Doorstop - Parliament House

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Last night was a really big night in the Australian Parliament. Last night we delivered the education trifecta: a 15 per cent pay rise for early educators and teachers, extra funding for our public schools, and we wiped $3 billion of student debt for more than 3 million Australians. 

That 15 per cent pay rise will start to roll out from this weekend. That extra funding for public schools will start to roll out from January of next year. And that $3 billion that we’re going to wipe from the student debt of 3 million Aussies will start to be done by the Australian Tax Office over the next few weeks. 

This is all about building a better and a fairer education system and helping millions and millions of Aussies with the cost of living. You know, what our early educators do, it’s not babysitting; it’s early education. It’s not about changing nappies, it’s about changing lives. It really is. Ask any mum and dad who have a child in early education, and they’ll tell you that. And this will help to change their lives – an extra a hundred bucks in your purse or your wallet or your pocket from next week will help encourage more early educators to stay doing the job they love and hopefully help encourage more early educators come back to the job that they love. 

Here's an early good sign: Goodstart, the biggest childcare provider in the country, have told us that in the week after they signed up to this agreement, they’ve seen an 8 per cent increase in the number of job applications. That’s what I call a good start. 

And the extra funding for public schools will change lives too. The thing that keeps me up at night in this job is the fact that over the last decade we’ve seen a 10 per cent drop in the number of young people at public schools finishing high school, from 83 per cent to 73 per cent. This funding, tied to real and practical reforms, is about turning that around, helping to make sure that more young people who fall behind at school catch up and keep up and finish high school and then get a crack at going to TAFE or to university. 

Archie’s stealing the show. It’s always the way. 

And wiping $3 billion of HECS debt will change lives too. The truth is that university is a lot more expensive today than it was when I was at university, when a lot of us were at university. Wiping $3 billion of HECS debt will fix that spike in inflation that happened last year, that spike in indexation because of the spike in inflation. And it will make sure that that never happens again. And that’s just the start. If we win the next election, we’ll wipe a further 20 per cent off everyone’s student debt. And that will make a world of difference for a lot of young people just out of uni, just out of TAFE, just out of home, just getting started. It’s all about building a better and a fairer education system, helping Australians with the cost of living, and making sure that we’re setting this country up for the next generation of Australians, young Australians, like this little champion right here. 

Anne, over to you. 

ANNE ALY, MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: Thanks, Jason. You know, one of the first things that we did when we came into office was to make good on our promise of making early childhood education and care more affordable for families in Australia. The corrected ABS figures show us that what we originally thought was a decrease in out-of-pocket expenses is actually bigger than that – that out¬-of-pocket expenses for families are down by 17.2 per cent. And they’re lower now than they were when the childcare subsidy was first introduced in 2018. That’s a good thing. That’s a good start on our way to making early childhood education and care work for every child, for every family and for every community. 

But we also need a really strong and stable workforce in order to be able to do that. And this historic 15 per cent pay rise means that early childhood educators will get another hundred bucks in their pockets in time for Christmas and then 150 next year. It means that they’ll stay in the job that they love, and it means that they’ll go to the job and get more into the job that they love. 

Since we started in office there are 30,000 more early childhood educators and workers in the system. That’s because we set out to grow that workforce. That’s because we have things like fee free TAFE. It’s because we have professional development and prac funding. And it’s because of this 15 per cent wage increase that recognises early childhood education and early childhood workers as an essential service, a service that allows mums and dads to go to work, a service that allows mums and dads to go back to study if they want to, that allows household incomes to grow to meet the growing demands that are on household incomes. 

That’s how you deliver cost of living pressure – that’s how you deliver relief to the cost of living pressures that Australians are facing. You make early childhood education and care cheaper – 17.2 per cent cheaper than it was when it first came out in 2018, when we first had the childcare subsidy. You increase the wages of early childhood educators so they stay in the job. And along with these increases in wages, our tax breaks means that they keep even more of their money. And you make sure that every child, every little one, every family that needs it, can have access to early childhood education and care so that they can work, so that they can study, so that they can contribute to the household income. 

Back to you, Jas. Any questions? 

