Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 per Cent) Bill 2025

The majority voted against an amendment to the usual second reading motion "that the bill be read a second time" (parliamentary jargon for agreeing with the main idea of the bill). This means the usual second reading motion will remain unchanged. It was NSW Senator Mehreen Faruqi (Greens) who introduced the amendment.

Amendment text

At the end of the motion, add “, but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) students are being shackled by a lifetime of debt which is making the cost of living crisis worse, locking people out of the housing market, causing people to delay having families and crushing dreams of going to university,

(ii) the Government’s plan to wipe 20% of student debt amounts to only 7.9% when accounting for indexation,

(iii) a one-off student debt cut is meaningless for students starting today and graduating with $50,000 degrees due to the Government’s failure to reverse the fee hikes of the punitive Job-ready Graduates Package,

(iv) the student debt system cannot be fixed because student debt should not exist and higher education, like education at every level, is an essential public good that should be free, universal and provided by the Government; and

(v) all students experiencing placement poverty need urgent relief and should be paid for every hour of work they are required to do as part of their degree, at least at minimum wage, not a lesser supplementary amount; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) wipe all student debt and return to free university and TAFE for all,

(ii) urgently reverse the fee hikes of the Job-ready Graduates Package; and

(iii) pay all students doing mandatory placements at no less than minimum wage rates”.