The Turnbull government’s expected cuts to university funding and its adjustment of HECS repayments is “counterproductive” and will destroy Australia’s GDP worth, according to one of our foremost taxation experts.
Panelists on Monday night’s Q&A were asked why the Coalition appears to continue to support baby boomers and ignore the needs of future generations, with changes to education and housing affordability expected to hurt Australia’s youth.
“I think what the government is doing here in relation to the universities and HECS is counterproductive,” taxation lawyer and corporate strategist Mark Leibler said.
“The bottom line is this is, the universities are an industry that are an export industry, valued at $22 billion.
“When it comes to universities, the value of the knowledge created by universities is worth more than the mining sector. The mining industry in this country.
“I think a tertiary education is incredibly important and recently Deloitte Access Economics has actually demonstrated that the value of that knowledge adds to 8.5 per cent of GDP. That’s a very, very big sum.
“At the end of time, and it will destroy value in terms of Australia overall. This shouldn’t have been done.”
Watch part of the segment below:
Urban Development Institute CEO Danni Addison made a similar observation about young Australians’ chances of breaking into the housing market, calling it a “pretty tough challenge”.
“The reality for young people is it’s not easy to save up for a first home, pay your rent and pay the HECS debt,” she said.
“Housing is an inherent part of our psyche as Australians. Whether it be to be able to own housing, to rent housing or at least to have the options that you want in front of you about where you live and how much access you have to jobs.
“It’s something that we have to fight for in this country.”
Meanwhile, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Dan Tehan argued that any changes to university funding were to “make sure that degrees will remain affordable”.
“The Australian government over the next four years will spend $28 billion on our higher sector, what we’re asking students to do is to make a contribution towards that,” Mr Tehan said.
“We’re keeping the system demand driven, we’re making sure that degrees will remain affordable.”
It comes after the announcement of Gonski 2.0, which Tasmanian Labor Senator Lisa Singh said was “$22 billion short” of being properly funded.
“It’s a Gonski model that has a lot of schools up in arms,” she said.
“But the thing is, the government could fund this properly if it would drop its obsession, its ideological obsession with giving corporations and banks a $50 billion tax cut.
“It could even have $28 billion left over for health, for all the other areas of public service that it seems to now be interested in funding if it would drop that obsession.
“There is no excuse why every child in every school can’t get every opportunity for a best education.”
Dave Hughes’ comic relief
While the panel was involved in heated discussions on the budget, education and veterans funding, comedian Dave Hughes provided some much-needed lighter moments.
Here are some of his best one-liners:
On Gonksi: “Vegemite 2.0 didn’t work. Will this?”
On Google’s failure to pay tax in Australia: “You’re tax expert, Mark [Leibler]. Do you work for Google?”
On whether the Labor party used a green screen in that controversial ‘Australians First’ ad: “Is he colour blind? … It certainly wasn’t a brown screen.”
On Malcolm Turnbull meeting with US President Donald Trump: “I think Malcolm looked like a 13-year-old girl meeting Justin Bieber.”
“He looked like he was on The Bachelor trying to get a rose.”
