Bill
Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP Student Protection) Bill 2018
passed, as at 2018-12-10. Education and Training portfolio.
- Sponsor
- Not recorded
- Portfolio
- Education and Training
Recorded stages
- introduced — 2018-09-20
- second reading — 2018-09-20
- second reading — 2018-11-28
- second reading — 2018-11-28
- third reading — 2018-11-28
- introduced — 2018-11-29
- second reading — 2018-11-29
- second reading — 2018-11-29
- second reading — 2018-11-29
- third reading — 2018-11-29
- passed — 2018-11-29
- royal assent — 2018-12-10
Divisions
No divisions recorded. Most questions are decided on the voices; this does not establish that a bill was unopposed.
Plain-language summary
Written by a model from the explanatory memorandum; not the record, as at 2018-09-20.
This bill would help people who took out VET FEE-HELP loans and ended up with debts because training providers or their agents behaved badly.
The person in charge of the relevant department could restore a borrower's FEE-HELP balance and cancel the associated loan, but only if the borrower did not finish the unit and it is likely the provider acted wrongly.
The government says it cannot put a cost on the measure because it does not know how many students were affected and each case differs.
- It lets the department head cancel a student's VET FEE-HELP debt if the provider's misconduct caused it.
- It allows the Commonwealth to try to recover the cancelled amount from the provider in some cases.
- It updates the Ombudsman Act 1976 so the VET Student Loans Ombudsman has a role under the new rules.
Students who incurred VET FEE-HELP debts due to inappropriate conduct by training providers or their agents, and the training providers that may have to repay the Commonwealth.
Sources
em
em supp
billhome
frl act