❓ This WA parliamentary question concerns the negative impact of federal HECS increases on Western Australian students and the state's economy, particularly regarding skills shortages. The Premier criticises the federal government's policy as a deterrent to higher education.
AnsweredQoN 793Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
HIGHER EDUCATION CONTRIBUTION SCHEME FEES - IMPACT ON WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Can the Premier please advise the house of the effect on Western Australia of John Howard’s increases in higher education contribution scheme fees? Mr A.J. CARPENTER
Can the Premier please advise the house of the effect on Western Australia of John Howard’s increases in higher education contribution scheme fees? Mr A.J. CARPENTER
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the member for the question. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the member for the question. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
I thank the member for the question. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the member for the question. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
I thank the member for the question. Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr T. Buswell interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
The SPEAKER : Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time. Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : I used the word “nervous”; perhaps it is hysteria that has grabbed him. He is hysterical today. He should just relax; I am sure he is in the clear. I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
I thank the member for Southern River for his ongoing interest in education. He has been a great help to me as Premier and as the education minister on a lot of issues in that domain. The effect of John Howard’s HECS increases in Western Australia can be summed up in two words: unnecessarily negative. Why would a federal government put barriers in the way of people who want to advance their education and improve their skills? Why would it do that, particularly in Western Australia when there is a chronic shortage of appropriately skilled people to fuel our miraculous and magnificent economy, which is holding up much of the rest of Australia? Why would a federal government impede people’s progress in seeking to establish the skills that they and the economy need? Jenny Macklin pointed out today that the aggregated HECS debt of Western Australian students and former students now exceeds $1 billion. That is $1 billion worth of debt that settles on the shoulders of those people. Of course it acts as a deterrent to some people taking up higher education. There are two sorts of people who do not accept that notion: one is those who have forgotten what it was like when they were of university age and the problems caused by costs that confront university students. The other sort is the people who never knew; those for whom money is never a problem. They are lucky. That is no criticism of that position in life but, for some people, cost is a real deterrent to higher education. We have got to the point now, with significant HECS fees increases, at which people are being actively deterred from university. There is a shortage of engineers. I heard today that the HECS bill for engineering students has gone up by $16 000. We should be cutting the HECS fees in those areas to draw more people into those sorts of professions, rather than blocking their progress. I had this argument year in and year out with Brendan Nelson when he was the federal education minister. His response was that the government was trying to encourage people into technical education - TAFE. It is not an either-or game. We must do both; we can do both. We have proved that in Western Australia. We have proved that people can be encouraged into TAFE and technical education as well as to university. Some may do both. It is ridiculous for a federal government of a nation such as Australia to be impeding people in their aspiration to go to university. I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
I have some very interesting figures about the size of the HECS debt that hangs over the postcodes of Western Australia. The total debt of students and former students in the postcode area of Canning Vale-Willetton, which are not the wealthiest of suburbs in Western Australia, is $24 million; in the Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley area it is $22 million; in the Joondalup-Beldon-Connolly-Edgewater-Heathridge-Mullaloo-Ocean Ridge area it is $20 million; and in the Embleton-Morley-Noranda area it is $16.5 million. I could go on. These are big sums of money. Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr J.H.D. Day : Which federal government started HECS? Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
Mr A.J. CARPENTER : What did the Romans ever do for us? I am talking about the level of the fee that is charged now. It is prohibitive to some people, and that is ridiculous. We should have a federal government that is identifying ways of helping young people, particularly those who do not have the means, or whose families do not have the means, to go to university, not deterring them.
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