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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda gam Nation.

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Speaker 2: The Prime Minister has announced quite extraordinary to establish fee

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Speaker 2: free tape as an enduring feature of our education and

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Speaker 2: training system, and from the first of July next year,

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Speaker 2: the government will reduce the amount Australians with student debt

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Speaker 2: have to repay per year and raise the threshold at

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Speaker 2: which they have to start repaying. This is big news

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Speaker 2: for students with a hex step Prime Minister, good morning.

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Speaker 1: Good morning. Good to be with you, Nice to be

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Speaker 1: with you.

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Speaker 2: My son, for example, he's doing a postgrad it's called

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Speaker 2: a Master's of Physiotherapy and he at the moment is

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Speaker 2: paying well. By the time he's finished a two year course,

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Speaker 2: he's had to pay ninety two thousand dollars in HEX.

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Speaker 2: Your new scheme will save him I think sixteen thousand

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Speaker 2: over the course of that. But that's a lot of

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Speaker 2: money for students to be paying, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: It sure is, So that's why we need this reform.

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Speaker 1: What it will do is make sure that people debt

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Speaker 1: for a start gets decreased by twenty percent. That will

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Speaker 1: will sists more than three million Australians. So the average

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Speaker 1: debt is twenty seven six hundred dollars that will see

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Speaker 1: them get five and a half thousand dollars wiped from

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Speaker 1: their debt. But secondly, by making the thresholds fairer as well,

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Speaker 1: it will also mean that people are paying less back.

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Speaker 1: So a person, if you're on seventy thousand dollars, you'll

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Speaker 1: pay around about thirteen hundred dollars less per year in repayments.

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Speaker 1: So that is these two measures combined are about intergenerational

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Speaker 1: inequity and getting rid of it, making a difference for

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Speaker 1: people in their cost of living, but also encouraging people

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Speaker 1: to go to university. We need something like eighty percent

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Speaker 1: of kids who are currently in primary school will need

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Speaker 1: either a university degree or a tape qualification for their

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Speaker 1: employment just to start. And we need to recognize that

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Speaker 1: it helps people like your son and others who are

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Speaker 1: doing university or TAKEE, but it also helps the country

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Speaker 1: we need. We need to be a smart country. We

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Speaker 1: need people with these qualifications. And that's why these two

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Speaker 1: university measures, as well as making free tape in areas

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Speaker 1: of skills shortage permanent with one hundred thousand free courses

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Speaker 1: every year, aimed at making a big difference to people

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Speaker 1: but also making a big difference to the country as well.

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Speaker 3: I didn't realize this that our students pay more in

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Speaker 3: tax than the gas companies do for the petroleum resource

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Speaker 3: rent tax. Like it's quite extraordinary, extraordinary that I just

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Speaker 3: discovered this this morning. WHOA look at that, Like they're

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Speaker 3: paying that's that's a phenomenal amount of money.

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Speaker 1: See that the kids atrail.

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Speaker 2: It makes a lot of money from hex' don't they?

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Speaker 1: It sure is. I'll tell you. Another startling statistic is

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Speaker 1: that for many people when they graduate, if they graduate

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Speaker 1: with a dead of thirty or forty or fifty thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: for many of them, they'll pay more in interest on

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Speaker 1: that debt than they will on the debt that they

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Speaker 1: graduate with. So it will really be something hanging around

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Speaker 1: for a long period of time. And that was never

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Speaker 1: the intention. When X was introduced. It was called the

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Speaker 1: Higher Education Contribution Scheme, and the previous government lowered the

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Speaker 1: amount in which you had to start paying it back.

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Speaker 1: Change the name of it to help the loan program.

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Speaker 1: And it's as if it's a loan for a new

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Speaker 1: car or something that contributes just to the individual. What's

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Speaker 1: been forgotten here is that people getting a qualification bad

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Speaker 1: at university or taithe making a contribution to making us

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Speaker 1: a smarter country as well, which is why these practical

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Speaker 1: measures will make an enormous difference to people's budget, putting

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Speaker 1: more dollars in the pockets of people who feel justifiably

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Speaker 1: that they're getting the rough end of the pineapples.

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Speaker 3: You would have been like me, but that Goflet thing

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Speaker 3: that that turned out to be a financial disaster on

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Speaker 3: one hand, but on the other hand, you got people

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Speaker 3: like yourself and Amanda that came through the ranks under

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Speaker 3: the benefit of free education.

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Speaker 1: Oh, that's right. And I was the first person in

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Speaker 1: my family who finished school, let alone go to university.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that the Whitlam reforms did

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Speaker 1: was that they made it seem as if going to

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Speaker 1: university was within reach of people. And so many members

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Speaker 1: of my cabinet are the first members of their family

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Speaker 1: who went to university. And that's a good thing about education.

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Speaker 3: But do you think though, that the pendulum has gone

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Speaker 3: the other way? There's too many kids going to UNI

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Speaker 3: doing things like vase vase painting and stuff like that

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Speaker 3: when they should be doing a trade. Has the pendulum

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Speaker 3: swung the wrong way.

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Speaker 1: No, not at all, and by and large, whilst there

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Speaker 1: is the odd example of that, overwhelmingly people go to

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Speaker 1: university to get an education and a qualification that will

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Speaker 1: serve them not just in their work life, but in

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Speaker 1: their broader life as well. Learning how to think and

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Speaker 1: work things through is important in itself, but we've prioritized

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Speaker 1: fee free tape. When we introduced it, it was called by

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Speaker 1: the opposition a waste. Well over five hundred thousand Australians,

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Speaker 1: not just young Australians, but also people retraining for new

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Speaker 1: jobs as the economy has changed have enrolled in free

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Speaker 1: free tape. They're doing carpentry and electrical and information technology

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Speaker 1: and robotics, as well as the care sector, childcare, age care,

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Speaker 1: disability care in all of these areas of skills, shortage

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Speaker 1: of ties, and that's a good thing. We need to

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Speaker 1: lift up the number of trades people and that's far

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Speaker 1: better than importing people with skills. We need to train

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Speaker 1: Austrands up for those jobs and recognize that a university

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Speaker 1: degree is important, but equally important are those tape qualifications?

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Speaker 1: Are those trades.

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Speaker 3: Well, Prime Minister is nice to have you on the

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Speaker 3: show and not talking about quotas, perks and things like that.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think this is what people are interested in.

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Speaker 1: They're interested in how we'll make a difference for them,

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Speaker 1: and these measures that we announce on the weekend will

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Speaker 1: certainly do that. Education is the key to widening those

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Speaker 1: doors of opportunity. And you know, when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: my mom made sacrifices to make sure that I would

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Speaker 1: continue through school and have the opportunity to go to university.

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Speaker 1: And so many families out there, that's what they want.

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Speaker 1: They want a better opportunity and a better life for

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Speaker 1: their kids and their grandkids, and the government needs to

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Speaker 1: help them with that rather than be a barrier with

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Speaker 1: this lifetime of debt. And that's what these measures are about,

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Speaker 1: making a practical difference to your listeners and to their families.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Prime, and it's a nice to talk to you.

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Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Anthony Albanezi. Then