Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to put on the record how One Nation feels about this, and my feelings about this. I understand that, with the cost of living, people and families are doing it tough out there. The government has actually said, 'We gave taxation relief of $5 a week.' That was fantastic. Maybe they're not going to be paying $7 for their coffee now; they're going to be paying $2. But that's what it averages out as—one cup of coffee.

This is purely about buying the vote of the younger generation. That's all this is. What you've done here is say to them, 'We're going pay off your debt.' Forget about all the other Australians out there who are struggling and want to see benefit for their taxes. What we're going to see here—for the people in the gallery, and I think they need to understand this—is this government adding a $16 billion debt by wiping 20 per cent off the debt of students. We are already owed $81 billion in debt from HECS debts. This is another $16 billion. Yes, people are doing it tough out there, but the fact is that we cannot keep paying. People have to have skin in the game.

What I'm hearing and seeing is that too many people just say, 'I'm going to university.' They haven't got the grades. They shouldn't be at university and they're not academically minded, but we push them through a system, and the taxpayer is paying for it. This is only going to put more debt onto a lot of those people. On the PBO's modelling, if you have a graduate with a low income of 50 per cent of an average graduate income upon completion of their degree falling below the new minimum repayment threshold, it will take another approximately eight years to pay off their repayments. This will add approximately another $21,467 to their repayments. Do they know that? You're not helping a lot of people out there at all.

You're raising the threshold from nearly $54½ thousand up to $67,000 before they start paying back their debts. I bring your attention to the Family Law Act. Under that act you force a parent to pay back payments to the other parent at $27,000, but you're going to raise the minimum HECS repayment threshold to $67,000 before they even pay anything back. This is going to give relief to those people out there who have passed their degrees, PhDs, on really good incomes—about 55,000 people—a cut of about $25,000 a year. Why should someone who's a tradie—who, at 15 or 16, got in to become a tradesperson—now have their taxes go to someone who will, if they get their studies done, possibly end up getting a well-paid job? We're going to give them that relief.

I put it to the public that if you go to the bank because you want to get a loan, you say, 'This is what my income is, and this is what I can pay back,' and they stipulate what your repayments must be. If you go to the bank and say, 'Listen, mate, I want a 20 per cent reduction on my loan,' do you think you're going to get it? Do you honestly think that the taxpayer should be providing that? You knew the terms of the agreement when you signed up to this. It should not be going back to other people that owe money to the taxpayers. We have hospitals, education, infrastructure—failing systems. We are in one hell of a mess. People are homeless.

Bringing this in was a vote-buyer for the Labor Party. I've got no problem with helping those who need that helping hand, but vote-buyers are all the government ever does. They cheat the people and expect others to pay the cost for it. The people of Australia can't keep affording this time and time again. Under Labor, the cost of health has gone up 13 per cent; food, 14 per cent; rent, 18 per cent; and insurance, 36 per cent. I will be supporting Senator Henderson's amendment to this bill because I think it's going to be very good for this. One Nation will not be supporting this bill as a whole, because I think it's an absolute disgrace and a vote-buyer to get the young ones engaged. It's more handouts, and taxpayers can't afford it, so we will not support the bill as a whole.

Minister, what are you going to do in the future to rein in those people who still owe money? You're blowing it out. As I said, it's going to blow out by eight years. How are you going to address the fact that these people will have longer-term debt and another $21,000 on their debt? How do you intend to deal with that? Because that's what you're doing here. You're adding years to the debt and another $21,000 for those who don't reach that income. What are you going to do to address that?