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

I move:

That this House:

(1) commends the Government for delivering on its commitment to cut student debt by 20 per cent for:

(a) apprenticeship support loans;

(b) the Higher Education Loan Program;

(c) student start-up loans;

(d) vocational education and training student loans; and

(e) the student financial supplement schemes;

(2) recognises that this will help more than three million Australians, whose student debt balances backdated to 1 June 2025 will begin to be reduced this month as the Australian Taxation Office implements the change;

(3) acknowledges that this will reduce the average student debt of $27,600 by $5,520, and when combined with the Government's 2024 changes to indexation, will cut approximately $20 billion in debt;

(4) welcomes the Government's changes to make student loan repayments fairer by:

(a) replacing the current repayment system with a new marginal repayment system; and

(b) raising the minimum income threshold for repayments from $54,435 in 2024-25 to $67,000 in 2025-26;

(5) further acknowledges that reducing the debt burden for Australian graduates will help them build a better future for themselves and their families; and

(6) further commends the Government for:

(a) taking action on issues of intergenerational fairness;

(b) building a better and fairer education system; and

(c) supporting Australians with cost of living measures.

On 3 November 2024 at Norwood International High School in my electorate of Sturt the Prime Minister made an announcement that reflects Labor's commitment to education, to the notion that education is a right and to the understanding that education lifts people out of poverty, gives them opportunities and allows them to contribute to our community and to provide for their families. It allows them access to the employment market, to good, secure and meaningful jobs. A good education is good for working families, working families that Labor will always strive to protect.

That announcement was that Labor would slash 20 per cent from student debt, HELP and VET if returned to government at the 2025 election. Young people, who are typically the biggest cohort of those with HELP and VET debts, heard that promise. Following the election and before the opening of the 48th parliament, the Prime Minister, ably supported by the Minister for Education, said wiping 20 per cent of student debt would be the first piece of legislation passed, and it was. The government said to those Australians with qualifying HELP and VET debts, 'You will see that debt reduction before the end of 2025.' That is now happening. That is what delivery looks like. That is what good policy looks like. That is what action on cost-of-living relief for Australians looks like.

In my electorate of Sturt alone, 26,353 Australians will have 20 per cent of their student debt wiped. This is important for those people because the average student debt is around $27,000, meaning that the average debt reduction is roughly $5,500 per year for around 3 million Australians to the tune of $16 billion. We promised this, and we are delivering this.

We've also raised the minimum income amount before people have to start making repayments on their remaining debt from $54,435 to $67,000 but as a percentage of a wage above the minimum repayment threshold, which reduces each outlay each year. Under this government, some things go up, like the minimum repayment threshold, and some things go down, like student debt—all designed so more money stays in the pockets of Australians. This is real, tangible, cost-of-living relief.

This government also recognises not only that the end of the course or the end of degree debt requires servicing but that life also must be lived and costs met during the course or degree. Before we took office, too many students were dropping out because they couldn't afford unpaid placements, which in some cases run for weeks. We need more teachers, nurses, midwives and social workers, and we need to ensure that they can still pay the bills whilst they study these critical and much-needed professions. Paid prac for eligible teaching students, nursing students, midwifery students and social work students offers around $330 per week and is currently supporting 68,000 higher education students, including VET students, whilst they complete their studies. We know that almost every Australian will interact with a nurse, midwife or teacher over their life, and we know that social workers are critical to the wellbeing of all people in Australia. We are giving people who have signed up to do some of the most important jobs in this country the extra help that they need to get the qualifications.

Then, when you add the fee for university-ready places or for bridging or enabling courses that help people prepare for university—acting as a bridge between school or work and higher education—you start to understand the scale of this government's commitment to education. In 2026, the investment in fee-free university-ready places will hit $173 million, with almost 25,000 people projected to take advantage of the scheme, which is critical, given that it is estimated by the Australian Universities Accord that, by 2050, 80 per cent of the workforce will need a tertiary qualification.