JOURNALIST: Minister, can I ask, on the university HECS repayment changes, what do you make of the argument that by delaying when people start repaying back their HECS loans you’re costing them more money because that loan is indexed for longer before they start paying it back? 

CLARE: A couple of things: one, I invite you to talk to Professor Bruce Chapman, the architect of HECS, the person who recommended to the University Accord team that we make this change. Fundamentally, that’s about making sure that you start paying back your HECS debt when university starts to pay off for you. If you’re straight out of uni and by the time you’re earning 54 grand and you’ve got to pay back – well, you’ve got to pay not just the rent and your tax but you’ve got to pay this bill too, it can make it really tough for a lot of young people. So, Bruce recommended to the Accord team and the Accord team recommended to us that we should change that, and change the amount that you repay every year so there’s a little bit more money in your pocket rather than the government’s. 

Now, the other thing I’d add to that is to make the point that it’s a minimum. Nothing stops people from contributing more if they want to. And this is one of two policies we’re taking to the election. The other one is reducing your total debt by 20 per cent. So, when you put those two things combined, it’s going to take a lot of pressure off a lot of young Australians. 

JOURNALIST: Mr Clare, do you have a reaction to the ceasefire news out of news out of the US and the Middle East right now? 

CLARE: If this comes to fruition, that’s a good thing. The Government has been calling for a ceasefire right across the Middle East for now more than 12 months. We want to see an end to the killing, and we want to see an end to the suffering in the Middle East. I think all people would want to see an end to the devastation and the catastrophic events that we’re seeing in the Middle East. 

JOURNALIST: With the HECS, when you say they’re saving us $3 billion, it’s a huge number. But for someone’s that’s got a HECS bill of $30,000 and they’re going to save $1,345, it doesn’t seem a lot. What do say to those students that don’t think they’re getting a lot out of this? 

CLARE: If you’ve got an average HECS debt today, it’s about 27 grand. The legislation that passed through the Parliament last night means that that will drop over the next few weeks by about 1,200 bucks. And what I’d say to that person as well is if we win the next election that will drop by a further $5,500. Combined, it’s almost $7,000 off a student debt of about 27 grand. That will make a real difference. 

JOURNALIST: I don’t think the Financial Review are here, but I’ll ask one on their behalf, because they have a front page story today about the sheer scale of the debt that then gets put on the budget books because of decisions like this. What’s your response to the criticisms of your policy that says, “Look, this might be great for students now, but it’s just putting more debt on to the Commonwealth budget over the years”? 

CLARE: I’d give you the same answer that I think Katy gave the Financial Review, is that that will all be set out in MYEFO before the end of the year. 

JOURNALIST: Just on the social media bill, it’s expected to pass the house today. This is pretty monumental change given that it’s world-first legislation. So given that, why has the whole process been rushed – a 24-hour time period for people to cast their eye over a world-first legislation, a three hour Senate hearing just going for one day. There’s a lot of critics that are saying that this is being raced through parliament. Why is this monumental process just being rushed through? 

CLARE: I might invite Anne to add to this as well, as the Minister for Youth. But, I’ve got to tell you – Dave and I are about the same age, there’s a lot of other younger people here at this press conference – when I was a kid the biggest thing that my mum and dad were worried about was drugs and grog. Now if you ask parents, it’s this – it’s social media. It’s toxic. It’s affecting the health of young people.

When I talk to kids at high school this is what they raise, their mental health and the impact that social media has on them. I don’t think this is controversial. I think most parents want us to crack on and do this. The Opposition have said they want to pass the legislation this week as well. And I hope that that supports sticks. We want to work together with the Opposition, bring this above politics. So, I hope that the Opposition Leader can bring his party behind this. There’ll be 12 months to implement it. It won’t be perfect. It won’t be everybody that will comply. That’s just a fact, but, you know, as the PM said when he announced this, there are people who are under the age of 18 who get access to grog; that doesn’t mean that we don’t set a minimum age. It’s the same here as well. 

