Labor has confirmed university fees will be set using advice from its proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission, as it ramps up attacks on the Coalition for opposing Help debt cuts.
The Albanese government’s plan to cut all Help debts by 20% and to lift the repayment threshold has drawn criticism from the opposition, students and some academics for not addressing the underlying cost of university courses.
Labor has also been under pressure from the Greens and crossbench to undo the Coalition’s controversial jobs ready graduate changes, which hiked the cost of arts degrees.
On Tuesday the education minister, Jason Clare, told Labor caucus that fees paid by MPs and senators in the past amounted to about a 30% contribution to the cost of a degree, but now it’s more like a 40% contribution.
He said the 20% reduction in Help debt “fixes that for a generation” and flagged that Labor intends for the commission to help set fees into the future.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, accused his predecessor, Scott Morrison, of having “deliberately lowered the threshold” for Help debt repayments, which Labor now proposes to raise from $54,000 to $67,000.
Albanese also took aim at Paul Fletcher, the manager of opposition business. “Like me, he got a free education but he’s now lecturing people that they can’t have their debt reduced,” Albanese said.
“This is a fight we will win. They don’t see that lifting the number of people in Tafe and uni is an investment in the whole country.”
Fletcher had told ABC Radio on Monday the Coalition believed the Help debt cut was “a profoundly unfair policy”.
“It will cost 27 million Australians,” he said. “All 27 million Australians will be required to contribute to the cost of it, but 24 million Australians will not benefit from it.
“The commonwealth already pays around 60% of the cost of a university student’s education. So there’s already a very significant amount being paid by taxpayers.”
The 2024 budget announced that the Australian Tertiary Education Commission “is intended to be established by 1 July 2025” and “will be responsible for … delivery of funding arrangements for higher education”.
Guardian Australia understands the start date is intended to allow the commission to give advice on fees in time for the 2026 academic year.
A consultation paper released mid-year said its “potential roles” included “implementing managed growth funding for universities, [and] implementing needs-based funding for underrepresented cohorts”.
On Sunday Clare said the commission would “help us set those fees, fix the funding model for universities, and also provide universities with extra funding for students who are more likely to drop out to help them complete their degrees”.
“And I hope to be in a position later this year to provide more detail on all of that.”
The Greens have called on Labor to enact changes to Help debts immediately and reverse the Coalition’s job ready graduate fee changes.
The party’s deputy leader and education spokesperson, Mehreen Faruqi, said: “Labor was vehemently against Morrison’s uni fee hikes scheme in opposition, calling them ‘beyond repair’, yet they’ve backed the fee hikes whilst in power and ignored advice from their own Accord process to urgently address them.
“Labor should have dumped Morrison’s job ready graduates scheme the second they came to power,” she said.
“Students starting university next year shouldn’t have to cop these ridiculous fees.”
