Topics: Labor’s reckless promise to cut student HELP debt, Jason Clare’s Qantas upgrade admission.
Chris Kenny: Let’s go to Sarah Henderson now, the shadow education minister, live from Canberra. Good to speak to you, Senator. Got to get your thoughts on this HECS proposal. It’s outrageous that they’re offering a policy this early. That’s an election policy. If they believe in this policy, why aren’t they legislating it now?
Senator Henderson: Well, absolutely, this is just an electoral bribe and nothing more than that. They’re trying to outbid The Greens. But this is grossly irresponsible economic policy, Chris. The $16 billion cash splash risks keeping inflation and interest rates higher longer, and it’s grossly unfair. It’s unfair to the millions of Australians who’ve worked hard to pay off their HECS debt, and, of course, to students intending to go to university who won’t be a beneficiary. So this is a real basket case. And then to add insult to injury, we now discover that this so-called soft launch campaign held in Adelaide yesterday, was at a school in breach of the rules of the Department of Education. So shame on education minister Jason Clare, under his government, student debt has gone up 16 per cent. They’ve now released this terrible policy, which has been slammed by the critics, slammed by independent economic experts. And as I say, To add insult to injury, it’s happened at a school against the rules of the Department of Education in South Australia.
Chris Kenny: Yeah, there you go. That’s an interesting sideline. Speaking of the education minister Jason Clare, he’s had to admit that he asked for an upgrade on a personal flight, and he got it. He was a shadow minister at the time, not a minister, but it’s clearly a breach of ministerial code to ask for an upgrade. What should be the consequence for him from this breach? Surely, shadow ministers should uphold the same standards as ministers?
Senator Henderson: Well, I’m not going to make any excuses for Jason Clare. He says he declared it, but frankly, we have seen the likes of Prime Minister Albanese and others swanning around – sucking up – if I can use that word to the likes of Mr Joyce, running Qantas, and of course, that’s why we’ve really got so many issues with competition in our airlines across this country. So, that really is for him to answer, but from an Australian perspective – it’s just not good enough, Chris, it’s not good enough because it just seems again, that this government is focusing on this, on themselves and not on ordinary, hardworking Australians. We’ve seen education go off the rails under this minister, whether it’s the school funding war, whether it’s international students and now of course, this ridiculous policy. But Australians will not be fooled when they are bribed – they know it, they could smell it and they will not reward Labor for it.
Chris Kenny: Thanks for joining us, Senator, I appreciate it.