And the fact is that if you’re a parent and you’ve got kids who say, “Look, I want to go on to Instagram,” or, “my mate’s got TikTok,” if there’s a minimum age, it makes life easier. You can say, “Well, Freddy’s not on it either; you can’t have access to it.” And it helps young people as well because they don’t feel forced to be on the same social media platform if none of their mates are either. That’s why we’re doing this, and we’ve got a real-life example about the difference this can make right now. 

This year we banned mobile phones in schools. And I’ve got to tell you, Education Ministers across the country had their minds blown about the impact that it made. We didn’t expect the impact to be as good as it was. It’s more focused in the classroom, kids having more fun in the playground, kids talking to each other, playing in the playground rather than with their heads down looking at their phone. But at the end of the school day, kids get their phone back. If you drive past a bus stop after 3 o’clock today, you’ll see kids with phones in their hands doom scrolling, like some of the adults at this press conference. It’s still happening. And if we want to make a difference, this is the sort of legislation that can help us to do that. Parents are calling on us to act. We’ve got a chance to do that this week. 

ALY: Okay, thanks. I just want to pick up on this argument that it’s rushed. Social media has been around for a very long time and too many young people have been harmed by social media. Too many young people have taken their own lives because of the toxicity that exists on social media. To say that this is rushed ignores the fact that all of these young people who have been harmed, who have taken their own lives, the pain and the tragedy of the families of those children, those young people who have been harmed by social media completely ignores and disrespects that. 

The Office for Youth undertakes consultations with young people. We’ve spoken to young people about social media, about the harms that social media does. And, yes, there are some good things with social media. There are some advantages of social media. But they are outweighed – they are outweighed – by the harm and the damage that it can cause for young women in body image issues and things like anorexia and bulimia, for young men around body image issues as well as the misogynistic nature of some of the content that’s out there. I went to one of my local schools and I had a principal and a counsellor in tears because the 13-year-olds were watching pornography on their screens, begging me to do something about it – begging me to do something about it. This is not rushed. This is a problem and an issue that has been around for a long time, and it is about time that governments took action. 

JOURNALIST: Minister, you’ve both very eloquently made the case for the social media ban. But this legislation doesn’t kick in for another 12 months. Why not do what Matt Canavan among a number of people is suggesting and send this off for a longer inquiry, given it is world-leading legislation, to make sure that the details of the policy are gotten right? 

CLARE: Do you want me to jump in? Look, all of that implementation work can happen over the next 12 months. It doesn’t stop that. But you’ve got both major political parties agreeing that we need to act, that we should give certainty to Australian parents that this is going to happen. We can pass this legislation this week, embed it into law and work on all of those details over the next 12 months. Part of that is the age assurance trial. So, I don’t see why you can’t get both things done. 

Can I just make one final point there about the story that’s on the front page of the Tele today – and that is, we know Australians are doing it tough. A lot of Australians are doing it real tough, and that’s why we’ve been laser focused this year on the cost of living and helping Australians doing it tough. That’s why the biggest and most important thing that we’ve done this year is make sure that every Australian taxpayer gets a tax cut – all 13 odd-million of them, not just some Australians. That’s why we’re introducing legislation into the Parliament today to crack down on some of the dodgy behaviour by the big supermarkets. And it strikes me as bizarre that we’ve just heard the Opposition on TV this morning defending Coles and Woollies. At the start of the year, they were telling people to boycott Woollies if they didn’t sell flags. Now they’re defending the big supermarket chains. 

When we came to government just over two years ago, we were left with a mess by the Liberal Party. Inflation was sky rocketing. Now it’s coming down. Inflation is less than half of what it was two and a half years ago. We’ve created more than a million new jobs, more than any government in a parliamentary term. And we’ve got wages growing again. That’s progress. That’s a start. But we know there’s more to do. 

We know Australians are doing it tough. But just think about what things would have been like over the last two years if Peter Dutton and the Liberals had been in power. There would have been no tax cuts for all Australians. There would have been no cheaper medicines. There would have been no cheaper childcare. There would have been no help with your electricity bills. The fact is, if Peter Dutton had been the Prime Minister for the last two years none of this would have happened. Australians would have got nottin’ under Peter Dutton. Thanks very much.