Topics: Labor’s upfront costs for VET students, 2016 Budget, 2016 Budget Reply.   

E&OE…

LAURA JAYES

Joining me now is the Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, Senator Scott Ryan from Canberra. It has been a very big week, Senator and I think it is about to be a very big eight weeks. Is this the ideal start to an election campaign for the Government? It has been pretty messy over the last couple of days when it comes to all of that conjecture over company tax.

SCOTT RYAN

I think we heard from the Prime Minister with David Speers yesterday, when I was watching the interview I saw it as the Prime Minister saying that the numbers were not identified in the Budget papers, which is a statement of fact. And then this morning at the Senate Estimates hearing the Treasury Secretary released the full numbers. The Charter of Budget Honesty requires all policies to be costed out over four years, and that is exactly what is in the Budget papers and that is exactly what is in place around the company tax cut.

JAYES

But when we see how it played out, there was ten or so questions about whether it had been costed and it wasn’t quite clear. And now Treasury has released those figures today, $48 billion through the Budget Estimates Senate hearings process, it looks like that the Government didn’t want to release that figure ahead of Labor’s Budget Reply for political reasons not for any sensible policy reasons.

RYAN

I think to be fair, what most people are taking away is that on Tuesday night they heard a serious plan for the economy. Which includes a very important aspiration to make our company tax rate competitive in our region to actually support investment particularly investment from overseas that guarantees jobs and provides for higher wages. What they saw last night from Bill Shorten was just a series of personal attacks and that is what he did again this morning. Bill Shorten doesn’t have a plan for the economy, he just has a series of personal and character assassinations that he wants to undertake and I am sure that is what we are going to see more of from Bill over the next eight weeks.

JAYES

One of his plans, and the biggest savings he has made to date, is what he flagged in his Budget Reply speech and that is in your portfolio area that is the VET subsidies, essentially, he wants to cap these fees at $8000. Is that a plan that the Government might adopt?

RYAN

It is a thought bubble, Laura. This whole scandal that we have in the VET FEE-HELP scheme – HECs for vocational education – the whole scandal we have been dealing with over the last two years is a direct result of the way Labor set-up the scheme that had no protections in place against dodgy providers, dodgy brokers, or for taxpayers…

(Interrupted)

JAYES

But what is wrong with this cap of $8000?

RYAN

What that cap means is that some students at some TAFEs and some providers will now face upfront fees. That is what it means. And both Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen refused to rule that out on radio this morning. Students who actually want to access certain courses that cost more than $8000 a year – and people can go online and check the cost of those on the MySkills website, from reputable providers including TAFEs – so what Bill Shorten is proposing is upfront fees for people who want to go to TAFE or vocational education trainers.

JAYES

Okay Senator, what is wrong with upfront fees? And what would the Government do here? Would you consider a cap would it be a little bit more fluid and more flexible to avoid what you’re saying?

RYAN

I put out a large discussion paper last week that outlines all of the problems that this sector has been undergoing. It puts out all of the data the Commonwealth has and it lists all of the options that the sector has put, and various stakeholders and those assisting students through the scandals because of Labor’s scheme have put to us. And a lot of them have pros and cons. One of the other problems of an $8000 cap Laura, is that a lot of fees below that, you will find, will suddenly increase to the $8000 level. This is a thought bubble. And this sector hasn’t had the deep policy development when Labor developed the scheme in 2012. We have got in place a process that releases the discussion paper, that has all of the options and in the second half of the year we will redesign the scheme, through legislation for 2017. Labor can’t impose a cap without legislation, so I don’t see why they would just seek to have this thought bubble figure plucked out of the air that even the TAFE Directors Association came out today and said was plucked out of the air.

JAYES

When are we going to see the detail from the Government, we are pretty much in an election campaign. That is unavoidable at the moment. You say there is a discussion paper. But the problems in this sector have been quite apparent for quite some time now, so this needs to happen sooner rather than later.

RYAN

And it is going to happen in the second half of the year Laura. But it can’t be done without consultation, without understand of the real implications and effects of every possible change. That is what Labor did when they set the system up in 2012 and it has led us to this scandal. Over the last two years, my predecessors in this portfolio have introduced more than a dozen measures to stop the most egregious practices that had been abusing students, taking advantage of our most vulnerable. And they have been in the main successful. However, we are dealing with tens of thousands of legacy cases where the misbehaviour happened under the original design of Labor’s scheme. What I have committed to with this discussion paper, this green paper type approach is that it will be out for consultation over the next few months so that the sector can fully understand all of the options. And then we can undertake a very rapid period of consultation following that, and develop proposals to be put to the Parliament later this year. But we can’t simply make these thought bubble announcements that aren’t thought through, that haven’t been subject to consultation, and that, actually again in this case, potentially impose serious extra costs and barriers upon students.

JAYES

Can the Government win the election easily?

RYAN

I don’t think any election is easy to win. I am confident that when we put forward our plan over the next eight weeks – we started last year with the innovation and science strategy, we have had the defence industry plan for advanced manufacturing, we have competition law changed and we have got our economic plan outlined in the Budget, up against that we have just seen Bill Shorten’s character assassination, character attacks, and class war.

JAYES

I think we have seen from this Budget, and this is my final question, my assessment of this was that there was a bit of detoxification, a bit of an atonement still hangovers from the 2014 Tony Abbott Budget. We have seen very clear rhetoric in terms of the buzzwords being jobs, growth and investment. Do voters really know what Malcolm Turnbull stands for? Does he need to use this campaign to seek a mandate and put forward some bold policies?

RYAN

I think every election is an opportunity for every politician, it is a requirement for every politician to seek the trust of their electors…

(Interrupted)

JAYES

Sorry to interrupt you Senator, but wasn’t that the problem with Tony Abbott in the 2013 campaign? We knew what he was going to oppose, we knew what he was going to repeal, but he actually didn’t seek a mandate for what he wanted to do. And that was the problem when it came to broken promises.

RYAN

We will be seeking a mandate. Labor is opposing our competition law changes to give small business a better chance of competing, because they are the source of so much employment growth and so much innovation. Labor is opposing our changes to certain aspects of the company tax I understand, and that we believe is important to allow for stronger investment and stronger economic growth, which in the end means more jobs, higher productivity and higher wages. I think what we are seeing from Bill Shorten is simply a series of personal attacks and trying to find ways to divide the Australian people rather than say how can the Government here support the long-term economic growth that is necessary when we are seeing the mining and investment boom drop off from record levels of GDP up near 8 per cent to a more normal level down near 2 or 3 per cent. That is an important economic transition. We have put out a lot of initiatives, and Labor has opposed a lot of them. That is going to be the choice for the Australian people.

JAYES

Well, Senator Ryan I am sure we will be hearing from you a lot over the next couple of weeks, and we will see you throughput the campaign. Thank you so much for your time today.

RYAN

Thanks Laura.

(ENDS)