Phones are pinging around the country as I speak, notifying students that their HELP or VET debts have shrunk by 20 per cent. That is the sound of a government that values education, wants all Australians to have access to a quality education and has cost-of-living relief at the centre of its policy agenda.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are paying too much for their tertiary education. The recent changes to HECS by the Albanese government were welcome, but they were inadequate. We cannot condemn Australians to a lifetime of working off debt in the face of ongoing significant skills shortages. We need to be a clever country, and that has to include the foresight to support our citizens to gain the skills that our society needs.

In the 47th Parliament, I pushed hard on the cost of tertiary education. My petition signed by 290,000 Australians demonstrated the significance of this issue to so many students, graduates and concerned parents. We achieved a response from the government in the form of a change to the way that HELP indexation is calculated and a reduction in existing student debt of 20 per cent, backdated to 1 June 2025. Now, many constituents have told me that it was the first time that they have felt heard by the government in a way that had a meaningful and positive effect on their lives, but how we index HECS is still unfair. The cost of degrees is still far too high. We are not supporting enough young people in their practical placements—the most important time in their studies, when they get the hands-on experience which is vital for competence and quality in the care specialities in particular.

We have to put a stop to back-to-front priorities, where we tax education but we subsidise pollution. For the last three years Australia has collected three times more revenue from student loan repayments than it has from the petroleum resource rent tax. At the same time, we've subsidised polluting industries to the tune of over $30 billion. At the same time, cost-of-living pressures are leaving many students in poverty. One in seven full-time students has to work full time to support themselves. That is too much of a burden for many, and it's no surprise that non-completion rates are rising. At the same time, arts students are still being forced to pay $55,000 for their degrees. Many of them will never earn enough to pay this off, because of their low salaries and the ongoing indexation of their debt. They are effectively incurring a debt for life.

This is not the policy of a clever country. A clever country is not one where 40 per cent of year 12 students say that the cost of HECS is putting them off university. Almost half of Australians surveyed by YouGov recently believed that a worker on an average income should be able to pay off the debt for a standard three-year degree within five years; 58 per cent believed that a student should pay $5,000 or less per year, which is less than a third of what arts students are now paying; and just under one in five Australians believed that a standard degree should be free—listen to Gough Whitlam.

But this government has resiled on its position. When in opposition, it said it said it would reverse the Job-ready Graduates scheme. The Universities Accord said that continuation of current arrangements risks causing 'long-term, entrenched damage' to the Australian higher education system and that if we do not institute change then the higher education system will 'rapidly become unfit for purpose'.

That change has not been instituted by the Albanese government. This government's one-off decision to wipe 20 per cent off student debt will make a meaningful difference for graduates who are yet to pay off their debt, but it does nothing to address the problem with the level of fees in the first place. In particular, this policy offers no benefit to new students. Universities should not be sources of revenue. They should be centres where we invest in people, in skills, in nation building and in the pursuit of knowledge. This government is overseeing ongoing damage to our education system, the hollowing out of arts faculties, the loss of language schools, the defunding of science and education, and the progressive underfunding of medical research. I call on the Albanese government to act—with purpose, with courage and with generosity—to fix our broken tertiary education system and to fix it now.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion because I believe that students deserve a higher education system that's fair, affordable and genuinely accessible. Young Australians are not fools. They know when a policy is genuinely designed to help them and when a policy is designed to help a government's polling and win an election. Unfortunately, the policy this government stands here seeking praise for today falls firmly into that second category. The government's policy on student debt disproportionately benefits those with the biggest debts, regardless of their long-term earning capacity. This means that a lawyer or a doctor who graduated last year receives more relief than a social worker. Higher income postgraduates and those from more advantaged backgrounds can gain the most, while borrowers who worked hard and finally paid off their debt before the end of the financial year receive nothing at all. If you made significant repayments throughout the year, your relative benefit shrinks. That's not fairness. That is an untargeted, inequitable, reverse Robin Hood approach that economists across the board have called out. Economist Ashley Craig described this as 'an exceptionally bad policy which favours the rich, doesn't help with current cost of living and does nothing to encourage higher ed.'

