Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

but I understand that I didn't quite get the call. To respond to Senator Henderson, HECS indexation going forward will, of course, reflect the low inflation that we have and a CPI with a two in front of it. I can confirm that. And I appreciate the feedback on question time; it's always good to get feedback from the opposition on question time. But this is a bill that is about doing what we said we were going to do and cutting student debt.

I'll go to some of Senator Pocock's comments now. Senator Pocock, I think you acknowledged in your statement that this is a significant piece of reform and that you'd also like to see it go further. Again, the bill that we have in front of us today reduces student debts that existed on 1 June 2025 by 20 per cent. It also raises the minimum repayment threshold to allow students to start earning a reasonable wage before they have to start repaying their student debt, which is a really important reform. And, of course, we are introducing a marginal repayment system, which means that repayments are calculated on the proportion of income above the threshold of $67,000. These are really important reforms. We said we were going to reduce student debt by 20 per cent—$16 billion for three million Australians. We took it to the election, Australians supported it, and we look forward to having the support of the parliament and the chamber.

In relation to the measure that you're talking about, in terms of further changes to indexation and the dates on which indexation occurs, there were a number of recommendations which were made under the universities accord—a large piece of reform, a big agenda, the biggest review done on the higher education system in 15 years. A range of recommendations were made in that accord. The bill that we have in front of us today, of course, goes to implementing some of the recommendations of the universities accord. We have implemented, either fully or in part, 31 of the 47 recommendations. Further recommendations, like the one that you have spoken about, are being worked through by the new Australian Tertiary Education Commission, which commenced in an interim capacity on 1 July. That's being led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC, the interim chief commissioner. We look forward to coming back to the parliament with more legislation about that. We're really proud of the work that the universities accord did and of the program of work that it gave us. We are continuing to work through those recommendations. What we have in front of us today is a bill which does what it says it is going to do, what it says on the label, which is reduce student debt by 20 per cent.