Exposed: The Greens’ radical plan to bring Albanians into the coalition by bringing back policies that extreme Labor abandoned them decades ago – and it will cost them thousands of dollars.

Continuing their strategy of aggressively targeting disaffected inner-city Labor voters, the Green Party today announced a radical policy to cancel total student debt.

If elected, he would wipe out all existing HECS debt at a staggering cost of $81 billion. This extends Labor’s already pledge to cut student loan debt by 20%. But contrary to Albo’s election promises, the Green Party’s policy is essentially to secretly reintroduce free education.

Free education was a Labor policy introduced by Gough Whitlam that was so extreme and expensive for taxpayers that Bob Hawke’s Labor government had to scrap it.

Now Australian taxpayers will be the biggest losers if Labor is forced to reintroduce the policy after next year’s election in return for a power-sharing deal with the Greens.

The Greens say their policies are about ‘putting an extra $5,500 a year into people’s pockets’ during the cost-of-living crisis and ‘making it easier for first home buyers’, but in reality they are canceling an average of $27,600 in student loan debt. What they plan to do is effectively revive the free education model that existed from 1974 to 1989.

Of course, ‘free’ education was too expensive to be sustainable and Education Secretary John Dawkins introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS).

Since then, graduates, who generally earn more than those who did not attend college, have been required to pay off their student debt once their income reaches a certain level, rather than leaving it entirely on taxpayers.

Professor Emeritus Bruce Chapman, the economist who designed HECS, said the Green Party’s ‘extremely expensive’ policy punishes people who do not go to university.

Continuing their strategy of aggressively targeting disaffected inner-city Labor voters, the Green Party today announced a radical policy to cancel total student debt. (Photo caption: Monash University students)

‘Let’s start from free. ‘There is no such thing as free higher education,’ he said.

‘If it’s free for students, the taxpayers are paying for it.

‘Someone has to pay. That means it’s free for students and free for graduates.’

Taxpayers already cost an average of $20,000 per year when a student enrolls in full-time study.

Colleges receive money up front from the government, but once a student graduates and earns $54,435 a year, they have to wait several years before the tax office starts collecting unpaid debts.

“If students don’t contribute anything, it’s fully paid for with public funds,” Professor Chapman said.

‘Who provides public funds? And the answer is all taxpayers.’

Professor Chapman, who has been an economist at the Australian National University since 1984, says it is the working class who graduate from cross-subsidized universities end up earning higher incomes later in life.

‘Anyone who leaves school after Year 12 or before Year 12 or has an apprenticeship has to pay tax,’ he says.

Professor emeritus Bruce Chapman, an economist who designed the higher education endowment system, said the Greens’ policy punishes people who don’t go to university.

‘It’s a problem. Most non-graduates do not do as well in the labor market as graduates. That’s why it’s unequal because it requires those without degrees to cover the additional costs of graduates paying nothing.

‘It’s probably the most unfair aspect of public policy education you can devise.’

Fresh out of college typically earns $71,000, which is already higher than the median income of $67,600.

However, those studying subjects such as dentistry can earn $94,400 right away.

Merin Farooqi, the Green Party’s higher education deputy leader, did not use the term ‘free education’ in her press release on Monday, but her intention was clear to appeal to the 2.9 million students who are in debt.

‘Student loan debt can’t be solved because student debt shouldn’t exist,’ she said.

‘I need to pay off all my student loan debt.’

While the Greens only have four voters in the House of Commons, Labor is at risk of losing more urban and high-end seats to the Greens, who have a higher proportion of university students.

Education Secretary Jason Clare announced this month that the government would spend $16 billion to reduce student debt by 20%.

HECS or Higher Education Loan Program fee increases will be indexed to the wage price index or the consumer price index, whichever is lower, from June 2025.

Green Party deputy leader Mehreen Farooqi, who runs the party’s higher education wing, did not use the term ‘free education’ in Monday’s press release, but the intention was clear.

If they win 3% of the vote for Labor, as Newspoll predicts, Labor would lose seven seats and therefore a majority.

The Greens already hold three Assembly seats in Brisbane and one in Melbourne, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s inner-west Sydney seat of Graydler overlaps with the state’s Greens’ Newtown and Balmain electorates.

Senator Faruqi pointed out how the late baby boomer PM benefited from free education as a student at the University of Sydney in the 1980s.

‘If Anthony Albanese could go to college for free, so could everyone else,’ she said.

The Greens claimed former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd’s former inner Brisbane seat of Griffith in 2022 and are now eyeing the Melbourne electorate once held by Prime Minister Hawke, who abolished free education.

Former Victorian MP Samantha Ratnam, who is now running for the Greens in Wills, also featured in Monday’s announcement on student loan debt settlement.

‘People in the will know they can’t keep voting for the same two parties and expect different results,’ she said.

Australian taxpayers will be the biggest losers if Labor is forced to introduce this policy after next year’s election in return for a power-sharing deal with the Greens. (Photo caption: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese)

‘Only the Greens will pay off your student debt so you can keep more of your paycheck.’

Albanese’s left wing opposed the abolition of free education in the 1980s, but has since supported deferring student payments in the Labor caucus. But the Greens have resurrected an old ghost that will haunt all taxpayers, degree or not.

Australia was not the only country to abolish free education at the expense of taxpayers, with British Labor Party Prime Minister Tony Blair introducing tuition fee deferral in 1998, and New Zealand abolishing free education for first-year students this year.

US Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election last week after her boss Joe Biden announced he would cancel up to AU$20,000 (AU$30,300) in student loan debt.

Working-class American voters without a college degree balked at this policy and threw their lot in with Donald Trump. But if the Greens appeal to debt-ridden graduates, they are very likely to lead them into a government shared with Labour.

And as history shows, someone has to pay for all this free education. The person who benefits from the degree is not the graduate. It’s the taxpayers.