Sports Stars Should Pay HECS

Since 1989, Australian university students are levied HECS fees, currently between $4400 and $8800 p.a., depending on the type of course. These must be repaid from taxable income, once it reaches a given threshold.

Given the quality of the facilities and very low “student / staff ratios”, it costs more per capita to train elite athletes on scholarships at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) or its state equivalents than to train doctors, scientists, engineers or teachers at Australian universities. In fact, an AIS spokesman quoted in 2009 said it cost an average of $30,000 p.a. for each athlete. That’s about $33,000 p.a. now.

Yet there is no equivalent HECS system for these elite athletes, despite many of them going on to make multi-million dollar incomes from their chosen sport.

Here’s an old (2002) report from the Australia Institute. It contains a good summary of the Australian sports people who have been on AIS scholarships and their current annual earnings … and that was in 2002! You might recognize a few names. Now we can add to that list: Michael Clarke, Lauren Jackson, Bernard Tomic (via Tennis Australia).

Are we really saying these people shouldn’t have to repay to Australian taxpayers the cost of their (clearly successful) training?

People make the counter argument that sporting careers are usually short lived and many do not ever make a livable income from their sport, either through injury or simply because they do not reach the required level. Taxpayer funded, professional wafflers, such as the authors of the Crawford Report agree.

The argument is a non sequitur. There is no reason why any sporting HECS scheme would necessarily require payments from athletes who do not end up deriving large incomes from their sport or related activities; just the ones who do.

I’m not saying governments shouldn’t encourage sport, or fund sporting institutes. They should. As well as promoting health, sport generates employment. It raises people’s spirits. It’s valuable to society. But like the rest of us, sports stars should have to cough up the cost of their training.

The Australia Institute report suggests the Elite Sporting Education Contribution Scheme (ESECS). Its thresholds and repayment rates are a bit generous, but it has the right idea.

An ESECS system should set a progression of income brackets, with increasing repayment rates. AIS athletes should be levied $33,000 p.a., or perhaps a little more. Athletes at lower cost facilities should be levied proportionately. Any unpaid ESECS amounts should increase at the inflation rate, as with HECS.

ESECS debts should be compulsorily repaid at, say 4%, only from income above a given threshold (say $50,000 p.a.), earned through playing or coaching sport, endorsements, media roles, public appearances or any other category of employment where the income is derived through the fame related to the sporting career. For an athlete like Michael Clarke, earning $2M+ p.a., their ESECS debt would be cleared in a couple of years. For a tennis player who got injured and never made it beyond a ranking of 200, then ran a pub, they’d pay nothing.

In what way could such a scheme possibly be unfair? Yet the ALP thinks a better way to increase government revenue is to substantially raise the HECS levies for science students … because scientists tend to find themselves in such highly paying jobs compared to doctors, lawyers, businessmen and sports stars.

Right on, comrades! What we need are more sporting heroes on the public teat, not people who can invent or even just use new technology. Who wants more nerdy brainiacs? Or maybe we need more people with degrees in management and public administration, right Wayne? You fucking moron.