I owe debt of thanks to free education

Liberals could win favour with young Aussie voters by removing the tax on knowledge

MY education at the University of Tasmania half a century ago may or may not have been much better than my kids received a generation later, but it was certainly cheaper.

I was lucky to get in before Labor politicians in the Hawke-Keating era, most having received a free university education at public expense, decided future generations of Australian kids would have to pay through the nose.

Graduates were to be burdened with debts that, for some, would never be repaid. Still others were deterred from ever pursuing tertiary qualifications: to both their own cost and arguably to the nation’s disadvantage.

Taking it at the extreme, a medical degree costs $401,917 based on a rate of $74,950 per year of study. Does that have anything to do with our shortage of doctors?

Ask likewise for engineers, teachers and nurses.

To discourage our youth from getting a university education in one of the world’s richest nations is some kind of madness.

Generally, graduates earn more and so pay more tax. There are many social and cultural arguments for debt-free education along with the obvious boost to the economy that comes with slapping on a mortar board.

Currently 2.9 million Australians owe a share of some $68.7bn of personal debt incurred in the getting of wisdom.

That’s a high price. At the lower end of the scale there are 1.3 million people with debts of about $20,000 which is big enough to affect their ability to borrow for a first home.

Surely it’s hard enough being a young person in Australia today without imposing a huge tax on learning.

The Liberals learned something from polling this week: that federally they are on the nose with young Australian voters.

They could turn that around at the next election by promising to remove tertiary education fees and retrospectively cancelling student debt. There are millions of young voters out there with HECs debts in disaffected Liberal electorates.

Imagine Dutton being a youth hero.

OK that’s a big ask. And admittedly I am being loose with cash here but so were Turnbull and Co. when they signed up to buy $100bn worth of obsolete French submarines. Then there’s the $10bn white elephant called Snowy Hydro.

Our democracy seems predicated on the massive wastage of public money. We are one of the world’s top 15 economies and cutting the kids a break won’t send us broke.

The polls this week revealed that Millennials, reaching the age at which some sensible conservatism might be expected to kick in, are solidly rejecting the Liberal Party. It is a trend that surprises the political analysts but I’m not sure why it should. In my political memory I have trouble recalling a worse administration than the Morrison government.

Rudd was unlovable, Gorton was bizarre and overly fond of a drink, Gough was better with ideas than numbers, Fraser lost his trousers (out of office to be fair) and way back the accidental Liberal PM, Bill McMahon, won the prize for being simply ridiculous. He was known as “silly Billy” because he was totally inept.

Popular history records McMahon was good for a laugh. Unfairly he was ridiculed for his large ears. It was before political correctness, so a satirist at the time cruelly described him as “looking like a VW with both doors open”. Oddly, he had a beautiful young wife, Sonia, with whom years later I once danced with for the cameras.

But that’s a story from another time for another time.

Actually, Sonia was a good sort who captivated the American press back in 1971 by appearing at the White House in a daring dress, which was described at the time, “as being split both sides to the thighs and armpits and held together with rhinestones”.

Of course, I hardly noticed, being so busy, head down in old tomes at university, virtuously attempting to give the Australian taxpayers value for their money.

Ha. If only that were so. In retrospect the university syllabus was less important than the extra-curricular. Uni Revue, the student newspaper and the Travellers Rest Hotel may have been more instructive for a life in journalism than a detailed knowledge of the Battle of Marathon.

Though, in my business knowing a little about a lot is a great advantage when it comes to whimsical asides and filling the page.

It’s funny what sticks in the mind from an attempted serious study of history. I remember learning that in 490BC on the Marathon plain northeast of Athens a small Greek army defeated a vastly larger force of Persian invaders.

The messenger, Pheidippides ran non-stop to Athens, 42km away to

To discourage our youth from getting a university education in one of the world’s richest nations is some kind of madness.

deliver the good news. The story goes that he rushed up to the Acropolis and called out “Nike! Nike!” (“Victory! Victory!”)

Thus, Pheidippides is twice commemorated, in the naming of the long-distance foot race and in the branding of the running shoe.

But sadly, on delivering his exciting news the messenger fell down dead, we presume from a heart attack.

(Well, it had been a big day.) Still, you might have expected that back in 490BC, on the original Mediterranean diet, Pheidippides might have fared better.

Down at Carlton, my fit mate further up the beach from me runs 42km with no problem.

And I can tell you we are definitely not eating sardines and drinking olive oil at the Lewisham Tavern on Friday afternoons.

Such little rambles as I occasionally inflict on my readers are largely the product of my entirely free, taxpayer-funded university education right here in River City.

I couldn’t possibly comment on whether it was money well spent.

It’s a bit late to thank those working people who so kindly indulged me with their taxes.

I’m afraid that death, the other certainty in life, has probably taken most of them.

The best gratitude my generation of graduates could now show would be to do the right thing for future generations and remove the tax on knowledge.

It wouldn’t be a gift. It would be an investment.