Deputy Greens Leader and spokesperson for Higher Education, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has responded to Labor’s bill that was introduced today claiming to wipe $3 billion of student debt.
The bill is nothing more than a mirage to give the impression that the Labor government is wiping student debt, when in fact it will have little impact. Around 3 million Australians have over $74 billion in student debt, so shaving off $3 billion in indexation just scratches the surface.
Equally, the inclusion in the bill of a Commonwealth payment for students undertaking placements in nursing, teaching and social work is wholly inadequate and excludes hundreds of thousands of other students required to do unpaid placement work.
As stated by Senator Mehreen…
