So the Labor Party, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to wipe out 20 per cent of HECS debts, putting the bill on taxpayers’ bills.
Anyone with current HECS debt will have a fifth of it forgiven. But only if the Labor Party is re-elected.
If Labor loses, there will be no debt relief. If Labor wins, taxpayers’ money will flow to university graduates. It is an extension of middle-class well-being at the expense of the needs and hard work of the working class.
Why the blatant electoral bribery? The Albanian government is concerned about university graduates voting Green, so it has developed a policy designed to win those voters back into the Labor fold.
But it comes at the expense of Labour’s former working-class base: voters who have not gone to university but could hope their children will one day do so. They get nothing, and their children won’t get anything either, because this election bribery is a one-off bribe designed to help Anthony Albanese win a second term.
It’s also about advancing the narrative of Albanese’s nearly two dozen Qantas business-class upgrades that dominated the news cycle last week.
Unfortunately for the Labor Party, when Education Minister Jason Clare announced the policy over the weekend, he was also forced to admit that he had requested an upgrade to business class on a flight to Singapore.
So how fair is this one-time $16 billion cost to taxpayers?
If Labor loses, there will be no debt relief. If Labor wins, taxpayers’ money will flow to university graduates. It is an extension of middle-class well-being at the expense of the needs and hard work of the working class, writes Peter van Onselen
Unfortunately for the Labor Party, when Education Minister Jason Clare announced the policy at the weekend, he was also forced to admit that he had requested an upgrade to business class on a flight to Singapore.
If you never went to college, you get nothing. However, you can help cover the cost of debt relief for college graduates who studied anything from culture and gender studies to art appreciation and climate change.
Anyone who is curious about the sociological impact of changing attitudes towards ceramics (and has dedicated three years of higher education study to sociology before adding a fourth year honors to really delve into some of the pressing unanswered questions about this specific topic) will get 20 percent. 10% reduction in your HECS debt.
Meanwhile, manual workers in outer metropolitan areas receive nothing. Neither do retail workers or casual and part-time workers in the hospitality sector, or anyone else who does not benefit from the higher salaries enjoyed by university graduates throughout their working lives.
Only college graduates benefit from this $16 billion electoral bribe.
Think about that. If you were less fortunate and didn’t go to college, but instead broke your back at a blue-collar job straight out of high school, this policy will give you absolutely nothing except more national debt for you and your kids to pay off.
Those who graduate with college degrees, the data tells us, earn more than non-college workers and therefore live more prosperous lives. However, non-college graduates are paying for this debt relief for college graduates who are more than capable of doing it themselves.
A current solicitor earning a six-figure income who has not yet paid off his HECS debt will get a 20 per cent reduction if Labor is re-elected.
If you have already paid your HECS debt, you will not receive anything either. Shame on you for working hard to erode debt faster, if that’s what you did.
Or if you’re simply a little older and further along in your working life and now saving to buy a house, you won’t receive any of Albo’s electoral bribe either.
If you go to college next year and beyond, you won’t get anything either. This change is not structured in a way that will make your life easier through some type of long-term future investment in higher education.
You get nothing from this policy if you’re a young Australian who hasn’t started university yet, probably because you’re not currently of voting age.
So if higher education costs are the government’s real concern, they are doing a good job on that issue going forward, writes Peter van Onselen.
So if the costs of higher education are the government’s real concern, they will be doing very well on that issue in the future.
The fact that this policy applies universally to all college graduates, not just those who earned specific degrees, is perhaps the worst feature.
Anyone who has studied nursing, primary and secondary education or social work has done so to contribute to the care and training needs of the nation.
These college graduates sacrifice future income to study in areas that contribute to society without large salaries. But from this blatant attempt at deception they only gain future lawyers, financiers and plastic surgeons.
These types of careers can earn college graduates more than a million dollars a year, but everyone gets a 20 percent reduction on their HECS debt, paid for by the bricklayer, laborer or gardener who manages the investment property. financial brother during lunch. .
It’s such an embarrassing political joke that Team Albo should be ashamed. Economists such as Professor Steven Hamilton and Chris Richardson have called it “stupid” and “silly”, respectively.
But it’s much worse than that. It is a political party that uses taxpayer money to try to buy its re-election. It should be illegal but it isn’t.
It’s dumb economic policy designed to be smart policy, by a government that hopes voters are too stupid to realize how unfair bribery is, or too selfish to care that they personally benefit.
But perhaps Australians will send this cynical Labor government a clear message and despise it for trying to buy an election victory with more debt.
Those who came up with this idea are so economically illiterate that they think that because HECS debts are “off budget”, forgiving $16 billion costs nothing.
It’s too stupid for words.
Just because a liability is out of budget doesn’t mean it costs nothing.
This policy is also a cynical policy due to the timing of the announcement. Six months before election day, but it won’t come into force unless the Labor Party is re-elected?
What an obvious pork barrel. It has clearly been rushed now because the Labor Party is down in the polls and is distracted by the Qantas upgrades scandal.
The idiocy of this policy does not end here. Because it applies universally to anyone with a HECS debt, even those now living overseas with no intention of ever contributing to the Australian economy again get a 20 per cent cut on their HECS debts!
When the Senate estimates come in, we’ll find out how this policy was devised in the first place. I’m willing to bet that professional public service had little to do with this.
It is a blatantly politically designed pamphlet, hoping to win votes among HECS debt holders.
Remember: Your children, who may be planning to attend college in the next few years, will not benefit from this policy, a sure sign that it is not designed as some kind of workaround for the system.
It is purely about buying votes.