HECS sting in GST tail
12 May 2000
The NTEU has backed calls by the National Union of Students to quarantine current and former students from the effects of GST induced inflation on their Higher Education Contribution Scheme debts. Using Treasury forecasts of the Consumer Price Index, NUS has shown that the Government stands to profit by over $180 million as a result of increased indexation of outstanding HECS debt.
\"While students are being slugged more and more for their education, the Government is further reducing public funding\", said Dr Carolyn Allport, NTEU National President. \"Any increase in revenue from HECS simply allows the Government to reduce its investment in education by a corresponding amount. This money will not even flow back to universities.
\"HECS has been used to reduce public contributions to our universities for years. This effect of the GST is an extension of a system where students pay more but universities get less.
\"The Government tries to claim that education is immune from the effects of the GST, but this is another example of the way the GST makes education less affordable. We can only hope that this was an unintended consequence of this horrendously complex and inequitable tax system.
\"There is a simple solution to this unfair consequence of the GST. The Government simply needs to alter the mechanism by which HECS is indexed in order to exclude the effect of the GST on the Consumer Price Index. The NTEU supports the call by NUS for the Government to correct this anomaly.\"