Senator Bob Day proposes amendment to higher education bill as government tries to push ahead with deregulation of fees

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The Abbott government is considering accepting a crossbench amendment to its higher education plans as it tries to clear several “barnacles” before parliament rises at the end of next week.



University graduates would be spared from increases to loan interest rates but the government would push ahead with the deregulation of fees in a compromise proposed by the Family First senator, Bob Day.

The government wants to pass its higher education bill during the year’s final Senate sitting fortnight but has struggled to win adequate crossbench support.

It is one of numerous difficulties the government faces as it approaches the end of the year, including the continuing fallout over contentious measures outlined in the May budget and accusations of broken promises over last week’s cuts to the ABC and the SBS.

The government narrowly lost a vote in the Senate on Tuesday over a bill to abolish the Australian National Preventive Health Agency, when the newly independent senator Jacqui Lambie joined her former Palmer United party colleagues Glenn Lazarus and Dio Wang in siding with Labor, the Greens and independent senator Nick Xenophon to defeat the legislation by one vote.

Tony Abbott told colleagues at a Coalition party room meeting on Tuesday that it had been “a difficult and at times tumultuous year” but the tumult had “all been external to the government”.

“There are one or two barnacles still on the ship but by Christmas they will have been dealt with,” the prime minister said.

Day has given notice of an amendment that would delete part of the university bill relating to Higher Education Loan Program (Help) interest rates. Such loans are now measured against the consumer price index, meaning they retain their value in real terms, but the government proposed shifting to the long-term bond rate capped at 6% in a move that would raise more than $3bn over four years.

Critics including a Coalition-dominated Senate committee raised concerns the compound interest would have a disproportionate impact on women and low-paid income earners.

Day said he hoped the government would “see sense” and drop the interest rate proposal, which had been “universally rejected” and would also apply to pre-existing loans.

“It was basically a revenue-raising initiative and applied retrospectively – and that’s not on,” Day said, while praising other parts of the bill.

“I support changes to the higher education sector to facilitate low-cost, no-frills higher education for low-to-middle-income families.”

A spokesman for the education minister, Christopher Pyne, said: “The government is continuing to negotiate and will consider all amendments moved by the crossbenchers.”

For months, Pyne has indicated he would be prepared to consider changes to the interest rate proposal in an attempt to win over the Senate to the rest of the package.

But Labor and the Greens urged crossbench senators to hold firm in opposing the bill, even if the interest rate changes were ultimately removed.

The government needs support from six out of eight crossbench senators.

Lambie is firmly in the “no” column and the PUP leader, Clive Palmer, said his remaining two senators would oppose the bill. Xenophon and fellow independent John Madigan have expressed concerns but are open to talks with the government, while the Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm is broadly supportive.

Labor’s higher education spokesman, Kim Carr, said the bill was “fundamentally unfair and should be rejected, rather than amended”.

The Greens senator Lee Rhiannon said the core element of the bill – deregulation of fees – would “lead to an elitist, inequitable university system and must be defeated in the Senate”.

“Mr Pyne is throwing the most toxic elements of his proposed plan to gut public higher education in Australia overboard in an effort to keep SS Deregulation steaming towards Australian students,” Rhiannon said.

The peak body representing universities, Universities Australia, began an advertising campaign and published an open letter on Monday urging crossbench senators to pass the government’s higher education bill with amendments.

Universities Australia said per-student funding had declined in real terms and senators should support fee deregulation “to maintain the quality education students expect” – but the proposed 20% cut to public funding should be reduced, the changes to student loan interest rates should be abandoned, and universities should be granted an assistance package.

A joint campaign by the National Tertiary Education Union, the National Union of Students and progressive lobby group GetUp is seeking to increase pressure on senators to defeat the bill.