VET Student Loans (Miscellaneous Measures) Act 2025

VET Student Loans (Miscellaneous Measures) Act 2025

No. 77, 2025

An Act to authorise certain things done in relation to tax file numbers in connection with loans to students, and for related purposes

Contents

1 Short title

2 Commencement

3 Definitions

4 Authorisation

5 Compensation for acquisition of property

VET Student Loans (Miscellaneous Measures) Act 2025

No. 77, 2025

An Act to authorise certain things done in relation to tax file numbers in connection with loans to students, and for related purposes

[Assented to 4 December 2025]

The Parliament of Australia enacts:

1  Short title

  This Act is the VET Student Loans (Miscellaneous Measures) Act 2025.

2  Commencement

 (1) Each provision of this Act specified in column 1 of the table commences, or is taken to have commenced, in accordance with column 2 of the table. Any other statement in column 2 has effect according to its terms.

Note: This table relates only to the provisions of this Act as originally enacted. It will not be amended to deal with any later amendments of this Act.

 (2) Any information in column 3 of the table is not part of this Act. Information may be inserted in this column, or information in it may be edited, in any published version of this Act.

3  Definitions

 (1) In this Act:

deal, with a tax file number, means:

 (a) require or request the quoting of the tax file number; or

 (b) collect the tax file number; or

 (c) record the tax file number; or

 (d) store the tax file number; or

 (e) use the tax file number; or

 (f) disclose the tax file number.

do a thing includes:

 (a) make a decision (however described); and

 (b) exercise a power, perform a function, comply with an obligation or discharge a duty; and

 (c) do anything else;

and purport to do a thing has a corresponding meaning.

relevant period means the period beginning at the start of 1 January 2017 and ending immediately before 1 October 2025.

relevant person means:

 (a) the Secretary; or

 (b) the Commissioner; or

 (c) an approved course provider; or

 (d) a Commonwealth officer; or

 (e) an officer of an approved course provider.

 (2) Expressions used in this Act that are defined for the purposes of the VET Student Loans Act 2016 have the same meaning as in that Act.

4  Authorisation

 (1) This section applies if:

 (a) at any time during the relevant period, a relevant person dealt with a student’s tax file number for the purposes of facilitating the administration of or administering:

 (i) the student’s application for a VET student loan; or

 (ii) the student’s VET student loan; and

 (b) the dealing was not authorised by a law of the Commonwealth (apart from subsections (2) and (3)).

 (2) The dealing is taken for all purposes (except for the purposes of rule 13 of the Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015) to have been, and to always have been:

 (a) authorised by the VET Student Loans Act 2016; and

 (b) in connection with and reasonably necessary for the relevant person’s performance of one or more of that person’s functions under that Act.

 (3) The VET Student Loans Act 2016 is taken to have been, and to always have been, a taxation law for the purposes of:

 (a) sections 8WA and 8WB of the Taxation Administration Act 1953; and

 (b) the Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015, but excluding rule 13 of that instrument.

 (4) To avoid doubt, anything done, or anything purported to have been done, by a person that would have been wholly, or partly, invalid or unlawful except for subsections (2) and (3) is taken for all purposes to be valid and lawful and to have always been valid and lawful, despite any effect that may have on the accrued rights of any person.

 (5) For the purposes of applying this Act:

 (a) in relation to civil and criminal proceedings, this Act applies in relation to:

 (i) civil and criminal proceedings instituted before the commencement of this Act and not concluded before the commencement of this Act; and

 (ii) civil and criminal proceedings instituted on or after the commencement of this Act; and

 (b) in relation to the Privacy Act 1988, this Act applies in relation to:

 (i) complaints made to the Information Commissioner before the commencement of this Act in relation to which the Information Commissioner has not made a determination before the commencement of this Act; and

 (ii) complaints made to the Information Commissioner on or after the commencement of this Act.

5  Compensation for acquisition of property

 (1) If:

 (a) apart from this section, the operation of section 4 would result in an acquisition of property (within the meaning of paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution) from a person otherwise than on just terms (within the meaning of that paragraph); and

 (b) the acquisition would be invalid because of paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution;

the Commonwealth is liable to pay a reasonable amount of compensation to the person.

 (2) If the Commonwealth and the person do not agree on the amount of the compensation, the person may institute proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia for the recovery from the Commonwealth of such reasonable amount of compensation as the court determines.

[Minister’s second reading speech made in—

House of Representatives on 29 October 2025

Senate on 26 November 2025]