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Equity and the impact of the Nelson reforms: gender equity has no place in the latest restructure of higher education.

Article Excerpt
When the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) was introduced in 1987, the main argument used to justify it was one about equity. The dominant view amongst key Labor policy makers in the mid-1980s was that only a few privileged people received direct benefits from universities (higher life-long income returns), yet 'the already over burdened taxpayers were the ones who had to foot the bill'.

By the mid-1980s, Labor policy makers like Peter Walsh and John Dawkins were convinced that the 'Whitlam experiment' of broadening university access had failed and were now complaining that 'the wealthy' and 'middle class' were benefiting from a 'free ride' to university education on the backs of 'ordinary workers'.

The reintroduction of partial tuition fees--with deferred repayment options that were income contingent--provided 'an ideal' means for realising what was described as Labor's equity objective in the late 1980s.

In the intervening period, arguments about restoring equity and strengthening the public university system have given way as HECS, in its various incarnations, has become an income-generating mechanism that has been used, particularly by the Howard Government since 1996, to extend the...

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