Our HECS system is a national asset. It has enabled millions of Australians, including me, to gain qualifications and skills that are essential to our economy. Its integrity must be safeguarded. But what the government congratulates itself on today is not its safeguarding; it's sandbagging. With this motion, the Prime Minister wants a pat on the back for his temporary solution to a problem that he himself created. And let's be honest about why this measure was even needed. Turbocharged by Labor's poor economic management, indexation would never have grown so high if it weren't for their out-of-control spending, which drove up inflation. This $20 billion debt write-off isn't just money that just disappears. It becomes a cost carried by every Australian to benefit just a fraction. It becomes another line on the national credit card charged to future generations who had no say.

I spoke up when I was first elected to this place and I said that, as a representative of my generation, I feel obliged to speak about where we're at in terms of our national finances and the problems that this government has contributed to in terms of the generational debt that they are leaving. This is exactly an example of that—subsidising all degrees with no consideration of our skill shortages. That's not smart economics; that's desperate politics. And that's exactly what this measure was about, so let's call it out.

In this motion the government claims to be taking action on intergenerational fairness. Can those opposite explain how government spending, which is growing four times faster than the economy while national debt grows by $50,000 every 60 seconds—just on interest—is intergenerational fairness? How can this government even speak of intergenerational fairness while passing this exorbitant bill onto Australians who are not even old enough to vote yet?

Meanwhile, the deeper structural issues remain untouched. Our universities have suffered a 70 per cent fall in global rankings. Graduate employability is declining. PISA results show a long-term deterioration in mathematics, reading and science since the 2000s. The gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students grows even wider, even as per student funding rises. Whilst the government subsidise higher education, supporting those most likely to move into higher earning careers, where is their action to strengthen the broader education system and ensure success opportunities for every Australian?

This package is not reform. Let's call it out for what it is: it's a temporary fix for the problems that this government has created and then failed to address. It's a bandaid on a wound that requires surgery.

Young Australians should not be punished for Labor's bad management. Labor's policies are shaped by what looks good on a press release: a cut here, a rebate there. The problem is not solved; it's merely shifted. You don't fix a leak by turning on another tap. Young Australians deserve better than gestures. They deserve genuine reform—reform grounded in fairness, discipline, productivity and responsibility. Labor's policy achieves none of these.

Sarah Witty (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion and to welcome the Albanese government's delivery on the commitments made to young Australians by cutting student debt by 20 per cent and making repayments fairer and simpler.

This matters deeply to Melbourne. My electorate has more than 36,000 people carrying HELP or VET student debt—the highest in Victoria. You see them every morning walking into RMIT and Melbourne Uni, weaving through Carlton, Fitzroy, Parkville and the CBD. You see them behind the espresso machines in Collingwood, doing night shifts at the hospitals, running tutor sessions in Abbotsford or bouncing between share houses in Prahran. For them, student debt has not been an abstract line on a tax statement. It's been a weight they carry every day. The people of Melbourne have been telling me the same story even before I was elected to parliament. Their debt grows faster than their pay. Indexation felt brutal and unfair. With Melbourne's rent rising faster than anywhere else in the country, they felt like they were running on a treadmill that never slowed down.

This government heard that and we acted. This 20 per cent cut is the largest reduction in student debt in Australia's history. For an average debt of $27,000, that's a reduction of more than $5,500. Around three million Australians will benefit, including tens of thousands in my community of Melbourne. People won't need to fill in a form or fight through government processes. The ATO will do it automatically. People will simply receive a text or email telling them their debt has been cut.

