Matt Thistlethwaite was the chosen Labor sacrifice for a political Sky News panel this morning, where he was asked about the prime minister’s three priorities: passing the HECS legislation which will lower HECS debt for existing students (while doing nothing for students who are about to be slugged with the new fee structure set by the Coalition – which if you want to study arts, (I have a Bachelor of Journalism which is basically an arts degree) means you will be going deeply into debt just because the Coalition didn’t like Arts (who needs critical thinking and media literacy in this climate?!) and Labor have done nothing about it – as well as putting the new penalty rates into law, and child care safety laws.

Oh, and the Productivity round table.

Thistlethwaite said:

Well, we’ve got a clear agenda that we took to the last election, and the focus really is on cost of living support for Australians. So, on the 1st of July, a number of those measures began, like the energy rebates, PRAC payments, as you mentioned. Our first pieces of legislation will be reducing student debts and ensuring that we’re protecting penalty rates. So, we’re going to get on with delivering the mandate that we sought and had approved from the Australian people, and that’ll be our focus.

Obviously, with the Productivity Roundtable coming up, business and unions are going to have their ideas, and we welcome people putting their ideas. But we want to try and bring everyone together on a consensus basis to ensure that we’re putting in place policies for the future that we can grow our economy and improve living standards.