Newcastle University students fight back against fee increases

BY JARROD MELMETH

Newcastle University students have today gathered at the Callaghan campus to protest cuts to education and increases in HECS fees.

Under the latest federal budget released on 10 May, degree costs are set to grow 7.5 percent by 2021 and students will have to start paying back loans as soon as they earn $42,000 a year.

Newcastle University Students Association Welfare Officer, Aesha Awan said the latest budget is a clear attack on students.

"It is once again, trying to chip away at how much we pay and trying to lock out low socioeconomic students from being able to gain a higher education, which we know is one of the easiest ways to start moving up," Ms Awan said.

The protest follows UON's $1 million dollar rebranding announcement which Ms Awan believes goes to show the government's plan towards corporate universities.

"It is getting more and more corporatised and more and more bureaucratized every single day.

"If we look at the rebranding that has just recently happened, that was $1 million spent on rebranding that was unnecessary that we have already seen the student backlash against. 

"We are also seeing this happen while they are also cutting jobs and making the lives of staff harder with performance reviews putting more pressure on.

"The quality of our education is going down, while the university is spending money on things like branding and selling themselves more like a product," Ms Awan said.

Today's protest at the University of Newcastle.

"No cuts to education"

The 2017-18 Budget delivered winners and losers for the Hunter

BY JESSICA ROUSE and IAN CROUCH

Fairness, security and opportunity is how Treasurer Scott Morrison described his 2017-18 Budget last night, which he believes makes the right choices to pull Australians out of a "difficult period".

Throughout the Hunter today, we're all trying to figure out just who the winners and losers are.

Among the winners, the Medicare co-payment will be scrapped from July 1 next year meaning it will cost less to visit the GP, seniors will get one-off payments towards the cost of power bills, and Hunter schools will have a share in the $18.6 billion announced for Gonski funding with a per student funding increase of around 2.5 per cent.

"It's a great news budget for Australia because it's fair, it rewards opportunity and it delivers  economic security going forward - there's a massive infrastructure bill, there's $18.6 billion dollars extra for education over the next 10 years," said Lyne MP David Gillespie.

First home buyers have come out with some positives - Scott Morrison believes the plan for first home buyers to be able to salary sacrifice into their superannuation in order to save for a house deposit is a better, and more targeted measure to make housing more affordable.

Treasurer Scott Morrison Image smh.com.au

However, the problem isn't always in affording the house, but actually finding a property to invest in.

David Gillespie says the problem is housing supply not keeping up with demand and the federal government can only do so much.

"Supply and demand principals of housing has affected affordability. We do have in the big cities quite large numbers of people moving but the housing supply hasn't kept up with the population growth and that's something that state government's and local governments need to buy into just as much as what we're trying to help at the Federal level," he said.

Small business have the instant write-off for $20,000 assets extended for a second year, and businesses with a turnover of up to $50 million are set to receive a company tax cut.

Member for the Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon can't see many benefits for the region at all particularly in terms of infrastructure, with no money on the table for the Glendale Interchange or Muswellbrook and Singleton bypasses.

"A real slap in the face for the Hunter last night, and of course the Glendale interchange project is one supported by all the councils throughout the region so valuable they see it for the economy and to the community. This of course was a budget simply to save Malcolm Turnbull in the party room," said Joel Fitzgibbon.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme will be funded through increasing the Medicare Levy by half a per cent in two years time to close the $5 billion gap.

The Samaritans are delighted with the scheme which Chief Executive Peter Gardiner says "is really critical, so really pleased to see that confirmation from 2019 because people with a disability really do need to have a valued role in our community and that funding will help secure that".

Also, there's $12.5 million over 4 years towards a national health study into the impact of PFAS chemicals which will benefit those affected by the Williamtown RAAF Base contamination. A further $14 million will go towards health-related initiatives, but there's no money yet to pay compensation to residents and business owners.

Shortland MP Pat Conroy

University students have come out losers, with the cost of a four year degree rising by 7.5 per cent adding about $3,000 to the cost of a degree. Students have to pay back their government loans sooner when their income reaches $42,000 instead of the current $55,000.

"There's $3.5 billion of uni cuts and increasing uni fees by 7.5 per cent will have a disproportionate impact on our uni students (The University of Newcastle) because our students are typically mature age students or studying part time - people who are more deterred by high debt than students typically coming straight from school," said Shortland MP Pat Conroy.

Budget Day has arrived...

BY JESSICA ROUSE

Whether it's a better plan for housing affordability or funding boosts for local infrastructure, all will be revealed when the Federal Budget is handed down this evening.

The NRMA is hoping the budget will provide funding boosts to projects they've been involved with across the Hunter, in particular plans for improving the bottleneck at Hexham with traffic heading to and from the Sydney motorway, and the Lake Macquarie interchange which will get commuters out of cars and onto public transport.

Kyle Loades Image dailytelegraph.com.au

NRMA Chairman Kyle Loades believes more funding to continue improving Hunter's major roads will continue to reduce fatalities and make the roads a safer place to be.

"The reality is the more investment into five-star roads saves lives and even though there have been improvements, there's still much more to be done so the federal government need to keep committing more funds for regional and our major roads around the Hunter and beyond," said Kyle Loades.

Meanwhile, Hunter housing experts are confident a solution to the affordable housing crisis in Newcastle will be outlined in tonight's federal budget.

Negative gearing is unlikely to be abolished, but experts say they'd be surprised if a housing solution wasn't discussed in the budget and expect it will increase the supply of affordable housing.

Hunter Director of the Property Council Andrew Fletcher says if there isn't a concrete plan within the budget tonight, "they can also force state and local governments to lift their game in terms of planning and doing those sorts of things over time will see pressure come off rising house prices".

The median house price in Newcastle has risen from around $300,000 to around $500,000 making it near impossible for first home buyers to get into the market and forcing many to look outside of the city.

"We've got commonwealth and NSW budgets due in the coming weeks - at the heart of those budgets we expect new policy measures on housing affordability and policy settings which will help solve the Hunters housing shortage," said Andrew Fletcher.

The worst is yet to come for university students

BY JESSICA ROUSE

University of Newcastle students who take out a loan will be paying it back a lot sooner under an overhaul of funding to be announced in next week's federal budget.

Under the changes, students will be forced to start repaying their HECS debt when their income reaches $42,000 in a financial year instead of the current $54,000.

"This is around the same amount as minimum wage when you include the casual loading so that's asking students, so asking graduates, to pay back thousands of dollars of debt when they're barely meeting minimum wage," said National Union of Students President Sophie Johnston.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced the increase in fees with a cut to university funding.

The Minister says the government will keep to their word and not make students pay a cent upfront.

The increases in student fees will range from $2,000 - $3,600 on average over a four-year course.

Simon Birmingham Image theaustralian.com.au