The Greens, continuing their strategy of aggressively targeting disgruntled inner-city Labor voters, today announced a radical policy of total student debt forgiveness.
If elected, they will wipe all existing HECS debt - at an eyewatering cost of $81billion. Its an extension of the vow Labor has already made to slash student debt by 20 per cent - but unlike Albos election promise, the Greens policy is essentially reintroducing free education by stealth.
Free education was a Labor policy, introduced by Gough Whitlam, that was so extreme and costly to taxpayers that Bob Hawkes Labor government had to scrap it.
Now Australian taxpayers stand to be the biggest losers should Labor be forced to reintroduce this policy after next years election as the price of a power-sharing deal with the Greens.
While the Greens say their policy is about putting an extra $5,500 into peoples pockets a year during the cost-of-living crisis and making it easier for first home buyers, in reality their plan to forgive average student debts of $27,600 would effectively be reviving the free education model that existed from 1974 to 1989.
Free education, of course, was so expensive that it was simply not sustainable and the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) was introduced by Education Minister John Dawkins.
Since then graduates, who typically earn more than people who havent been to university, have been required to repay their student debt once their income reaches a certain level - rather than leaving the bill entirely to taxpayers.
Emeritus Professor Bruce Chapman, an economist who designed HECS, says the Greens very expensive policy punishes those who didnt go to university.
The Greens, continuing their strategy of aggressively targeting disgruntled inner-city Labor voters, today announced a radical policy of total student debt forgiveness. (Pictured: Monash University students)
Lets start with free: there is no such thing as free tertiary education, he tells me.
If its free to the students, then its paid for by the taxpayer.
Somebody has to pay it - what they mean is free to the students and free to the graduates.
Taxpayers are already stumping up $20,000 a year on average when a student enrols for full-time study.
The universities get the money upfront from the government but the tax office has to wait a few years to start collecting the outstanding debt, once that student graduates and earns $54,435 a year.
If students arent contributing anything, then the entire amount is paid for by the public purse, Prof Chapman says.
Who finances the public purse? And the answer is all taxpayers.
Prof Chapman, who has been an Australian National University economist since 1984, says its working-class people who end up cross-subsidising university graduates who earn higher incomes later in life.
People who left school after year 12 or before year 12 or people who had an apprenticeship, theyre all paying tax, he says.
Emeritus Professor Bruce Chapman, an economist who designed the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, says the Greens policy punishes those who didnt go to university
It is a problem. Most people who are not graduates dont do as well in the labour market as graduates - thats why its inequitable because youre asking people who dont have a degree to cover the additional costs of the graduates not paying anything.
That is probably the most inequitable aspect of public policy education that you could devise.
Graduates fresh out of uni typically earn $71,000, which is already above the middle income of $67,600.
But those studying a subject like dentistry can earn as much $94,400 straight out the gate.
Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi, who holds the partys higher education portfolio, didnt use the term free education in her Monday media release but the intention was clear in her appeal to the 2.9 million students with debt.
Student debt cant be fixed because student debt shouldnt exist, she said.
All student debt should be wiped.
While the Greens only hold four House of Representatives electorates, Labor is in danger of losing more inner-city or gentrified seats to the Greens that have a higher proportion of university students.
Education Minister Jason Clare this month announced the government would spend $16billion reducing student debt by 20 per cent.
Increases in HECS or Higher Education Loan Program fees will, from June 2025, be indexed to the wage price index or the consumer price index - whichever is lower.
Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi, who holds the partys higher education portfolio, didnt use the term free education in her Monday media release but the intention was clear
A three per cent swing against Labor - as predicted by Newspoll - would see Labor lose seven seats and therefore its majority.
The Greens already hold three lower house seats in Brisbane and one in Melbourne, but Prime Minister Anthony Albaneses Sydney inner-west seat of Grayndler overlaps with the state Greens electorates of Newtown and Balmain.
Senator Faruqi pointed out how the PM - a late baby boomer - benefited from free education as a University of Sydney student during the 1980s.
If Anthony Albanese can go to uni for free, so should everyone else, she said.
The Greens claimed former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudds old inner-Brisbane seat of Griffith in 2022 and they are now eyeing the Melbourne electorate of Wills - once held by Hawke, the PM who abolished free education.
Samantha Ratnam, a former Victorian MP now running for the Greens in Wills, even featured in Mondays announcement on wiping out student debt.
People in Wills know that they cant keep voting for the same two parties and expecting a different result, she said.
Australian taxpayers stand to be the biggest losers should Labor be forced to introduce this policy after next years election as the price of a power-sharing deal with the Greens. (Pictured: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese)
Only the Greens will wipe your student debt, so you can keep more of your paycheck.
Albaneses Left faction was opposed to the abolition of free education during the 1980s but has since supported deferred student payments in the Labor caucus - only to have the Greens revive an old ghost that will haunt all taxpayers with or without a degree.
Australia has hardly been the only country to scrap free education because of the cost to taxpayers, with UK Labour prime minister Tony Blair introducing deferred tuition fees in 1998 and New Zealand this year scrapping free education for first-year students.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris last week lost the presidential election after her boss Joe Biden announced student debts of up to US$20,000 (AU$30,300) would be forgiven.
Working-class American voters without a university degree baulked at this policy and threw their lot in with Donald Trump. But there is a very real possibility the Greens appeal to debt-laden graduates will propel them to a shared government with Labor.
And, as history has shown us, someone has to pay for all this free education - and its not the graduates who benefit from their degrees. Its the taxpayers.