The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a second time,( Read more about the stages that a bill must pass through in order to become law here. ) which was moved by the Minister for Education Christopher Pyne. This means that the majority agree with the main idea of the bill.
Background to the bill
The bill was introduced to remove the HECS-HELP up-front payment discount for units of study with a census date on or after 1 January 2014 and remove the HELP voluntary repayment bonus for repayments made on or after 1 January 2014.(Read more about tertiary education fees and funding in Australia here.) It also applies an efficiency dividend of 2 per cent in 2014 and 1.25 per cent in 2015 to Commonwealth contribution amounts under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme.