last election during the last term of government the use of international students as a political weapon to try and point-score, in the process undermining our university sector and its fiscal sustainability. All in all, we have to be focused on young Australians and how they are facing rising debt and fewer opportunities. We have to make sure there is adequate public investment in higher education to meet the skills demands we know we have.

To summarise, we need to repeal the Job-ready Graduates scheme, fix the HELP loan indexation, lift the youth allowance and improve student welfare. It's quite interesting that in opposition Labor talked a lot about raising the rate of youth allowance, but we saw minimal changes to it during the 47th Parliament, and it's really urgent that it be addressed in this parliament. We need to secure long-term funding for universities and we need to make student housing more accessible.

There's no doubt, as the Treasurer heads into his productivity roundtable, that our best assets are our people. We need to make sure that they are ready and that the workforce has the future skills we know it needs. Ninety per cent of new jobs in the next five years will require tertiary education, so we need a robust and healthy university sector to make sure that we can deliver on that. We know we face shortages in the teaching, nursing, engineering and climate transition sectors, to name just a few. We must invest in education now or we risk falling so short as a nation. There is a global race on for talent and skills. We need to be at the forefront of that race and to attract the smartest and brightest here but retain them as well. Not only must we educate them; we need to make sure they have opportunities here.

As much as I commend the government for this bill, we need further reform, not just relief. We need bold, ambitious reform to build an equitable, future-ready education system. Students deserve more than just short-term relief; they deserve a fair, accessible and supportive education system. There's a lot we need to address regarding education reform and cost-of-living relief, but, unfortunately, that's not all going to be achieved during this debate.

I have to also raise the process around this bill. Whilst I agree that this is urgently needed and I want to see this relief flow to young people and everyone that it will apply to as fast as possible, I cannot commend the process the government has followed in this. We have passed this legislation and now members of the House are been given the opportunity to make statements in relation to it. This means the government is at risk of making a mockery of this parliament. By essentially using its numbers to just flick things through without proper debate, it means that second reading debates and the consideration in detail stage are curtailed—and then we are given the luxury of being able to come and make a statement in relation to legislation that will impact so many people in our communities.

So I urge the government to be mindful of its procedure. So many new MPs come to this place shiny and full of ambition and good principles. Let's make this a chamber of debate where we genuinely look at legislation. If the government needs more time to do its job, then allocate more sitting days to this place so that we do provide the scrutiny and debate necessary for good legislation for the benefit of Australia.

Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. I ask that you imagine the Gabba stadium in the beautiful electorate of Griffith recently on the evening of 18 July, when the Brisbane Lions played the Western Bulldogs. I ask you to imagine the stadium that night filled with what I can only assume were mostly Lions supporters. Imagine the buzz and the energy of more than 29,000 people who attended that game. The majority of those 29,000 people were winners that night there in that stadium. I ask you to imagine that stadium teeming with people, because this bill will help more people in my electorate of Griffith than even the number of attendees at the Gabba that night. This bill will help over 31,000 people in Griffith, more winners than even a Lions game at the Gabba. This bill will cut the student debt of three million Australians by 20 per cent. It will cut the student debt of more than 31,000 people in Griffith.

In the lead-up to the last election, I had the privilege of doorknocking on almost 15,000 doors personally, and I spoke to thousands of young people in my electorate. I heard time and again what cutting student debt would mean to them, their current household budgets and their ability to move forward with their lives. Indeed, most of those helped by this bill are young Australians just out of uni, just out of TAFE, just out of home and just getting started. They're struggling to pay their rent, trying to save to buy a home or thinking about starting a family. They're nurses, teachers, tradies, doctors, paramedics, engineers, architects, IT workers and AI experts. The average HELP debt today is $27,600. When this legislation passes, that debt will be cut by $5,520. For the people of Griffith with a debt of $50,000, it will be cut by $10,000.

Those opposite would have you believe that this bill is only helping write off the debt of lawyers and doctors. The member for Flinders said as much this morning to this House. This bill will certainly help many of the healthcare workers in Griffith; hospitals are one of the largest industries of employment in my electorate. Diligent, hardworking and caring healthcare workers at the PA, Mater and Greenslopes hospitals are performing daily miracles in a universal healthcare system that is the envy of the world. This bill will provide relief to many of the young healthcare workers in Griffith starting out in their careers—doctors, nurses and paramedics. And I have no doubt this bill will provide debt relief to some of the young lawyers at centres like the Refugee and Immigration Legal Service in South Brisbane, who provide free immigration advice, legal assistance and legal education to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Queensland.

