Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025

Ms JARRETT (Brisbane) (20:01): Deputy Speaker Scrymgour, first let me congratulate you also as the first First Nations person to lead from that chair. I rise tonight to support the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. As I mentioned in my first speech to this House, my mum, Luella, who still lives in my electorate, couldn't fulfil her dream of becoming a teacher because her parents couldn't afford for her to go to college. My twin sister and I were the first in our family to attend university, and this would not have happened had university not been affordable. As one of eight kids with mum staying at home and dad working as a sparky, there was no way they could have afforded for us to attend university. That is why I am forever grateful that, all those years ago, Labor made university accessible and affordable for all. The opportunity to study enabled my sister and I to pursue our careers and build our lives.

I want young people across Brisbane afforded the same opportunity I was given to potentially live the life that they want. However, setting yourself up for life through education should not put undue financial pressure on any of us and our families. At a time where there are cost-of-living pressures, people are feeling an even greater impact of study debt, so it was right that the government do something about it and that they do it now. During the election campaign, the Prime Minister made a commitment that, if elected, one of the first things we would do is introduce legislation to wipe 20 per cent off student debt, and that is exactly what we are doing. Having access to affordable education is an important foundation in anyone's life. That is why I am proud to be part of a government who is delivering better and fairer education for all. Education has the power to change lives.

On this side of the House, we believe in supporting our young Australians through their entire education journey. This support starts in early years with our cheaper childcare policy. More than a million Australian families have benefited from cheaper child care, delivering real cost-of-living relief to households, including those in Brisbane. This is good for children, good for families and good for Australia. We also committed at the last election to the three-day guarantee starting from January next year. This will deliver a guaranteed three days a week of formative early childhood education. It means more than 100,000 families will be entitled to more hours of subsidised education and care. The government will also roll out the $1 billion Building Early Education Fund, which will boost access to early education and care in areas of need, including in the outer suburbs and regional Australia.

Our education system relies on professionalism and the dedication of our educators. Labor recognises the critical role they play in teaching our kids, which is why Labor is supporting childhood educators with a 15 per cent pay rise. I was recently at a Goodstart centre in Ashgrove with the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Senator Walsh, who delivered this good news to local educators. Of note, though, most were female, which I guess is unsurprising, given the profession, but this is important because more women getting paid more goes a long way to delivering gender pay equity.

Right before the election the Prime Minister announced the landmark deal with the states and territories—that our public schools will be fully funded, and fairly funded, right across the country. This will deliver record funding to schools and introduce targeted reforms, which will help students to catch up, keep up and finish up. But support doesn't and shouldn't stop there. In my community of Brisbane there are more than 25,000 students across TAFE, vocational schools and education. There are also more than 34,000 with student debt. That's the third largest concentration in the economy. This equates to approximately $1.1 billion in debt. This bill means that the young people of Brisbane will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the reduction in student debt, which I am proud to be part of delivering.

Whether you are a professional, at 37 per cent of our Brisbane workforce, or a technician, tradie or community and personal service worker, who make up another 20 per cent, you will benefit from this student debt reduction. Professionals, builders, bakers, nurses, teachers, paramedics and the rest who have finished your education with a debt and are working in your chosen field: you will benefit from this student debt reduction. If you are still studying you will benefit from this debt reduction. No matter how you choose to study, this government wants to make sure education isn't a barrier to leading a decent life.

We've heard tonight that the average student debt today is about $27½ thousand. This legislation will cut that debt by about $5½ thousand. To the people of Brisbane and across Australia: if you've got a debt of $50,000, this law will cut it by $10,000. All up, this bill will cut student debt by more than $16 billion. And the good news is that it will be backdated to 1 June this year.

This bill also proposes structural reform to how the repayment system works. As noted by Bruce Chapman, the architect of HECS, this is the single most important change to the HECS system in over 35 years. These changes will make repayments cheaper, and they kick in later, when workers are earning more money. Again, this will help young Australians who are trying to save for a deposit on a house or who are trying to build up their own piggy bank—like Angus, or my sons, who live in Brisbane, who are young and starting to make their own way in the world.

Unsurprisingly, before the most recent election the coalition attacked this policy. They called it 'profoundly unfair' and said Australians would see no benefit from this policy. With comments like these, it's no wonder young people are abandoning the coalition in droves, and a recent report confirms that. I'm not surprised. Young people are finding it tough. They want to be listened to, and that is what Labor is doing with this bill.

Just this week we also heard those opposite say that there is no such thing as a free lunch, referring of course to student debt. But those opposite love a free lunch, like the tax cuts for the highest earners in the country or the free lunch for bosses that they wanted to bring back. If the LNP want to be taken seriously they need to start listening to our young people. They have a chance to do this with this legislation, not just by voting for it but by actually speaking in support of it.

