Greens oppose HECS debt sale October 16, 2013 - 12:46PM The Australian Greens would strongly oppose any move by the federal coalition government to on-sell $23 billion of HECS debt to the private sector. The Abbott government is looking at ways to generate savings for the budget, which is likely to remain in deficit until 2016/17. One option could be to gather the debt owed to the commonwealth by higher education students, convert it to a financial market instrument such as an asset-backed security, and on-sell it to sophisticated investors such as superannuation funds. "The Greens are strongly opposed to any proposals to privatise the debt of university students," the minor party's higher education spokesperson Lee Rhiannon said on Wednesday. She fears shifting debt ownership to private hands may create "perverse incentives" for the government to increase student debt in the long term. "The private sector isn't lobbying for this change out of the goodness of their hearts," Senator Rhiannon said in a statement. The process of on-selling student debt to investors is familiar in the US and is used by the formerly US government-operated SLM Corp, also known as Sallie Mae. The coalition is also planning a government-wide commission of audit to uncover public sector waste and consider potential asset sales. It's already flagged plans to reduce public sector worker numbers by 12,000 and privatise health insurer Medibank.