Senator McLucas asked the Minister representing the Minister for Education, Science and Training, upon notice, on 9 September 2002:

With reference to Table 1, page 7, of the discussion paper on university finances, Setting Firm Foundations, which lists the distribution of Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) debts—Can the following information be provided, in the same format as Table 1: The distribution of HECS debts and the average HECS debt of: (a) all HECS debtors who have not made any repayments and who first incurred a HECS debt in or prior to 1999; (b) graduates who have not made any repayments and who first incurred a HECS debt in or prior to 1999; (c) all HECS debtors who have not made any repayments; (d) graduates who have not made any repayments; (e) all HECS debtors who first incurred a HECS debt between 1997 and 1999 and who have not made any repayments; and (f) graduates who first incurred a HECS debt between 1997 and 1999 and who have not made any repayments.

Senator Alston (Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) —The Minister for Education, Science and Training has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) administers HECS repayments. The HECS management information system used by the ATO for this purpose is not designed to generate all of the data requested by the honourable member. The ATO data system can only identify HECS debtors as a single group. It cannot distinguish between graduates with a HECS debt and current students with a HECS debt. Thus, only responses to parts (a), (c), and (e) of the honourable member's question can be provided.

As requested by the honourable member, the data has been presented in the same format as the data in Table 1 of the issues paper Setting Firm Foundations: Financing Australian Higher Education (DEST, July 2002) which shows the distribution of HECS debts by level of debt, as per the table below.