Anthony Albanese says HECS should not mean a ‘lifelong burden of debt’ for Australian students

The Prime Minister has said the HECS program should never have saddled Australian students with a “lifelong burden of debt”.

The Prime Minister said his pledge to ease student debt is an attempt to encourage more people to pursue higher education, saying the current arrangement leaves people crippled by debt.

“The HECS program was never intended to be a lifetime debt burden. It was intended as a contribution to education,” Albanese told ABC Radio National today.

“We’re restoring equity there so that people start paying back when they make $67,000 instead of $54,000.

“Subtracting 20 percent of people’s debts that they owe will make a difference in the cost of living, so that if you have $70,000, you will pay about $1,300 less per year in repayments.”

Albanese said it was unfair that previous generations, like himself, received free college.

Students who complete a three-year course of study at university now have debts of between $20,000 and $30,000.

“I’ll tell you what fails the honesty test: the fact that I got a free education, and for a lot of people who have this debt hanging over them, for a lot of people the interest they’re paying on that debt is more than the original HECS payment,” he added.

Albanese also said on WSFM that he believed students are now getting the “tough end of the pineapple” with the HECS program as it currently stands.

However, the Coalition has rejected Labour’s plan to abolish student debt, claiming it is unfair to people who don’t have student loans.

Opposition Leader Paul Fletcher said taxpayers should not be footing the bill to ease the financial burden of a minority.

“The coalition believes this is a deeply unfair policy,” Fletcher told Radio National today.

“People who have the benefit of a tertiary education will have a much higher income than the average across the community and it is therefore appropriate that they bear some of the cost of their education.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud also told ABC that the government would ‘struggle’ to meet the cash flow from paying off student debt.

He said the focus would be better served on issues such as inflation and energy.

“I just don’t see how we can pick winners on this scale of money and how we can support a mechanism like this,” Littleproud said.

“In the context of this cost of living crisis, there are more pressing issues to get your energy bills down, and we can do that quickly with more gas and long-term energy policies.”