Election 2025: UWA law lecturer gives grossly biased view

A UWA law lecturer on Tuesday donned a T-shirt that read ‘good morning to everyone except Peter Dutton’ and delivered a lecture on how it was ‘unfortunate’ the Greens were not a major party.

University of Western Australia associate law lecturer Amy Thomasson delivers a lecture on Tuesday.

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A University of Western Australia law lecturer on Tuesday donned a T-shirt that read “good morning to everyone except Peter Dutton” and delivered a lecture on how it was “unfortunate” the Greens were not a major party and how Labor policies would benefit students.

Associate lecturer Amy Thomasson – whose staff member page appeared to have been taken down on Thursday after The ­Australian asked the university for comment – is listed as a co-­ordinator for the Law for Everyday Lives course and delivered a lecture about Labor’s tax, HECS, and first-home buyer policies at the next election.

Her T-shirt is sold by left-wing influencer Hannah Ferguson who was among the cadre of influencers Labor invited to Parliament House earlier this year to cover the budget.

Ms Thomasson – for over 20 minutes – walked students through Labor’s latest income tax cut, its re-engineered stage three tax cut, about Labor’s recalculation of HECS debt interest, its pledge to cut 20 per cent of HECS debt, and the unpopularity of the Coalition’s super for housing policy.

When contacted for comment, the UWA said the course “explores the impact of contemporary legal and social policy on all areas of modern life” and that “Tuesday’s lecture contained relevant, balanced content and, in the context of the current federal election, appropriately included information and analysis regarding current political policy”.

The spokeswoman did not directly address whether the university thought the T-shirt was appropriate, saying instead that UWA “upholds the right to academic freedom of speech in areas of professional expertise in the teaching environment, and in accordance with the UWA Code for the Protection of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom and the Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct”.

A parent of a student in the course told The Australian they thought the lecture amounted to “indoctrination and intimidation” and that it was outside academic freedom to wear such political T-shirts.

“What does it say to the students in terms of, if I express a different point of view, how’s that going to affect my results?” they said. “I think it’s intimidating for the kids who might not necessarily share those political views.”

In a recording of the lecture, Ms Thomasson tells the students, “I wanted to talk briefly about these tax cuts”.

“The Coalition government – so think way back, you might not want to – but think way back to Scott Morrison’s government.

“They basically had this package of tax cuts in 2018 and 2019 aimed at tackling what we call bracket creep.”

She proceeded to explain the rationale for why the Albanese government tinkered with the stage three changes and the place of the latest Labor income tax cut in the mix. She then moved on to the 20 per cent HECS debt cuts and displayed a table on the screen showing how much people with various debt levels would save under the pledge.

“The Greens jumped on it – they were like, let’s do this now before the election,” she explained.

“Obviously Labor were like, no, we’re not going to do that. So unfortunately, we’re going to have to see if the Labor government is re-elected to see whether this ends up happening.

“The Greens have a policy of wiping all student debt – obviously, for reasons that are probably obvious to you, it’s unlikely that that’s going to happen because the Greens are not, unfortunately, a major party in our system.”

She noted the Coalition had opposed this cut.

“They won’t cut 20 per cent off student debts, basically saying it’s unfair, which I don’t really get but whatever.”

Later in the lecture, she turned to policies for first-home buyers.

“What the Coalition – one of the few policies they actually have – what the Coalition has said they are going to do is basically let you withdraw even your compulsory contributions, so that 11 per cent that your employer has to contribute every pay slip,” she said.

“So they’re basically extending an existing scheme to include compulsory contributions as well. Now they have said that money will have to be repaid once the house that you bought it with is sold, to support your retirement. So I guess that’s good, because it’s not like you’re taking money out of your retirement, but also relies on the house increasing in value, which might not necessarily be the case.

“Obviously generally the case, but might not necessarily be the case. Anyway, people don’t like this very much. A poll by a housing welfare group called Everybody’s Home shows that just over 75 per cent of Australians think it’s a bad idea.

“A lot of commentators have made the point that it doesn’t really resolve the housing crisis because it doesn’t increase supply, it just increases demand and that ultimately makes houses less affordable in the long run.”