Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Education. At least 16 members of the government, including the Prime Minister, went to uni while it was free, but your latest cruel, hypocritical plan will hurt students by hiking fees and cuts up to $900 million from teaching funding, including from STEM and nursing. The experts agree it's an unfixable mess. It won't create enough new places. It punishes struggling students. Your own department admitted it won't change student choices and it incentivises unis to enrol students in high-fee courses instead of STEM. The whole thing relies on useless job market predictions and bad data to punish students without saving uni jobs or fixing the research crisis. Youth wage growth is the flattest in history and unemployment is skyrocketing. Minister, how can you justify condemning students to decades of debt?