This bill will also provide relief to people like Marcia, a young resident who lives in West End in Griffith. Marcia said:

I took on a big debt to study psychology because I want to help people, especially those doing it tough.

One of my sisters became a teacher to support the next generation. We didn't choose these paths for the money.

We chose them because we care.

Cutting student debt and raising the threshold is recognition that working-class people who give back shouldn't be punished for getting an education.

As promised, this is the very first bill to be introduced to parliament after the election and, as promised, and as we heard from the Minister for Education, it cuts the student debt of three million Australians by 20 per cent.

When I left school in 1999 and went to university, I studied an arts-education degree with the hopes of becoming a secondary school teacher. I had wanted to be a teacher for as long as I could remember. I worked throughout my study, sometimes full time with an almost full-time study load. While I was thankful to be able to go to university, something neither my parents nor I could ever have afforded to do without what was then a HECS debt, the debt repayments were significant. They kicked in while I was still studying and greatly impacted my ability to support myself and get ahead. This bill addresses that as this bill also raises the minimum amount you have to earn before you have to start making repayments from just over $54,000 in 2024-25 to $67,000 in 2025-26 and it reduces the minimum repayments you have to make. For someone earning $70,000, it will reduce the minimum repayments they have to make by $1,300 a year. That's real cost-of-living help. It's more money in your pocket, not the government's, when you really need it. You can still pay off more if you want to. What this does is make the system fairer. As our education minister said, it means you start paying off your uni degree when university starts to pay off for you.

Like our Minister for Education, I believe education is the most powerful cause for good. As the minister outlined to this House:

A good education changes lives.

A good education system changes countries.

It's changed ours.

We have got a good education system in Australia today.

But the truth is it can be better and it can be fairer.

This bill is part of that. I wasn't able to finish my education degree when I first went to university in the early 2000s. I worked throughout my study, usually full time, to be able to afford my rent, food and bills. I completed all of the coursework for my education degree, but when it came to my final prac I could not afford the six weeks off to be able to undertake it. There was no support for somebody like me to be able to complete the final practicum required for their education degree. My rent, grocery costs and bills would not disappear when my income would have. So, instead, I graduated with an arts degree and it took several years of me saving to be able to return to university to complete my education qualifications. I did this, and I am proud to say that I am now teacher trained.

What I'm also proud of is that, from the start of this month, this government is offering Commonwealth prac payments to support teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students. These payments will help these students who are studying to work in careers to help us. This is another way that this government is supporting young Australians, just like cutting their student debt by 20 per cent through this bill.

Whilst we on this side of the House were promising Australians that we would cut student debt, those opposite were making plans to increase it. Unbelievably, those opposite wanted any Commonwealth prac payments added to a student's HELP debt. With thanks to the people of Australia, including the people of Griffith, this week we are able to fulfil our promise and cut student debt by 20 per cent.

I think April, a student of social work from West End in my electorate of Griffith, summarised it best when she said of this action:

It's not just about individuals, it's investment in our nurses, teachers, our scientists …

We all benefit from this.

We do all benefit from this bill. I am proud that this bill will cut student debt by 20 per cent. I am proud that it will cut the debt of three million Australians. I am proud that it will cut the student debt of an almost-filled Gabba stadium of Griffith residents, more than 31,000, mostly young, people. It will take the weight off their backs, it will help with the cost of living and it will help build Australia's future. I commend this bill to the House.

Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be supporting the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. I believe it's a very important one, particularly for the many young people of our region who are undertaking tertiary studies. As at 30 June 2024 there were 14,366 people in Calare who had an average HELP debt of $23,349. It's no secret that many of our young Australians are feeling under financial pressure, saddled with more tertiary education debt than previous generations had to contend with, struggling to get a foothold into the housing market. Many young Australians have given up on the great Australian dream of home ownership.

This bill is a significant way to deliver them relief. I have a daughter who's currently studying at university. And while I am pretty certain that she voted Independent at the recent election, I did see her on Prime News welcoming the announcement, as many of her fellow students did. As history shows, the policy did not have bipartisan support when it was announced. It is no longer opposed by the coalition, and I believe that is a good thing. I hope the passage of this bill ushers in a new era of policymaking for young Australians—who are, after all, the future of our nation.

Among the features of this bill, it touches upon the Higher Education Loan Program, as well as Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans and Vocational Education and Training Loans. It will basically provide a one-off 20 per cent reduction in student loan debts incurred on or before 1 June 2025. The bill's fairer repayment system measure involves increasing the minimum repayment threshold for compulsory student loan repayments from $54,435 in 2024-25 to $67,000 in 2025-26 and introducing a marginal repayment system for compulsory student loan repayments, calculated on income above the new threshold.

