: Well, the Prime Minister has announced – it’s quite extraordinary – to establish Fee-Free TAFE as an enduring feature of our education and training system. And from July 1 next year, the Government will reduce the amount Australians with student debt have to repay per year and raise the threshold at which they have to start repaying. This is big news for students with a HECS debt. Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Good to be with you.
KELLER: Nice to be with you. My son, for example, he’s doing a post grad. It’s called a Masters of Physiotherapy, and he at the moment is paying, well – by the time he’s finished a two-year course, he’s had to pay $92,000 in HECS. Your new scheme will save him, I think, $16,000 over the course of that. But that’s a lot of money for students to be paying, isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER: It sure is, and that’s why we need this reform. What it will do is make sure that people’s debt for a start, gets decreased by 20 per cent. That will assist more than 3 million Australians. So, the average debt is $27,600. That will see them get $5,500 wiped from their debt. But secondly, by making the thresholds fairer as well, it will also mean that people are paying less back. So, a person, if you’re on $70,000 you’ll pay around about $1,300 less per year in repayments. So, that is, these two measures combined are about intergenerational inequity and getting rid of it. Making a difference for people in their cost of living, but also encouraging people to go to university. We need, something like 80 per cent of kids who are currently in primary school, will need either a university degree or a TAFE qualification for their employment, just to start. And we need to recognise that it helps people like your son and others who are doing university or TAFE, but it also helps the country. We need to be a smart country, we need people with these qualifications. And that’s why these two university measures, as well as making free TAFE in areas of skill shortage permanent, with 100,000 free courses every year, aimed at making a big difference to people, but also making a big difference to the country as well.
BRENDAN JONES, HOST: I didn’t realise this, that our students pay more in tax than the gas companies do for the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. Like, it seems extraordinary.
KELLER: It’s quite extraordinary.
JONES: And I just discovered this this morning. I went, whoa, look at that they’re paying. That’s a phenomenal amount of money that kids pay.
KELLER: Australia makes a lot of money from HECS, don’t they?
PRIME MINISTER: It sure is. I’ll tell you, another startling statistic is that for many people, when they graduate, if they graduate with a debt of $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000, for many of them, they’ll pay more in interest on that debt than they will on the debt that they graduate with. So, it will really be something hanging around for a long period of time. And that was never the intention. When HECS was introduced, it was called the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, and the previous Government lowered the amount in which you had to start paying it back, changed the name of it to HELP – the loan program. And it’s as if it’s a loan for a new car or something that contributes just to the individual. What’s been forgotten here is that people getting a qualification, be it at university or TAFE, are making a contribution to making us a smarter country as well. Which is why these practical measures will make an enormous difference to people’s budget, putting more dollars in the pockets of people who feel, justifiably, that they’re getting the rough end of the pineapple.
KELLER: Because you would have been like me, you would have got free education through the Gough Whitlam years.
JONES: But that Gough Whitlam thing, that turned out to be a financial disaster on one hand, but on the other hand, you got people like yourself and Amanda that came through the ranks under the benefit of free education.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, that’s right. And I was the first person in my family to finish school, let alone go to university. And one of the things that the Whitlam reforms did was that they made it seem as if going to university was within reach of people. And so many members of my Cabinet are the first members of their family who went to university. And that’s a good thing, the thing about education –
JONES: But do you think, though, that the pendulum has gone the other way? There’s too many kids going to uni, doing things like vase paint, vase painting and stuff like that, when they should be doing a trade. Has the pendulum swung the wrong way?
PRIME MINISTER: No, not at all. And by and large, whilst there is the odd example of that, overwhelmingly people go to university to get an education and a qualification that will serve them, not just in their work life, but in their broader life as well. Learning how to think and work things through is important in itself. But we’ve prioritised Fee-Free TAFE. When we introduced it, it was called by the Opposition a waste. Well, over 500,000 Australians – not just young Australians, but also people retraining for new jobs as the economy has changed – have enrolled in Fee-Free TAFE. They’re doing carpentry and electrical and information technology and robotics, as well as the care sector, childcare, aged care, disability care. In all of these areas of skill shortage are prioritised and that’s a good thing. We need to lift up the number of tradespeople and that’s far better than importing people with skills. We need to train Australians up for those jobs and recognise that a university degree is important, but equally important are those TAFE qualifications, are those trades.
JONES: Well, Prime Minister, it’s nice to have you on the show and not talk about Qantas perks and things like that.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think this is what people are interested in. They’re interested in how we’ll make a difference for them. And these measures that we announced on the weekend will certainly do that. Education is the key to widening those doors of opportunity. And you know, when I was a kid, my mum made sacrifices to make sure that I would continue through school and have the opportunity to go to university. And so many families out there, that’s what they want. They want a better opportunity and a better life for their kids and their grandkids. And the government needs to help them with that rather than be a barrier with this lifetime of debt. And that’s what these measures are about, making a practical difference to your listeners and to their families.
JONES: Good on you.
KELLER: Thank you, Prime Minister, nice to talk to you.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much.
