Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

They never go out of fashion; that's correct, Member for Durack.

According to the last census, 12.6 per cent of people in Wills are students, and they're students in tertiary education; 44.2 per cent of the people in Wills have a bachelor's degree or above. It is a very highly educated electorate, being one of the highest in the country on both measures. People don't deserve to be burdened by a lifetime debt because of their choice to study. They deserve to be supported by their government, by this government. That's what we're doing. We're supporting those people by cutting 20 per cent off student loan debts, increasing the minimum repayment threshold and introducing a marginal repayment system for student debt.

But what does this legislation really mean for someone in my community? Let's take the example of James. There is a real James here, one of the young people I've spoken to about the HECS debt that they have. James is 27. He has a HECS debt of $68,700 and earned just above $82,500 last financial year. This bill that we're passing here will cut $13,700 from James's HECS debt and he will have around an extra $800 a year in his pocket from our reduction in the compulsory repayment amount. This is thousands of dollars more in people's pockets, providing necessary cost-of-living relief while allowing them to save and invest more in what they want and what they need.

It also means James will repay his HECS debt sooner. He says to me he'll put it towards his savings for a home deposit, which he noted will become much more achievable thanks to our government's Help to Buy shared equity scheme. Thank you, James.

This bill is just one part of what the Labor government has done for education in Australia. Many of my constituents knew what was at stake at the last election. If the Liberals had won government, they would have scrapped all of this. None of this would have actually materialised. Our government is providing $2.5 billion for all Victorian public schools over the next decade as part of the Gonski reforms. That means more individualised support for students.

Meanwhile, we have the Liberal Party's former leader saying that school funding 'isn't an issue'. That's surprising! The Liberals went to the last election opposing this 20 per cent cut to student debt. In fact, their party and members of their party labelled it 'elitist' and 'profoundly unfair'. That's what they said about this 20 per cent cut. They said—and this is the irony of this—that they'd rather wipe off $20,000 for bosses' lunches! Please tell me, Deputy Speaker, which of those is 'elitist' or 'profoundly unfair'? I know which one is. Earlier this year, the Liberals opposed making free TAFE courses permanent. They opposed Labor delivering half a million fee-free TAFE places—the fee-free TAFE program that is delivering more nurses, childcare workers, tradies and workers for other high-demand industries. They gutted TAFE last time they were in government. During the election, the Liberals released costings showing they planned to cut our expansions to the Commonwealth Prac Payment that were done in our first term, which would've forced student teachers to give up paid work to complete teaching placements. We put those prac payments in place because we knew how important it was for their cost-of-living relief in doing their work and their study. Last time the Liberals were in government, they increased university fees. They wanted younger Australians to be straddled with more debt as they were starting out their lives. They made humanities degrees more expensive, as if studying humanities should only be for the wealthy.

A lot of people know that I grew up in a Housing Commission home. I'm a houso, like the Prime Minister and like the Minister for Agriculture. There are probably a few more in this House. But because of the visionary policies of successive Labor governments, I got the opportunity to study arts and law at Melbourne university, even though I grew up in a Housing Commission home. Those policies by the Hawke and Keating governments gave me a pathway, like they did for millions of Australians, because education is so critically important. It opens up the door to opportunity for so many Australians, and it's because of education that I've been able to make my contribution, as millions of other Australians have done, whether in the public sphere or in the private sector. It has given me a pathway to having this honour of representing the people of Wills in this place. I know that the Minister for Education, my friend Jason Clare, has spoken of his story about being the first member of his family to get a higher education. That's because of those policies. That's what makes a difference, because we believe in education as an investment in the Australian people.

My mum and dad, who migrated from Egypt over 50 years ago, worked so hard—and this is not a unique story; migrants have this in common—to give my sister and I a better life. The one thing they kept saying to us is: 'Get a good education. Make sure that you get a good education. We don't care what you do—you can work in a factory, you can be a tradie, or you can be a professor; do whatever you want to do in life—but make sure you get an education and get a degree. Fulfil your potential and give yourself that pathway.' That's what dad used to say to me all the time: 'Get a good education.'

This bill to cut 20 per cent of student debt represents real cost-of-living relief for millions of young Australians. It's money they'll see more of in their take-home pay. It's money they'll put in their saving accounts as they save up for a house deposit, a down payment on a new rental or another major purchase. But, more importantly, it is an investment in them. It is an investment in their future, their education, their potential, their pathway to being able to make their contribution to change their community for the better, to change lives for the better. That's what education gives us. It is a precious gift that we all are very, very fortunate to be given, and we, as a government, invest in that precious gift with this bill. I commend it to the House.

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