Monique Ryan has the first independent’s question and it is on when will the government get rid of the Jobs Ready Graduate program that the Morrison government put in place and create a more equal fee structure for university degrees.

Ryan:

My question is for go education minister. Minister, the legislation we are set to pass this week will cut HECS debts for 2.9 million Australians which is fantastic. However, the legislation does not help current students undertaking law and arts degrees whose fees were massively inflated by Scott Morrison’s job ready graduate scheme. I put an amendment to this bill which would scrap job ready graduate program.

Will the government accept my amendment so we can get rid of the scheme tomorrow?

Jason Clare:

Can I thank the member for Kooyong for her question. Probably the best member for Kooyong the Parliament has ever had. (There is some cheers from the public gallery)

Bit of support up there in the public gallery. Your focus on education and your focus on fairness and also thank you for your support for the legislation to cut student debt by 20 per cent.

20 per cent is a big cut. It’s not as big as 33 per cent, that’s how much the Australian people cut the number of Liberal MPs in the chamber at the election.

But 20 per cent is still a big cut. It’s gonna help a lot of Australians, 3 million Australians.

It will get their student debt cut when this legislation passes the Parliament. Mr Speaker, the truth is we’ve got a good education system but it can be a lot better and can be a lot fairer. That’s what this universities accord report is all about. It’s a blueprint for reforming our higher education system over the next decade and beyond. The job ready graduate scheme that you referred to in the question is the subject of recommendations in that report. We have already begun the task of implementing that report. I think we have bitten off a big chunk of it already, about 31 of the 47 recommendations in part or in full. Now that includes paid prac and the Australian tertiary education commission that began this month. It also includes measures in the bill that we’re debating this week in the Parliament to fix the repayment system for HECS, something that Bruce Chapman, the architect of HECS, described as the most important change to the system in 35 years. There’s more works to do. We’ll keep working through the recommendations in the university’s accord report and take advice from the tertiary education commission as well

That is code for ‘we are getting to it, but we are not in a rush’ which really, is the least the government can do.