Topics: Submarines – Australian build decision, VET FEE-HELP discussion paper, Manus Island.
E&OE…
ASH GILLON
Welcome back to News Day, as we have been reporting today there has been some confusion over whether or not it was the Defence Department that recommended an all-Australian build for the new fleet of submarines. Joining us now is Liberal Senator, and Minister for Vocational Education and Skills Scott Ryan he is live with us from Canberra. Scott, I do want to get to some of your portfolio issues shortly, but first why the big secret? Chris Pyne said one thing, Marise Payne last night on Sky News refused to confirm if it was the Defence Department that recommended an all-Australian build. Why the confusion? It is a messy look for the Government isn’t it?
SCOTT RYAN
I’m not a member of the National Security Committee Ashleigh, so I can’t comment myself. I don’t think it is particularly significant that particular issue. I think the most important element here is that there has been a very significant announcement to have a continuous naval ship building policy, to have these twelve submarines built in Australia and to ensure that we have an ongoing strategic capacity to build and service the naval warfare vessels necessary for the national defence.
GILLON
The reason I guess it is important, and everyone is interested in that specific question as to who recommended the build is because if it wasn’t the Defence Department then there has been concern that this was a political decision to sure up marginal seats in South Australia opposed to a defence needs, defence strategies decisions.
RYAN
(Inaudible) that we want to have these submarines built here as part of a continuous naval ship build strategy. We have announced more in six months, a stronger commitment to this sector, than Labor did in six years where they didn’t announce or built a single ship. So these decisions are in the national interest. They are always iterative; there are always ongoing discussions, that was part of the Competitive Evaluation Process. I think the most important thing, is that long-term commitment to a solid sustainable naval ship building industry.
GILLON
Minister, on another matter, a story has just dropped in the past hour or so on the Herald Sun news website, suggesting that you may have breached entitlement rules by holding a Liberal Party event at a taxpayer funded office, how was that within parliamentary entitlements?
RYAN
I saw that this morning, and I was obviously aware of it. There was no cost to the taxpayer, I paid for everything myself. It is not uncommon for most MPs to allow things like branch meetings in their offices, and this was akin to something like that but there was no cost to the taxpayer at all and I believe it was within the rules.
GILLON
Okay, let’s look at your portfolio. A discussion paper out today suggests that vocational college students wouldn’t be allowed to borrow as much as university students to pay for training, how would that be fair?
RYAN
The discussion the paper I released today actually goes through the disaster we have inherited from Labor’s expansion of, effectively HECs from the university sector to the training sector in 2012. We have seen blow-outs in costs to students, we have seen blow-outs in costs to taxpayers, we have seen story after story of shonky providers and students being taken advantage of because there weren’t sufficient regulatory powers and there weren’t sufficient protections in place. In the second part of the paper I actually go on to, following a period of consultation since I have been in this position, outlining all of the options that we could change the system to. One of them involves lowering the threshold for vocational training loans, so you cannot borrow as much as you can for university. Now, the rationale for that is that things like medical degrees, courses like engineering re by their nature substantially more costly than what might be a diploma or advance diploma in the vocational training sector. One of the problems we have seen is that some of the charges for these vocational training diplomas under Labor’s scheme have been more expensive than university, and there is no justification for that.
GILLON
Can you set out for us what some of the other proposals were that you are looking at seriously?
RYAN
What I have done in this discussion paper is to outline very frankly with a lot of data about the problems in the scheme. Disadvantaged students being taken advantage of, increases in cost to students and the taxpayer; and then without nominating preferred options I have outlined a series of options that need to be considered by the Government and the sector in redesigning the scheme for 2017 which is what the Government committed to late last year. This is the first stage in the process, we obviously have an election intervening, so I wanted to make sure that that options paper was out beforehand so that the sector has time to digest it. But most importantly we need to understand the incentives that are put in place by these funding mechanisms. Labor’s scheme had all of the wrong incentives, it was to increase costs, there were incentives to be, quite frankly, a little bit dodgy and so we have seen students taken advantage of. We have had multiple court cases, there was a police raid only a couple of weeks ago, this sector has been dominated by the scandal of Labor’s VET FEE-HELP scheme, so I have started the process of redesigning it.
GILLON
As you mentioned, the election coming up and of course the Budget sooner than that. A PBO report put a couple of weeks ago suggested a proposed 20 per cent cut to university funding would inflate growth in Australia’s student loan scheme to $185 billion by 2025, is it time to reduce the income level at which graduates start paying back their taxpayer funded loans?
RYAN
One of the things I have mentioned in the discussion paper on the vocational sector this morning Ashleigh, is that threshold for repayment in the vocational loan scheme and the one for university , they shouldn’t be considered separately. That obviously is in the part of the portfolio by my colleague Simon Birmingham, and I have seen those papers but the Government hasn’t developed a position on them.
GILLON
Would it be fair do you think to also examine family income as opposed to only personal income in determining that income threshold? What is your view on this as Minister going into this process?
RYAN
Ashleigh, I did read that report, I think that came out of the Grattan Institute report that came out about a week earlier than the Parliamentary Budget Office’s report. Look, I think this sector in particular, and I speak specifically about vocational training, we need to look at what are the incentives that particular changes get put in place. When we inherited this VET FEE-HELP mess it was clear that the incentives for good behaviour weren’t there but the incentives for bad behaviour were. So in any consideration of things like thresholds, we need to look at what are the second and third round impacts. Now I don’t have a position, and the Government doesn’t have a position on that question, I think it is an interesting one but it is not one that as far as I am aware, and not in my part of the sector is under active consideration.
GILLON
Minister I started the interview talking about messiness on the submarine deal issue, messiness too on the asylum seeker issue with nobody knowing at this point as to where the men on Manus Island will be ending up. I am going to be speaking with Julian Burnside shortly here on News Day, he and the Greens and of course advocates for asylum seekers saying that the Government needs to be acknowledging responsibility for these asylum seekers. But we have heard the Immigration Minister saying that it is Papua New Guinea’s responsibility. Where do you believe these asylum seekers will go?
RYAN
Firstly, the Government has been clear that they are not coming to Australia. There are two categories of the men on Manus. There are those who have been found to be refugees, and those who have not been found to be refugees. And those who are not found to be refugees should return to their country of origin. We must remember that many of these people actually came through multiple countries and they sought unlawful entry to Australia. Now we fixed the problem that Labor created. This is not a debate about semantics or theories, we didn’t have a people smuggling problem under John Howard’s policies, Labor created one, we stopped it. In a legal sense these people are the legal responsibility of the PNG Government as the Minister has made clear that is clear in the MOU that was set up in the dying days of the previous Labor government and the Minister is working with the Government and the PNG government on resolving some of these issues.
GILLON
Minister Scott Ryan, we do appreciate you joining us here on News Day this afternoon, thank you.
RYAN
Thanks Ashleigh.
(ENDS)