Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Over the next few weeks, millions of Australians will have their student debt cut by 20 per cent. That's 20,336 individuals in the electorate of Lalor—more than 20,000 people in my electorate—who will receive a text or an email from the tax department to tell them their debt has been reduced. This is a big deal for young people—a big deal. The average student debt is around $27,000, and this will cut that debt by about $5½ thousand. It'll benefit around three million Australians. It will wipe around $16 billion off student debt. And the individuals involved won't have to do a thing.

Now, I know there are many young people—as I said, 20,000 young people in my electorate—who have questions about this. So let me go through how this is going to work. The tax office will process everything at their end and the cut will be backdated to June 2025. The individuals involved don't need to take any action—no claim to be made. You'll get a text message or an email from the ATO letting you know that 20 per cent has gone from your student debt—because this government promised it, and this government is delivering it.

Don't forget that at the 2025 federal election the coalition attacked this policy. They called it profoundly unfair. They said Australians would see no benefit from the policy. Well, there are 20,000 people in my electorate who are about to see a benefit. The Australian people, particularly young Australians, disagreed with the coalition's sentiment and backed this in.

We've also made student repayments fairer by raising the minimum amount before people have to start making repayments. It was $54,435. It's now gone up to $67,000. So we've lifted that payment threshold. This replaces the previous repayment system with a new marginal repayment system. The previous system was based on your entire income. Once you earned above the minimum repayment threshold of $54,435, you paid a percentage of your entire wage as a repayment. Now you pay only a percentage of your wage above the minimum repayment threshold. For example, right now, if you earn $70,000, you pay $1,750 a year. Under these changes, you'll pay only around $450 a year. This means you'll pay $1,300 less. For someone earning 70,000 a year, it will cut the amount they have to repay every year by $1,300. This is real cost-of-living relief at a time when we know Australians are doing it tough, at a time when we know that the people who have these student debts are struggling to make ends meet. This will make a real difference.

We've also made sure that we've fixed the future indexation issue that young people were talking to us about before the last election. We fixed that to ensure that student debt never grows faster than wages in the future. And that's not all we've done in the higher education space or for students. Before we took to office, too many students were dropping out because they couldn't afford unpaid placements, and we've fixed that. We've introduced new financial support for our future teachers, for nurses, for midwives and for social workers so they can get paid while on prac for the first time ever. It is practical support for those students while they're doing their practical training. The payment helps provide financial support to help students finish their degree, and it offers $330 per week for eligible students to support them while they do that training.

We've also introduced FEE-FREE Uni Ready places. These are really important for a country that aspires, for a country that is looking to increase the number of a number of people who have a tertiary qualification or have a VET qualification. These are really important. The FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses, sometimes called bridging or enabling courses, are short courses which help prepare people for university, acting as a bridge between school or work and higher ed to support people making those decisions to pursue higher education. In an electorate like mine, this is so important—so important for young people who may have left school early but want to re-engage at 20, 21, 22. This bridging can help them re-engage and head into university to pursue higher education.

I commend the member for putting forward this motion today and I commend our government for supporting students and the cost of living of young people in my electorate.

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