That is a relief you can feel in your chest. It is the difference between whether or not you still have something left over after paying rent. It is the difference between being able to save for a deposit or staying stuck. It's the difference between exhaustion and hope. And this government did not stop there. We raised the minimum repayment threshold to $67,000 and replaced the outdated whole income repayment system with a fair, modern marginal system. For someone in Melbourne earning $70,000, that is $1,300 back every year—real money, real relief. These reforms reflect a simple truth: opportunity should not come with a lifetime of punishment.

They sit alongside broader investments that matter to Melbourne's young people and mature aged students alike. We introduced the Commonwealth prac payment, giving financial support to future teachers, nurses, midwives and social workers—people who keep our great city running; people who staff our hospitals, our schools and our community services. We expanded FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses so that more people can transition into university, including those who never imagined they would take that path. We doubled the number of university study hubs, bringing tertiary education closer to where people live.

Melbourne is a city built on brains, creativity and ambition. We are home to some of the country's best universities, but we are also home to thousands of people who feel locked out by rising rent, rising costs and rising expectations. This government is bringing those barriers down. I meet students in Richmond who work two jobs and feel like they are going backwards and young workers in North Melbourne who feel crushed between rent, groceries and student repayments. I meet parents in Parkville and South Yarra who tell me their talented kids are working hard but can't see a path to owning a home because the HECS debts keep dragging them behind—like an anchor. These reforms cut that anchor loose.

The opposition called the policy profoundly unfair. They said Australians will see no benefit. Australians saw a benefit, and they elected a government that promised to deliver. And deliver it we have. Education is not meant to trap people; it's meant to launch them. Debt should never be the thing that decides whether someone can dream of a future in a city they love. Melbourne is an electorate where people chase opportunity with everything they've got. Our job is to make sure the system does not punish them for doing so. Today, I am proud to stand here and say we promised it, we delivered it, and we are just getting started. I commend the motion to the House.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's been interesting listening to the contributions from many of the members present in the chamber—as though students are some sort of distant concept to be observed on the way to the train station. As a student myself, I think it's always fascinating being immersed in university life and how important it is that people continue their education throughout the whole of their life. I know you too, Deputy Speaker, consider your ongoing education to be a very important part of your responsibilities as a member of parliament. We all need to continue to grow and meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Education is at the heart of the great Liberal project of this country. Universal education was one of the proudest achievements of the Liberal project, and it is something that we continue to fight for. But it's important to get it in perspective. We need to make sure that, when people pursue education, they take responsibility for themselves. They enjoy benefits from that education—not only private benefits, but public benefits as well.

In the lead-up to the last election, there were a number of occasions when I talked to residents about the Labor government's policy of wiping off student debt. I remember I was at North Brighton train station, and a lovely young fellow came up to me and asked me what my policy position was in the context of what had been put forward by the Labor Party. I said that, as somebody who's paid off all of their tertiary education debt and is representing an electorate of many people who have paid off all of their tertiary education debt, it seemed challenging to turn around to future generations—as well as to those who've done it previously—and say simply that people should pay off other debt when they've already paid off their own debt. In my case, I'd already paid off my debt, and I was now being asked to pay off somebody else's. He hadn't quite considered that, and he accepted that what was being put forward by Labor was a challenge.

I remember standing at a polling booth, and a mum said to me, 'Well, you know, I haven't got anything particular I'm voting on, but Labor's promising this, so I might as well vote for it because it'll help my kids'. And I said: 'Yes, but there's one little problem. Labor created the problem you're trying to solve. Because they can't control their spending addiction, inflation continues to be a problem. They've created a problem. Their solution then is to take that debt—it doesn't disappear—and to chuck it onto the taxpayer. As a consequence, not only are future generations going to pay for it but, in fact, your son or your daughter is still going to have to pay off that debt for their education. They're just going to give them a temporary reprieve. So, in the end, the whole of society is going to pick up the consequences of buying Labor a pathway through this election, because they can't control their spending addiction.'

