Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill 2018

The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a third time. Giving a bill a third reading is parliamentary jargon for passing a bill, so this means the bill is passed in the Senate and will now be sent back to the House of Representatives, where our MPs will decide on whether they agree with the Senate amendments.

What is the bill's main idea?

The bill was introduced to, among other things:

• set a lower minimum repayment threshold of $45,000 per year with a repayment rate of one per cent
• introduce a combined lifetime HELP loan limit of $150,000 for students studying medicine, dentistry and veterinary science courses, or $104,440 for all other students that is indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI);
• change the indexation factor for HELP repayment thresholds from Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) to the CPI.