Federal Budget tonight....

[Ms_Fi]

I've deferred my uni place till next year and no one can tell me what's happening with my fees. It's crazy - surely the best thing is a new election and start from scratch.

[Cassius2]

I'm just pooping my pants that i will not find a job fast enough before the indexation of my HELP loan begins. So not looking forward to that kind of debt build up. Sitting here with a university education but pretty much a SAHM with some side RA work...I guess I should of taken TAs advice and just of stuck to the ironing.

[AnyDream]

Cass, my Plan B - depending on how they handle the interest rate - is to roll it into my home loan. I figure I've got an extra 5-10 years of working life ahead of me to pay it off now that they're making those super/retirement changes .

FWIW this is one of those areas where women in this country really don't have a voice at all. WOMEN are far more likely to wear the negative consequences of these policy changes due to the way we take time away from work for child-raising, slower career & salary progression, etc. I want to see the HECS outstanding debt figures divided into meaningful demographic splits like age, gender and age AND gender, and then the real story of why the debts aren't being repaid will be revealed...

[Cassius2]

I can totally say without abandon that mine is not being repaid because I have been gender biased in the past (read: discriminated...my fellow male workmates with less quals being paid MORE...oh that sucked Big Ones) and then I went off and had kids and have only been open to flexible work arrangements...which although protected by law usually mean, just not available.

I have the double whammy of being in the university sector that is facing extraordinary cuts to funding and the business bottom line will not see any research improvements with the elevation of fees (there will be no trickle down effect towards new research funding schemes despite the absolute shellacking of the ARC capabilities). So basically I am up a certain creek with a theoretical paddle that has an abject fear of axes.

It sucks as I already feel like the economic burden on my family and this just adds to it in a rather ironic manner.

[onthefly]

I paid mine as I worked overseas for a number of years before starting a family and had savings.
In NZ they've had to declare an "amnesty" because so many people did their degrees then sodded off overseas to earn money and never repaid anything.
I don't know how the HECS and fee issues will pan out, but they won't get through in their current form, that's for sure.

[Cassius2]

onthefly: that's what we are thinking...already planning a visiting fellow OS for the end of the year for some months and see where our options take us. and this obviously not for the debt but also for the whole university restructuring that is being threatened with the budget. neither DH or I are comfortable with the product we will be forced to sell if it goes the whole hog.

[Trillian]

FWIW this is one of those areas where women in this country really don't have a voice at all.

When have women ever really had a voice? Women have been fighting the patriarchy for years on a number of issues and we're still no better off really. We might *think* we are, but we aren't unfortunately.

You know things are bad though when even the US is taking the mickey out of our 'right wing' PM.

[AnyDream]

True. But I do feel a bit like the feminine voice is more muffled now than it was 15-20 years ago when there was more campaigning around discrimination, especially in the work place. I think there's an assumption now that women will be treated equally, but not a lot of awareness around the systemic inequalities that cause this not to happen (mostly out of view).

[Trillian]

Oh definitely, agree with you 100%. Most people think we don't need feminism anymore, that it's done it's job and that hey, isn't everything fantastic for women now, but the reality is that we are more worse off than we ever were IMO.