This is the problem. While Labor members come into this chamber and boast about their incredible achievement because they somehow managed to take private debt and put it onto the taxpayer, what they're not doing is addressing the root cause of the problem that they created in the first place. The problem of spiralling increases in HECS debts was caused by inflation. Inflation was being driven by the federal and state governments borrowing from the future to spend today, which meant there was too much money chasing too few goods and services. That stoked inflation. That debt spending meant inflation was higher, which meant interest rates were higher, which meant the Australian people were paying more in interest rates. And, of course, it meant that they were having to pay higher repayments on their HECS debts. Labor created the problem. They haven't actually solved it. They've just pushed it further into the future.

So I can't celebrate this incredible achievement of the Labor Party, because it is the boast of a thief to claim that they have solved any problem. In fact, it is the reverse. It is the greatest example of spin over substance—the perpetuation of debt and an unresolved issue of inflation which continues to persist. We hear this regularly from the Treasurer, where he talks about how he thinks he's slayed the inflationary dragon, yet it persists. Inflation is not going down. Interest rates are not going down. And they're stoking it further so that at the next election they can promise that they're somehow going to be able to cut further HECS debts—because they are continuing to drive them up.

We need to be honest. When a Labor government actively stokes increases in HECS debts, as it's doing right now and as it did before the last election, and then comes along and moves that private debt onto the taxpayer, it's not just hurting young Australians today; it's hurting them into the future. The idea that we should celebrate that is one of the most despicable things that I have ever seen a Labor government seek to do.

Jess Teesdale (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've heard from us a few times why Labor believes reducing student debt is important, but today I want to step back and I want to let the voices of the people in Bass tell you what it really means to them, because nobody explains this better than those who are living it.

In our community, more than 10,000 people will benefit from this change—not just uni graduates but those who have studied through VET courses and TAFE too. Some of these people have been generous enough to share their thoughts with me, and I want to thank them for allowing me to share their words with you here. Maddison, a doctor, has put it simply:

It's wild to end up with such a huge debt when I'm dedicating my career to help others.

I have to pay a $1,000 registration fee each year on top of my HECS—

her repayments—

I won't own a house any time soon, so a 20% reduction would be grand.

I look forward to telling Maddison about our five per cent home deposit scheme. Tiffany-Rose has spoken to me about the emotional weight:

It won't wipe my balance completely, but it motivates me to keep working towards paying it off.

The reduced repayments will ease some financial stress and make it easier to stay on top of cost of living costs without feeling like my debt is controlling my budget.

Montana told me that this relief is real:

A 20% reduction isn't just a number, it's a real acknowledgement of the financial challenges that university students and graduates face every day. It shows that the government truly cares about education and is taking meaningful action to make it more sustainable for the future.

Many students work incredibly hard to balance university studies and part-time jobs, often under too much pressure.

Between bills, rent and loan repayments it can be overwhelming, and this reduction recognises just how tough that balance can be for many people.

Lucy reflected on the long-term burden:

This incentive shows the great burden student debts can be—not only immediately but also the long term effects.

When you're spending years paying off student debt, it can delay the ability to buy a home and other life decisions.

Laura, an incredible teacher that I had the privilege of working with previously, said:

This reduction gives me more breathing room to cover my mortgage and costs.

It's hard to make ends meet during study, let alone after.

This reduction will help with cash flow and stability.

And that's what this change is really about; it's about giving people that breathing space and some hope, and it's also recognising the pressures that they're carrying every day. We know it won't fix everything. Deirdre told me:

Raising the repayment threshold means more to me on a practical level than actually wiping the 20 per cent off.

That's money that I have to then go towards essentials and bills.

I guess it's just one less thing that is constantly squeezing in at me.

Elias put it very bluntly:

It makes me want to look at the debt with something other than dread.

This is just one of our steps, and it's certainly not the last. We're backing it up with real, practical support like the Commonwealth Prac Payment, so future teachers, nurses, social workers and midwives can finally get paid while on placement. We've also expanded the FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses, opening the door to people who never would have thought that university was for them. We're doubling the number of university study hubs, bringing higher education closer to home, especially in the regions.