So, this bill is an important one, as I have stated, and it delivers badly needed relief for students and graduates. But our universities also need support from this government. The university in our electorate of Calare is Charles Sturt University. I have to point out to the House that international student numbers at Charles Sturt University have dropped by 90 per cent since 2019, and it's hit the university hard. It's now burning through its reserves; staff are being laid off. Charles Sturt University runs its physiotherapy, medicine, dentistry and vet science courses at a financial loss, largely due to the current funding models, which severely disadvantage regional universities. These losses simply can't be sustained indefinitely.

To support our regional universities and find solutions to regional funding disparities, our regional universities like Charles Sturt University are seeking reforms. These include an easing of visa restrictions and fees and de facto caps and a cessation of the negative messaging that is deterring international student applications for study in Australia, allowing a return to sustainable international student numbers. Our regional universities are also seeking a needs based funding model for domestic students. They don't believe that the current one-size-fits-all model accounts for the higher cost of delivering education to students who need more support to succeed at university. So they want a better and improved needs based funding model—the regional education loading that properly reflects the cost of delivering comprehensive course offerings in thin markets across dispersed regional campuses that have significant essential teaching and research infrastructure to maintain. This is what our universities are asking from the government. They want that loading which properly reflects the cost of delivering vitally important education to regional students. Our regional universities believe that these requirements are not just a matter of fairness; they are a matter of our national interest. Investment in our regional universities is an investment in the future of regional Australia, because we can't just have the metropolitan sandstone universities educating our young people. We need universities like Charles Sturt University building the future of country Australia and building the future workforce of our regions.

Universities in the regions, like Charles Sturt University, exist to deliver regional solutions. The teachers, the nurses, the doctors, the vets and the social workers of country Australia are what is at stake here. The simple truth is, for higher education in Australia, international student revenue pays for domestic students and supports our country universities. I would urge the government to have a very close look at what is happening to university funding in regional Australia. It is a crisis, it is having a debilitating effect and it will have a debilitating effect on educational outcomes in regional Australia and it will have a debilitating effect on the future workforce of regional Australia.

I think it's a very positive thing that this bill delivers important relief to our students and also our graduates. It will mean a debt reduction for three million Australians. That is a significant and an important initiative. I commend the bill to the House but, in doing so, urge the government to support our regional universities and listen to their cries for help which are occurring right across country Australia.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If there's one group of Australians that have had the rough end of the pineapple when it comes to the cost of living, it's young people. They've had increases in rent, increases in student debts and increases in their general cost-of-living expenses like every other Australian and they've really been struggling. That was the message that came through in the last period of the former parliament and, indeed, in the first period of this parliament. That's why the Albanese government reacted and put in place that commitment to reduce student debts by 20 per cent if we were elected and to make it a priority of this government upon returning to office.

I'm proud that this Universities Accord bill will provide that real relief for millions of Australians. Many of them are younger Australians—who we've listened to—and we're now taking action by cutting their student debts by 20 per cent. It's a promise that we made in the election and we're now delivering it as a priority for this government. It will be the first piece of legislation that will pass this parliament. We know that the cost of living is important to Australians. That's why the major focus of our election policies was cost-of-living relief. This bill does just that, helping to wipe more than $16 billion in debt for more than three million Australians. We know that getting an education shouldn't mean a lifetime of debt. We also know that the coalition opposed this measure in the election campaign. I'm pleased to see that they've changed their mind, but they did call it 'terrible' and 'unfair'.

But the Australian people made it clear on 3 May that they wanted cost-of-living support, and many parents wanted it for their kids. They want to ensure that their kids get access to education and that that education is affordable. This is what this bill does. We saw large increases in indexation associated with student debts in the wake of COVID because of the inflation spike that occurred throughout the world. That resulted in some unfair debts and some increases in debts for many Australian students, so we've responded by cutting their debt by 20 per cent and easing pressure for workers and students across the country. Someone in the community of Kingsford Smith with an average debt of $27,600 will see around $5,500 wiped from their outstanding HELP loans. It's backdated to 1 June and it will reduce the burden for many of those students, including those with HELP vocational education and training student loans, Australian apprenticeship support loans, student start-up loans and other student loans.

I've been speaking to some students from Randwick TAFE in the community that I represent, and I know that costs can often be a barrier to Australians pursuing an apprenticeship or a qualification at a trade level. This bill will deliver cost-of-living relief to 280,000 students in the VET sector across the country, cutting half a billion dollars of student debt from that group alone. Our government is focusing on reducing the barriers to further study and training so that every Australian can get the skills they need for a secure, well-paid job.

