Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to support the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025—a bill that delivers real cost-of-living relief, makes our education system fairer and reflects our Aussie values—because that's what we do on this side of the House. I often feel that the people of Spence really feel they can relate to the immortal lyrics of the great Dolly Parton, 'Barely getting by; it's all talking and no giving,' but last Wednesday, at the very beginning of this 48th Parliament of Australia, after talking the talk before the election, we walked the walk and gave something back by introducing this bill. When people are doing it tough, we don't just look away. That's not the Labor way, and it sure isn't the Australian way. We get stuck in and help each other out.

This bill delivers on our election commitment to cut all student debt by 20 per cent. No matter your degree, your speciality, your pathway or whether you completed your degree, if you have a HECS debt you will benefit from this bill. This isn't just limited to HECS debt. If you have a VET or TAFE loan, those debts will also be reduced by 20 per cent. This is real cost-of-living relief for three million Australians with student debt. Whether you're fresh out of studying and into a new job, saving to buy a home and live out the Australian dream or juggling a mortgage or a family or even both, we know that every little bit helps. Not everyone gets that, though.

Before the election, the Liberals called this relief 'profoundly unfair'. They opposed it and said that they would not do the same if they won on 3 May. Millions of Australians voted to make this cut a reality, so you would think that the Liberal Party would have heard what people said and changed their tune before coming to Canberra this week. You would think that they would support this, and we had a reason to believe they would when the opposition leader said that they would wave it through. But then on Monday one of the members in this place called 20 per cent off student debt grossly unfair. To them I say this: I hope you have the hide to say that to the over 19,000 people in Spence whose student debt will be cut when this bill passes or the over 470,000 teachers, 300,000 nurses and midwives and 210,000 aged-care workers and disability carers that will benefit from this cut.

This bill does something else too. It also cuts the minimum and annual repayments Australians with a student debt have to make every year. In other words it means if you have a HECS debt you'll have to pay less back each year. For someone making $70,000, these changes will reduce HECS payments by $1,300 a year. It means that you only have to start paying off your uni degree when uni starts to pay off for you. That puts money back in the pockets of people who are just out of uni, just moving out of home, just getting started in life. That's why I really care about this—not because it was recommended in a review but because it will make people's lives just a little bit easier. That's why we should all be in here in this place. If that's not why you're here serving this parliament, serving your constituency, it's time to reconsider your priorities.

I want people in Spence to have every opportunity in life that the people in Burnside do. But, for so many people, uni has just been that dream that has often felt too far out of reach. There's still more to do here to make uni as accessible as possible for people in my community. These changes are part of it. Paid prac placements for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students are part of it. It's also why we're delivering a new university study hub in Elizabeth. It brings uni closer to where people live so they can balance work, study and family more easily, without having to trek into the city. It will also help more people from Spence get a fair crack at going to uni. This study hub is due to officially open in its forever home in the coming months, and I can't wait to see the benefits it will deliver to our students and our community.

We've also made HECS indexation fairer to make sure your debt can never grow faster than your wages. We're delivering more fee-free TAFE and university-ready courses, and we're making free TAFE permanent to make sure we have the skills we need. But there's more to do, and that'll take time. There's no silver bullet that will fix this overnight, especially not with how those opposite left things. During the pandemic, school, TAFE and university became more stressful than normal. Classes went online. Placements were cancelled or delayed. Jobs disappeared overnight. Isolation, stress and uncertainty became the new norm. Yet students pressed on. They kept studying. They adapted and improvised. They made so many sacrifices, as we all did, to finish their degrees. What did the Liberals do? I wish I could say they did nothing, but it was even worse than that. They hiked up fees and made it harder for young people to get a crack at university—just a complete slap in the face. That's the real contrast here. In the red corner you have a government that's stepping up to ease the burden, and in the blue corner you have the party that made things worse then turned its back when people needed it most.

Let's be clear. This 20 per cent cut isn't just about money. It's about recognising the effort, the grit and the emotional toll that studying can take on students. It's about saying, 'We see you, we value you and we've got your back,' because education isn't a throwaway privilege for the few; it's a right, a pillar of opportunity. When people invest in their education, when they take out a loan to try and build a better future, they shouldn't be punished for it. They shouldn't be hit with rising repayments, inflated indexation and political spin that says, 'Just deal with it.' That is what I consider 'grossly unfair'.

What's also unfair is stacking decades worth of debt onto a generation that's already locked out of homeownership. What's unfair is expecting our teachers, our nurses and our early childhood educators to take on debt for the privilege of doing jobs this country desperately needs. We don't get stronger as a nation by keeping people underwater. We grow by lifting each other up. This policy does just that.

In Spence you'll find suburbs where fewer than one in five young people go to uni, not because they're not smart, not because they don't want to but because they look at the cost—the long-term debt and the uncertainty—and decide it's not worth it. This 20 per cent wipe tells them a different story. It says: 'We believe in you. We're going to look out for you now and we're going to keep looking out for you in the future.' That matters, especially in places like Elizabeth, Davoren Park, Munno Para and Salisbury North, where people have talent in spades but often do not have the financial backing to make dreams a reality.

While I'm proud of what this bill delivers, I'm also thinking about where we go from here, because this can't be the end of the conversation about student debt in this country. We've got to keep looking at how we support the next generation of tradespeople, teachers, social workers and researchers. We've got to make sure that someone's postcode doesn't determine their potential. That's why we'll keep pushing for more support for students, especially in regional and outer suburban areas, because it's not just tuition that holds people back; it's travel, rent and time away from paid work. Those barriers disproportionately hit the exact people we most need in our workforce. We're talking about students who want to become community nurses, aged-care workers and youth justice case managers—the real backbone of society. I do not want to have to tell them, 'Hey, it's great that you want to serve others, but it's going to cost you thousands in lost income while you do it.'

I know that some people in this place might like to sneer when we talk about transformational change. They scoff at the idea that something like a HECS debt cut could change lives. Well, I invite them to spend a week in Spence, to sit down with a nursing student in Andrews Farm, a social work student in Craigmore or a first-in-their-family uni kid from Smithfield. Tell them their future doesn't matter. Tell them it's too expensive to give them a break. I guarantee you, what some might consider a handout we call fairness. What some call reckless we call responsible nation building.

This government is delivering for people—not just headlines, not just slogans but practical, meaningful change. This bill is proof of that. It's a reflection of the values that I, alongside my Labor colleagues, bring with us every day when representing our communities: fairness, opportunity and respect for working people, as well as an unshakable belief that government should be a force for good. So, to the three million Australians who have student debt, I say this: we heard you, we backed you and we'll keep backing you, because your future is this nation's future. I commend this bill to the House.

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