This isn't just about helping people pay off debt; it's about helping more people start study, finish it and thrive beyond that. Most importantly, it's about listening, because the people who know what's needed are the ones who are living it. As Michael from Bass said:

It makes me feel like I'm one step closer to avoiding a lifetime of debt.

We will keep taking steps—practical, meaningful steps—guided by those who will be impacted by the decisions that we make here.

Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Sturt for bringing this motion forward, but I will say that this motion once again shines a spotlight on the government's remarkable ability to generate headlines rather than deliver real structural change for the Australians who need it most.

This motion praises the 20 per cent HECS-HELP debt reduction, a measure I fully supported. Any immediate relief for students is welcome. In my first term, I called for reduction of the HECS indexation from 7.1 per cent to 3.2 per cent, and I'm glad the government did it. As we heard, the member for Kooyong led a petition on this issue as well.

However, we must ask: what is the government's long-term plan? What we have before us today is not a solution. It is a sugar hit, a political pat on the back that masks a fundamentally broken system. The government is currently excelling at two things: brilliant marketing and clickbait announcements. We see them everywhere: cheaper medicine, help to buy, free TAFE courses and, of course, the ever-present line about reducing HECS debt. These slogans are slick. They are memorable, and they make for fantastic ad campaigns. But, for communities like mine in Fowler and across Western Sydney, the reality on the ground could not be more different.

Take the issue of student debt. A 20 per cent reduction after years of runaway indexation and skyrocketing fees is simply not good enough. It is a temporary patch on a systematic problem that continues to punish low socioeconomic students, migrant households and working families. In my electorate, young people are not just focused on their degrees; they are focused on survival. They are juggling work, study and debt, often working late-night graveyard shifts just to keep their heads above water. They are exhausted, stressed and doing everything right, yet still falling behind.

The government's recent announcements are a perfect example of this shallow approach. We are seeing the rebranding of a promised university campus into a so-called study hub. Renaming a project does nothing to address the real barriers facing young people in Fowler: the crushing financial pressure and the mounting HECS debt. The Albanese government's reckless spending is keeping interest rates high and driving up the cost of living. And, for those who manage to finish their studies, the government's mass immigration program is making it harder and harder for young Australians to secure jobs at the end of their degrees. These young Australians do not need hollow slogans. They need access and affordability. They need the genuine opportunity to be part of the new workforce without beginning their careers trapped in decades of debt.

This motion, and the policy is celebrates, is fleeting. It delivers a talking point, not meaningful change. It offers relief today but guarantees that debts will balloon again next year. We must ask: Who exactly is this policy helping, and who is being ignored? What did this policy do for those students who worked multiple jobs and scrimped and saved to pay off their student debt? Absolutely nothing. What did this policy do for those young people that didn't go to university? Absolutely nothing.

The policy is a narrow political exercise. It fails to address educational inequality at its roots. There is no structural reform to stop debts from ballooning again next year. There is no guarantee of meaningful ongoing financial support for those already at the bottom. What communities in south-west and Western Sydney need is not another round of cheap marketing slogans dressed up as policy. We need a government willing to put forward transformative long-term reform. We need real commitment to expanding fully funded scholarships for low-income students so that a disadvantaged postcode is never a barrier to aspiration. We need to break the cycle of perpetual debt that traps young people for decades. We need policies that genuinely make an impact on the lives and livelihoods of those who need it most. That's why I called on the government to support my bill to reverse the unfair job-ready graduates program or at least reform it.

We must make it more affordable and accessible for those in my community wanting to study arts degrees, be it in history, politics or media—courses which the previous government made prohibitively expensive for many young people to study. I genuinely look forward to seeing a government that is brave enough to make a real difference to the lives of Australians, instead of just making a slick announcement, and we know HECS debt will continue to grow. That's the reality. The government must offer credible, genuine, honest solutions, not just more marketing slogans.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.