Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Labor is the party of education and Labor is the party of aspiration. This bill delivers both, cutting 20 per cent off all student debt for university students but also, importantly, vocational education and training students too, saving around three million Australians an average of $5½ thousand and, importantly, making the repayment system fairer for the future, delivering a permanent structural boost to the take-home pay of young Australians.

Two hundred and sixty-eight days ago, in the electorate of Sturt, I promised that this 20 per cent cut to student debt would be the first bill that we brought into this parliament. Today, we deliver that. Every member of the government knows how important that promise was to Australians who we engaged with from that day, 268 days ago, right through to 3 May. Twenty per cent off student debt was the first bill we introduced to the parliament. Now, this bill will be the first bill that passes this parliament as well, because that is what our government is all about: delivery, turning promises into progress.

We started at the beginning of this month, 1 July, delivering cost-of-living relief, a real pay rise for three million people on minimum wage and award wages. We haven't just done it once; we've done it again and again and again. At the 2022 election, the $1 coin I held up, something that those in the then government said would see the sky fall in, saw us win the support of workers, who understood how important it was. On 1 July, that real wage increase, following on from the tax cuts that we had from 1 July last year, means that our commitment to have people earn more and keep more of what they earn is being delivered.

There's another round of energy bill relief for every household and every small business. We expanded paid parental leave by two weeks and, importantly, we added superannuation to it for the first time. We increased the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent for every single working Australian, and we introduced as well the $10,000 incentive for construction apprentices, following the successful implementation of our program for new energy apprentices. That had already been implemented. Our Cheaper Home Batteries Program, permanently cutting power bills and taking pressure off the grid, has been an enormous success. The energy minister reported to parliament yesterday that, in just a matter of weeks, the figure is that already over 12,000 households have benefited from this policy. And we'll finish July with real cost-of-living relief for all three million Australians with a student debt.

Education is the most powerful weapon we have against disadvantage. It is the best investment that we can make in a stronger, more productive and more skilled economy. Education is fundamental to the Labor mission. It opens the doors of opportunity and widens them. That is why we are doubling the number of university hubs in the regions and outer suburbs—to bring higher education to communities that were missing out. It is why also an important measure came in on 1 July: we delivered paid prac—paid prac for students studying to be nurses, to be social workers and to be teachers. I think that most Australians would be stunned to hear that someone studying to be a nurse, to look after their fellow Australians, would have to sacrifice a part-time job in order to go do the prac that's a part of their course—to be penalised financially for doing so. The measures that we've put in place there will make an enormous difference. That's new financial support for the next generation of teachers, nurses and social workers so that they're not put in that position while they're on placements.

In last year's budget we wiped $3 billion in student debt from Australians who had been caught out by the global spike in inflation. This saved a person with an average debt around $1,200. We addressed that one-off and fixed the system so it could never happen again.

But at the election on 3 May, of course, people did have a choice. You had our position of paid prac and then taking 20 per cent off student debt, and you had the coalition, which released its costings just on the Thursday of the election week, on 1 May. They released their policy, which not only was to oppose the 20 per cent reduction in student debt; it was to get rid of the paid prac policy and to put that onto students' HECS debt. It was a bit like their tax policy that said not only were they opposed to the tax cuts that will come in on 1 July next year and the July after but they would legislate to increase taxation for all 14 million taxpayers. In this area of policy, they not only opposed the 20 per cent student debt reduction; they said they would add to student debt by adding the paid prac payments to the HECS debt that people owed the government.

Our government understands that student debt can hang over young Australians. It can affect how much they can borrow for a home. It impacts decisions they make about family and career. That's why, when those opposite said that this was somehow unfair, we said that this was an intergenerational-equity measure to make an enormous difference. It's not like we came out with it at the last minute. We came out with it in November, in a speech in Adelaide in the electorate of Sturt, and made it clear that it would be, as we said at that time, the first piece of legislation we would introduce into the 48th Parliament.

Because of the changes that the Morrison government made, as well, HECS came out of your take-home pay sooner. Right at the heart of our election campaign was the commitment to tackle this intergenerational unfairness, and that's what this legislation is about. It takes 20 per cent off student debt, the debt that was there. We imposed it from 1 June, before indexation came in, and are making the system better and fairer into the future.

We are raising the repayment threshold from $54,000 up to $67,000. We're lowering the rate of repayments and indexing both to keep them fair. This means that someone earning $70,000 will save around $1,300 a year in repayments, helping everyone repaying a student debt right now and delivering a better deal for every student in the years ahead. It's permanent, structural reform to boost take-home pay for young Australians, putting money back into people's pockets and putting fairness back into the system. It's good for the cost of living, good for this generation and generations to come and good for building Australia's future. I'm proud to lead a government delivering on this commitment and I'm proud to commend this bill to the House.

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