26/10/06
A staggering $1billion HECS debt owed by Western Australians to the Howard Government is compounding the State's skill shortage, Premier Alan Carpenter and Deputy Federal Labor Leader Jenny Macklin said today.
Meeting students at The University of Western Australia with Jenny Macklin, Mr Carpenter said many young people were unprepared to take on such massive levels of debt.
He said Perth residents alone faced $700 million in university repayments.
"Western Australia needs more young people to train as doctors and engineers to meet the demands of our expanding health system and booming resources industry," the Premier said.
"With the WA economy growing at record levels, we cannot afford for people to think twice about getting a degree because the fees are too high."
Ms Macklin said that since the Howard Government came to office in 1996, the cost of a degree in medicine had increased by $30,000, with students now paying up to $50,000 to become a doctor.
"Engineering students are also worse off, with students paying up to $30,000 in university fees, which is $16,000 more than 10 years ago," she said.
"How can we expect to attract the best minds to the WA workforce when many young people cannot afford the education they need to get a job?
"The Howard Government is mortgaging our future with these massive HECS hikes."
Canning Vale, Nedlands/Dalkeith and Joondalup are Perth's debt hotspots, with local residents in each of those areas owing a cumulative total of more than $20million in HECS, according to a review of Federal Department of Education figures.
Mr Carpenter said that under the Howard Government, young people were graduating from university with high levels of debt, making it harder for them to buy a home, start a family and get ahead in life.
"Australian university students now pay the second highest fees in the world; we are the only developed country where public investment in tertiary education has declined over the last decade," he said.
Ms Macklin said the Prime Minister had taken a sledgehammer to our university system.
"Now he must make a choice - invest in our people to build our economic future, or keep slugging future doctors and engineers with massive HECS debts," she said.
Federal Labor's White Paper,
Australia's Universities: Building Our Future in the World, included proposals to stop the massive HECS fee increases, reduce the overall financial burden on students and provide HECS relief for degrees in areas of skills shortage.
The State Government has implemented a range of initiatives to address WA's skills shortage, including:
- the recent launch of the successful Go West advertising campaign to attract interstate workers to WA:
- the Priority Start - Building policy, which requires all contractors on Government building and construction projects to employ a minimum number of apprentices and trainees; and
- the introduction of the biggest reforms to WA's training system in almost 100 years by reducing the nominal terms for more than 30 apprenticeships.
Perth HECS Hotspots
Premier's office - (08) 9222 9475
Deputy Federal Labor Leader's office - (02) 6277 4277
