Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to address that, because the problems in this sector occurred under policies that were put in place under the watch of the previous government. And, quite frankly, as I said yesterday, the substantial and unprecedented growth that I have not seen in another government program has partly come about, along with some of the problems, because of my early view that there is a flawed legislative framework for this program. I have made this and will make this my highest priority, because this is an important sector to Australia and, in fact, some of the problems in the VET FEE-HELP system are, in my view, unfairly impacting on the reputation of the much larger vocational education sector.

Senator Carr, it is disingenuous in the extreme, given legislation put in place by your previous government, for you to assert that the problems that have arisen as a result of that are in any way attributable to this government, which under numerous ministers has actually taken substantial measures to address the flaws you left in place.