In addition to cutting student debts by 20 per cent, the legislation raises the minimum threshold for repayment, before students start making those repayments, from $54,435 to $67,000. So those payments will be reduced. For someone earning $70,000, that will reduce their minimum repayments by $1,300 a year.

I'm fortunate to have the wonderful University of New South Wales in the electorate that I represent, and I'm a very proud alumnus of that great institution. It fills me with great pride to see the opportunities on offer at UNSW for students in our community and for those beyond Australia, and to hear of the positive impact on them from the education that they get. They're the ones making the future happen today. UNSW, of course, leads the world in solar research, in quantum technology and, indeed, in AI and in other areas where there's some fantastic research going on. You can see the development of hydrogen fuel in UNSW, as well as the work that goes on at the Kirby Institute around the development of lifesaving treatments for many viruses and other diseases across the world.

No matter where you live or how much your parents earn, we'll continue to ensure that the doors of education and opportunity are open for more Australians, not just at UNSW but at other great universities across the country. It's not just helping students from Randwick TAFE but also those from other great TAFEs throughout the country. This reform helps everyone repay student debts right now, and it delivers a better deal for every student in the three years ahead.

It builds on significant reforms that we made to help students in the last period of government, when we wiped $3 billion of HELP debts and fixed the system so that indexation of HELP debts can never increase faster than wages. From 1 July this year the government established the Commonwealth Prac Payment to support about 68,000 eligible teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students whilst they're completing their compulsory practical training at university. They'll now start to receive that $320 payment whilst they're on practical placement—again, assisting those students to meet their cost-of-living pressures, ensuring that when they do have to take a break from the workforce they will still be able to earn and to pay their bills.

We've locked fee-free TAFE into law. It's now seen more than 650,000 enrolments across the country, with 170,000 of those courses already completed. From 1 January this year, the government also massively expanded the fee-free uni ready courses, which are life-changing courses that help more students from disadvantaged backgrounds get access to early support for education in the university sector.

We're establishing an independent Australian tertiary education commission to drive reform of Australia's tertiary education sector. We're changing the way that universities are funded—that will start from 2026—which will help more people from outer suburbs and regions get a chance to go to university and provide them with the support that they need to complete their degrees. The government has heard the calls from younger Australians about support for their educational aspirations and the challenges that they're facing with their cost of living. We heard that call; we put in place the policy; we took it to the election; we received a mandate; and now we are delivering that cost-of-living support for millions of younger Australians to ensure that they can aspire to the education that they want, aspire to the job that they hope to achieve, and make a valuable contribution to Australia moving forward.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 that is in front of the parliament, and I rise to speak about Australian young people who are struggling at this time in ways that they haven't in previous generations. It goes to the heart of why this bill is important but also why other things are also necessary as well.

I met a young woman recently. She was in her early 30s. She had one little child, about a two- or three-year old, and twins. She came up to me at Kings Cross one Saturday morning when I was standing there. She is a doctor. She said: 'I used to be a nurse; I then became a doctor. I've just paid off all of my HECS debt. My husband is a lawyer; he used to be a policeman. He also retrained and just paid off his HECS debt.' She said: 'I think I've done everything right. I've tried to make all the good choices, but I cannot see how I'm ever going to have a home of my own. I can't see how I move forward, and I think about this every single day.' This, to me, is absolutely gutting, because this goes to the heart of some of the challenges we have in our country right now where people who are doing everything right. In this case, it was an individual who is working to care for people—she cared for my mother—talked about how she is caring for people, making all the right choices, investing in herself and her education, and she cannot get ahead. This is the problem that we're facing. We're facing it in the tax system, and we are facing it in the education system that we have here in this country.

Let's now talk to the bill. This is an important bill. It is not a perfect bill, but it also doesn't deal with some things that really need to be done. What does this bill do? It reforms the HELP system. This reform of the HELP system will go some way to alleviating financial pressure for many young Australians and so it is a welcome measure to many young Australians. I will support this bill, but I also acknowledge that this bill is far from the best version of the bill it could be.

There are a number of measures in this bill, and two of the three measures in this bill, namely the changing in the repayment threshold and introducing the marginal repayment system, have enormous merit.

