Interview - Today Show

KARL STEFANOVIC: A boost for 3 million Australians this morning with legislation passing in Parliament to wipe thousands from their HECS debt.

Joining us is Minister for Education Jason Clare, live from Canberra.

Jason, good morning to you, nice to see you this morning. Look, first of all, how are we going to pay for all of this? Some speculation that the 9 billion is going to be racked up on the credit card again, is that true?

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: It's 3 billion bucks off the debts of 3 million Australians. Karl, you might remember last year when inflation skyrocketed, so did everyone’s HECS debt, it went up by 7.1 per cent. And most young people with a HECS debt said, "That's not fair". We agreed. We got a body of experts together to look at this and tell us what to do, and they recommended that we set the indexation for HECS every year at either inflation or wages, whatever's the lowest. And that's what we've done.

But we've done more than that. We've back dated it to June last year. That wipes out what happened last year and makes sure that it never happens again. So, if you're waking up this morning and you've got the average HECS debt of about $27,000, it means that it will drop that by about $1,200. So that's a good start.

STEFANOVIC: All right. The Fin Review saying this morning that you're doing a fair bit of this, loading up on off-the-books changes, adding another 9 billion to the already 80. That seems like a lot off the books.

CLARE: This is the way HECS works. It's a loan to Australian students, 3 million of them, and they pay that back once they start earning, at the moment about $54,000, but we're going to increase that to about $67,000.

The fact is that universities got a lot more expensive over the last 20 years than it was when you and I went to university, and it's meant that for a lot of young people, it's got harder to pay off that debt and to get a loan to buy a house. So we want to make it a bit easier.

This is the start of it, by cutting that HECS debt last night. But if we win the next election, we've promised that we'll cut everybody's HECS debt by a further 20 per cent. That means for that person with the average HECS of about $27,000, we'll cut it by about another $5,500. That'll help a lot of people that are just getting started.

STEFANOVIC: All right. This is one of the 686 bills you're trying to get through this week. Let's talk about social media. How many caveats are you going to agree to, to get that passed?

CLARE: I hope that there's broad agreement across the Parliament on this one. When you and I were kids the biggest thing our mum and dads were concerned about was drugs or grog. Now it's this. Social media is toxic. We see the impact that it's having on our kids, and it's not just teenagers, it's younger kids as well. I think for most parents they see this as a no-brainer. They want to get this out of our kids' hands and out of our kids' brains. And that's what this legislation is basically designed to do.

STEFANOVIC: How many caveats though are you prepared to negotiate on?

CLARE: This should be above politics. We want to work with the Opposition on this legislation and we're under no illusions either, mate, that this is going to be perfect, or that it's going to stop every young person from getting access to social media. But it'll get it out of the hands of most young people, and that'll take the pressure off a lot of mums and dads, who get in that argument with their kids every day about whether they should be on social media or not. And take the pressure off young people too, because if their mates aren't on it, they don't need to be on it either.

Just one quick thing, mate. We've got a real-life example of how this could work right now in our schools. We've banned phones from schools, and we're seeing kids are more focused in the classroom, they're having more fun in the playground because they're talking to their mates rather than, you know, looking down at their phone doom scrolling every minute of the day.

But if you drive passed a bus stop this afternoon, you'll see kids with their phones in their hands looking down again. We can do something about this, and our kids will be happier and healthier if we do.

STEFANOVIC: I don't have a problem with it at all. Have you seen the polls today that you might have a problem with? You guys are up the creek without a paddle on cost of living. 60 per cent of people believe they are worse off than two and a half years ago - that makes things difficult for you heading for the next election?

CLARE: I've got no doubt that a lot of Aussies are doing it tough, that's why we're focused on cost of living. It's why we made sure we delivered a tax cut for every Australian worker that pays tax this year. People are doing it tough and that's why we're focused on making sure that we can do every single thing that we can to help them.

When we came to office things were a mess. Inflation was going up. Now it's coming down. We've made progress but there's more to do. And the fact is if Peter Dutton had been Prime Minister for the last two years people wouldn't have got a tax cut, they wouldn't have got a reduction in their electricity bills, they wouldn't have got cheaper childcare, or cheaper medicine. People would have got nottin’ under Peter Dutton. That's the truth.

STEFANOVIC: Did you just come up with that? Nottin’ under Dutton?

CLARE: It's the truth, brother.

STEFANOVIC: It's pretty good. I mean it's not bad on the roll.

CLARE: Well it happens to be the truth.

STEFANOVIC: The dapper rapper. Look, talking of creeks and paddles, one final one. This is for the poor people of Western Sydney. Your electorate is in Bankstown, your electoral office.

The poor people of Penrith they can't even get out to the Pondi, that's the Penrith Bondi swimming spot. This is it. This is a live look where it is. Beautiful. They have to go through some sort of property, the gate's closed, they need vouchers. What a lovely spot. So, they can't even get to the river to have a swim in bloody Penrith. I mean what is going on? The West is treated so appallingly.

CLARE: It's just a shocker. As a boy that grew up in Western Sydney you don't get to the beach very much. It's the local pool or it's the local river that helps you to cool off, and if you can't do that then that's bloody pathetic.

STEFANOVIC: Dutton's got nottin’. Going to take that one with me. Good on you, Jase.

CLARE: Thanks, mate.