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

I rise to speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill. The Greens support this bill, which extends the FEE-HELP loan fee exemption to 31 December 2022. It extends FEE-HELP to students who participate in microcredential pilot courses, clarifies that enabling courses will not count towards a student's lifetime limit of Commonwealth support, provides that New Zealand citizens are eligible for HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP if they are resident in Australia for the duration of the unit and makes other minor amendments to the Higher Education Support Act. Importantly, the bill also removes the 10 per cent HECS-HELP discount for students who pay their student fees upfront.

Let me be clear about our position on student fees: they should not exist. Education is a basic right; it is not a privilege. From early childhood through to school, TAFE and university, education should be fee-free, no matter who you are or what stage of life you are in. People who have gone through higher education are struggling under thousands and thousands of dollars of debt, and students have to keep signing up for more debt as they go through uni. For so many of them, the Liberals' disastrous job-ready graduates bill only burdened them with more and more student debt. As I stated during the debate on the job-ready graduates bill, when the 10 per cent discount was brought back by the coalition with the help of One Nation, this measure is actually unfair. It only benefits the wealthy who can afford to pay their fees upfront. A vast majority of people cannot, and it provides nothing for the many students who simply cannot afford to make upfront payments on their student fees and are forced to accumulate a higher and higher debt. This is why education has to be universal and free. That's fair, that's consistent and that's equitable for all. So we commend the government for scrapping the discount. Removing the 10 per cent discount is supported by the National Union of Students as well as the National Tertiary Education Union.

But there is so much more that the government needs to do in higher education. Higher education is a right, higher education institutions are a public good, higher education must be built on the principles of democracy and equity, and we have moved a fair way away from that in this country.

Every fee hike and funding cut in the Job-ready Graduates Package needs to be scrapped, and they need to be scrapped urgently. Labor's excuse that further changes will only happen after the accord process is not good enough.

There is no need for further evidence when it comes to the Job-ready Graduates Package. Labor committee members themselves said, in their report on the inquiry into the bill, that the Job-ready Graduates Package attacked 'the core research purpose of universities'; that it would 'result in inequitable levels of student debt, especially for women'; that it would 'have a significantly worse impact on women and First Nations people'; that it would undermine the quality of university teaching; and that it was so deeply flawed it could not be repaired with amendments.

You are in government now. Scrap it!

Students, academics, staff and universities are being harmed by the funding cuts and fee hikes of the job-ready graduates bill—and that's happening right now, under the government's watch, and will continue, unless the government takes the necessary first step to make higher education in this country fairer and gets rid of the Liberals' fee hikes and funding cuts. And I urge them to have the courage to do this—not after the accord, but right now.