Firstly, increasing the payment threshold from the current $54,435 to $67,000 will mean that graduates on lower incomes and lower salaries will take home more pay before having to contribute back to the cost of their education—which is a response to the fact that over time the repayment schedule for HECS has not kept pace with the cost of living, in particular affecting low-income households. Similarly, the Universities Accord identified that the current repayment schedule is unfair since the stepped increase resulted in some cases of people earning less take-home pay after receiving a pay rise. That just doesn't seem right. As Professor Andrew Norton argued, these measures in principle sound good—graduates will pay less on average every year—but there are some downsides, including in the marginal increase in the average repayment timeframe and an increase in the likelihood of some low-income graduates having their HECS index faster than their ability to repay. So these are good measures but they're not perfect.

However, there are a couple of issues with the bill. One is how we are giving one-off HECS-HELP relief to students. I do support HELP relief for students, and that is because I believe that, in Australia, young people are struggling to achieve the same milestones as their parents. We have a birth rate of 1.5. That is the lowest it has ever been, and it is because young people are saying they can't actually afford to have children. We, as a country, will pay the price for that going forward. We are seeing this in our wealth outcomes. In the last 10 or so years, households over the age of 65 grew their wealth by around 50 per cent. Households under the age of 35 pretty much went nowhere. We see that in our tax system. If you take two households both on 100 grand, if one household is retired it is, on average, paying half the tax of a young working household.

We all know that it's when you are young and working, when you're trying to buy a house or raise kids—that's when you have the most pressure on your income, and that's when our tax system goes for you the most. So this is why I support the measure in this bill that cuts student debt, because I believe that we do need to find broad ways to try and support young people in what is a really difficult moment for them right now.

But I do have some questions in terms of how the government designed this part of the bill, and I wish they had, frankly, approached it a different way. The government decided to offer HELP relief to students by slashing 20 per cent of their account balance as at 1 June 2025. And, look, that's going to help a whole bunch of people—many, many people in my electorate—and I'm extremely pleased about that.

However, this policy is extremely dependent on timing, and it is, as economists call it, 'horizontally inequitable'. As e61 estimate in their recent research, a graduate who finished the same degree four years ago—and, by all accounts, can be expected to face the same financial pressures and burdens as someone who graduated today—will experience just half the benefit of this policy, relative to someone who graduated last year. So, within four years, one person gets twice the benefit of somebody else because of the way that this bill has been designed.

That just seems a shame. Frankly, just because you graduated four years ago doesn't mean you are less worthy of a reduction in your HECS balance, and it doesn't mean that you're less pressured in terms of your finances; it's just the timing. If, right now, you're at maximum HECS debt, you're going to get the full benefit of this bill. If you have paid it off over time, you're just not. I don't think that's a particularly fair way of approaching it. And, frankly, a young person going into uni right now or starting next year is not going to get any benefit from this bill at all. This is part of the challenge here.

I believe that good policy requires people in the same situation to, ideally, get equal treatment. I recognise that many people in this House, for instance, had free university, which is a luxury that many won't have. I think it's of concern that this bill is so sensitive to the timing of when somebody completed their university degree. Other options were presented by e61. They recommended that the government pay each student with a debt a flat amount equal to 20 per cent of the average HECS debt. This simple change would have provided $5,500 to all students with a HELP debt, regardless of their year of graduation. The policy would have cost the same, yet it would have mitigated this horizontal inequity based on when a person happens to graduate from university. It would also have given, possibly, the government a longer grace period before pressure mounts for other people to get future cuts to their HECS debt—which is probably going to happen after this one-off debt relief. That is a problem for a future government.

I've talked a lot about HELP debt, about what it is and about why this is an important bill, and I recognise that it is important. But I also recognise that there are many other issues with the current HELP system which are problematic and have not been addressed by this bill. I'll put one out there that the member for Kooyong raised in her second reading amendment, and that is the job-ready graduates scheme. This is a policy that keeps on coming up when I go around my community and ask them what they think about HELP debts and education. This policy, which was implemented by a previous coalition government, increased particularly the cost of arts degrees to around $55,000. They were trying to disincentivise people from going into the arts and encourage more into STEM. It did not work or achieve its policy objective, but it burdened arts graduates with an education debt that outstripped, frankly, the costs of the university and penalised a group of people who actually have relatively low lifetime earnings. So it wasn't fair either, and it's a shame that the government hasn't dealt with this problem, because it is a significant problem with the HECS-HELP system, and it is urgent that it be addressed.

Another opportunity that has not been dealt with in this bill and was recommended by the Universities Accord was to change the timing of indexation from 1 July until compulsory repayments made during the previous year were deducted from a student's balance. This would help students pay down their loans quicker.

In summary, I will support this measure because I believe it is providing relief to a part of the community that really needs it. But I do believe that the government could have done a much better job in terms of designing some aspects of this bill, and this bill still has a significant way to go in addressing some of the problems in our university sector.