Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Human Services) (14:55): I thank Senator Seselja for the question. He is absolutely right. There are enormous benefits for students in these higher education reforms. For a start, they will ensure access to the best higher education possible in Australia. They will have massive scholarship support. There will be Commonwealth support for all Australian undergraduates, meaning lower fees for many and better pathways into higher education. Senator Kim Carr: $5.8 billion worth of cuts! The PRESIDENT: Senator Carr! Senator PAYNE: So, students should reject the scare campaign, because it just is not true. In fact, just today Dr Geoff Sharrock of the LH Martin Institute at the University of Melbourne has published an article headed 'Labor's '$100,000 degree' projections are misleading'. And he proves why. He says: The problem is that the ALP’s “debt sentence” case studies are misleading. Even the shadow Assistant Treasurer, Dr Andrew Leigh, gives the lie to the scare campaign on fees when he says that there is no reason to think that fee deregulation will adversely affect poorer students. He knows that, because under HECS no student needs to pay a cent up-front, and no-one needs to repay anything— Senator Kim Carr: Now they've got a lifetime to pay it off! The PRESIDENT: Senator Carr! Senator PAYNE: until they are earning over $50,000. And universities have made it clear that there will not be the exorbitant fees claimed by the scare campaigners. In fact, the so-called modelling that the scare campaign uses is typically pure invention. What about the NTEU? What they do is take a figure and then add a mystery 25 per cent surcharge, and then they double it. Why don't you just pluck it from mid-air? It would be just as credible. But fortunately students overwhelmingly realise that undertaking higher education is the best investment in their future and in themselves that they will ever make.