While welcoming the introduction today of legislation from the Albanese Government to wipe 20% of student debt, ACT Senator David Pocock standing alongside independent parliamentary colleagues, students, educators and their representative bodies is calling for harder reform in higher education.
Senator Pocock is calling on the government to urgently:
- reform the timing of student debt indexation so students aren’t paying interest on money they’ve already repaid - a move the PBO says could save people with HECS-HELP loans some $704 million over 4 years
-
reform student tertiary fee structures especially the failed Job Ready Graduates scheme which the PBO found has jacked up student debt by $10.26 billion
- expand and increase the rate of paid placements to fully bring an end to placement poverty
Senator Pocock said placement poverty was exacerbating workforce shortages in key professions like psychology and radiography, creating a shortage of services and driving up the out of pocket costs for things like medical imaging.
“Now in its second term, Labor needs to stop going for the quick headline and start going for the hard reform,” Senator Pocock said.
“Wiping 20% of student debt is welcome but it treats the symptom not the cause and won’t help people who are studying today and racking up eye watering levels of student debt.
“The introduction of a means-tested $331.65 per week payment for four professions is similarly welcome but won’t end placement poverty.
“Psycholgy students need to do 1000 hours of prac placement to qualify, while radiography students can be required to undertake 250 days of unpaid placements. It makes no sense to exclude them from the paid prac regime.
“A new report released today by the Australian Council of Deans of Health Sciences powerfully makes the case for including allied health professions in paid prac placements and increasing the rate.
“There is a real cost to not investing in things like paid placements and people in Canberra are paying that more than most with the highest out of pocket costs for scans in the country.
“We’ve already had a year-long review that culminated in the Universities Accord and their final report was clear on these issues. JRG failed and must be urgently reformed. The timing of indexation of HECS needs to be fixed, and paid prac needs to be expanded, let’s get on with it.”