Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How will the Albanese Labor government's commitment to cut student debt benefit Australian university and VET students?

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

I thank the member for Sturt for her question, and I congratulate her on her election to this House and a fantastic first speech in this House. Of course, I had met the member for Sturt before. We travelled in November to Adelaide, to the electorate of Sturt, where we launched this very policy. When we launched it, we said that it would make a difference to around three million Australians, to the tune of $5½ thousand each, putting dollars back into the pockets of Australians—three million of them. But we didn't just do that to deal with the question of intergenerational equity and making the system fairer. Our changes also raise the repayment threshold and lower the rate of repayments, indexing both of them to keep them fair in the future. This legislation passed both houses of parliament earlier today. It means someone earning $70,000 in the member for Sturt's electorate will save $1,300 a year in repayments—a structural and lasting boost in take-home pay.

Now, part of our vision for a fairer future for younger Australians is also changes to mortgage rules so banks don't automatically penalise someone with a student debt when they want to borrow money to buy a house. The combination of the 20 per cent cut in debt, a boost to take-home pay through a fairer repayment system and fairer mortgage rules, when taken together, all aim at helping young Australians to build the future that they want, whether it's buying a home, starting a family or growing their career. Labor is the party of education, and Labor is the party of aspiration. Today, we voted for both. Those opposite went to the election saying that they were opposed to the cut in student debt and to the fairer repayments and to these measures that we put before the parliament after the election. They said it was 'unfair'. They said it was not an 'equitable position' to take forward.

They said that we're advantaging university students even though it applies to TAFE as well. Now, today in the Senate—

The member helpfully calls out suggesting that it's vote buying. What it's doing is providing cost-of-living relief, Member for Gippsland—something that they opposed in the Senate today. They all abstained. None of them could even walk into the chamber to vote for this change. (Time expired)