STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (13:33): Last week, most semester 2 university census states passed. Those dates marked the last day that a student could withdraw from a unit of study without financial penalty, without taking on more HECS debt. That meant that, last week, hundreds of thousands of university students officially took on billions of dollars in HECS debt.

Full-time students in law, accounting, business, finance, economics, politics or the arts, as of last week, you are locked in to nearly $9,000 in debt for this semester alone. This is because, in 2021, the Morrison government's Job-ready Graduates Package massively increased the cost of degrees. A typical three-year degree under the Albanese government now costs over $54,000.

When Australia's HECS system was established, it was based on a principle that government should share the cost of higher education. Back then, students paid about 20 per cent of the cost of their degree. Now, it's close to 95 per cent.

Scott Morrison and Dan Tehan shifted the cost of higher education onto the students of Australia, but Anthony Albanese and Jason Clare have kept it there. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): I remind the member for Kooyong to use correct titles. Dr RYAN: We need to fix HECS, and we need to fix the Job-ready Graduates mess.