The Australian Greens have challenged the Labor government over its election pledge to forgive an estimated A$16 billion (£8.2 billion) of student debt, saying the measure should be legislated immediately.
The cross-bench party plans to force a vote on fast-tracking the 20 per cent reduction to graduates’ accumulated debt, which prime minister Anthony Albanese has flagged as the first piece of legislation he will introduce if he wins next year’s federal election.
Greens senator Nick McKim, a former education minister in the Tasmanian state government, said his party would table an amendment embedding the debt reduction measure in a bill to implement recommendations of the Australian Universities Accord.
The bill, which was introduced into the Senate on 18 November, is among several pieces of higher education legislation that the government hopes to pass this month. It would retrospectively change the indexation formula for student debt, saving graduates an estimated A$3 billion.
Mr McKim said the Greens would “give Labor a chance to vote for their own policy” by amending the bill to slash 20 per cent off graduate debt in July next year.
“People are hurting,” he told Labor senators. “People need relief now, and they don’t need that relief to be contingent on an election result. Are you going to vote against your own policy?”
The Universities Accord bill also provides a legislative underpinning for paid practicums and fee-free enabling places. It requires universities and colleges to allocate at least 40 per cent of revenue from a compulsory student services fee to student-led organisations, and it paves the way for the planned Adelaide University – which is being formed from the merger of the universities of Adelaide and South Australia – to receive federal funding.
The Greens have signalled support for the bill, while describing it as “tepid”. Its proposals “fall woefully short of the changes…required to address the scale of the crisis in higher education”, Greens education spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi told the Senate. “Shaving some indexation off the top of student debt is just tinkering around the edges.”
Dr Faruqi said she would also amend the bill to include the government’s promise to increase the student loan repayment threshold and switch to a marginal repayment system. “Let’s do it. Let’s do this today,” she told parliament.
The opposition has also signalled support for the bill, despite some reservations. But shadow education minister Sarah Henderson described the 20 per cent debt reduction proposal as “an election bribe” that would disproportionately benefit high income earners. “It’s a tax cut targeted to the big end of town, with money going from the less well off to the better off,” she told parliament.
Labor senator Tony Sheldon, who chairs the Senate’s Education and Employment Committee, said the bill contained “the most significant changes and improvements” to Australian tertiary education in “many a decade”.
The Greens have unveiled an A$81 billion election policy to wipe all student debt and eliminate fees for universities and public training colleges, making up the shortfall by “taxing big corporations”.