Young people made their voices heard at the election, and they have put their faith in our government to deliver on reforms that will make a difference in their lives—young people like Angus, who I mentioned earlier. He runs his own small business walking dogs to support himself while studying his bachelor of communication at QUT. And there's Nathan, who recently graduated and is now completing his PhD in mechanical aerospace engineering. Nathan will now be $9½ thousand closer to getting a deposit on his home. And there are people like Mason, who studied advanced programming at TAFE and has now gone on to university to study IT and computer science.

It's not just this reform that Labor has delivered. Our government has established, as of 1 July, a Commonwealth prac payment to support about 68,000 eligible teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students.

On top of this, our government has locked free TAFE into law. This landmark policy has seen more than 650,000 enrolments across the country, with 170,000 of those courses already completed. From 1 January this year, the Labor government also massively expanded fee-free uni-ready courses. This is important because it provides a different pathway to finish school and is helpful to those especially from disadvantaged backgrounds or who just don't like school to access TAFE or university.

Last year the government wiped $3 billion off HELP debts and fixed the system so that indexation on HELP debts can never increase faster than wages. The fact that this happened is unfair. It caused a lot of angst among young people, including people in my electorate, and Labor fixed it.

Labor is doing a lot to help with the cost of living. On top of the reductions that this law introduces, we've seen tax cuts and energy bill relief coming, and we heard today about more bulk-billing. But we also know that young people often get jobs in hospitality to support their studies. This bill is all about delivering on a promise. It's about giving everyone a fair go. It's about making the education system fairer and restoring generational equality.

Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (20:11): There are 2.9 million Australians with a HECS debt, and this bill, the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025, will reduce their debts by 20 per cent. As a result of this bill, every single one of the 1.2 million Australians who are currently repaying their student loans will pay less per year.

I wish to congratulate and thank the 290,000 Australians who signed my HECS petition to the education minister last year. You contributed to this change. You spoke, and your voice was heard by your elected representatives and by the government. You did this. I also want to thank and congratulate the Minister for Education for responding to the voices of hundreds of thousands of Australians. Our democracy is strong. I've heard from or spoken with many of you—students, graduates, parents, grandparents, academics, educators and Australians distressed that a system designed to increase access to tertiary education has been reverse-engineered to the point where it is an active disincentive to start studies. It's become a burden around the neck of young people and older people saddled with life-changing debt.

This legislation will lift some of that burden for Australians. It's very clever politics but it is not ideal policy. The 20 per cent cut is not well-targeted. It will deliver major benefits to recent graduates but give much less to current students or earlier graduates. It gives nothing to future students or those who have already completed their repayments. It will help those people who have bigger debts more.

Under this bill, the income threshold for compulsory HELP repayments will increase to $67,000. Repayments will be calculated only on that portion of the income which is above the $67,000 threshold rather than the total income. This marginal repayment system will result in lower compulsory repayments for everyone who earns less than $180,000. The problem is that that higher threshold and the marginal repayment rates mean that, although we won't any longer have that paradox where graduates who are earning pay rises sometimes see their take-home pay decrease, more graduates will find themselves repaying less than the annual indexation on their HECS balance. As a result, their debt will increase each year. They will effectively be locked into a debt treadmill. The Parliamentary Budget Office has calculated that, for those starting careers with incomes below the repayment thresholds, particularly women, repayment could take 40 years or more. Some young students are signing on for what is effectively a lifetime of debt, and they don't understand that when they take on those degrees.

University isn't what it used to be. Domestic enrolments have plateaued, dropout rates are historically high, debts of more than $150,000 at graduation are no longer rare and women are taking longer to pay back their HECS debts—so they end up paying more. Meanwhile, the government has still not unwound the job-ready graduates scheme, which, five years ago, doubled the cost of arts, law and business degrees overnight. Students of those disciplines are still accruing massive debts—$50,000 for a basic degree and $85,000 for common combinations. The Australian Historical Association said on 24 July:

In an era of severe international turmoil, climate crisis, rising disinformation, and declining trust in democratic principles, a higher education in subjects that stress global knowledges, reasoned debate, and civic literacy is paramount.

Job-ready Graduates did not align with national priorities or with projected skills shortages. It left students with debts which were vastly disproportionate to their future earning potential. The PBO has estimated that it's already increased student debt by more than $10 billion, and that is going to continue to increase massively until it is reversed. The minister has suggested repeatedly that the Australian Tertiary Education Commission will provide advice on student fees, but it will not be able to change them before 2027 at the earliest. The minister could do that tomorrow. In 2021, the Labor caucus called the job-ready graduates scheme 'inequitable, pernicious and perverse'. Even the Liberals are now admitting that the job-ready graduates scheme is an appalling policy which should be scrapped immediately.

Prac placements are another burden. Optometry students and medical imaging students have to undertake a full year of full-time, unpaid training. Physios, occupational therapists, podiatrists, speech pathologists, vets and others have to complete a thousand hours or more of unpaid placements. During those placements, which can be hundreds of kilometres from their homes, they have to pay for travel, additional accommodation, uniforms, equipment, professional registration and insurances, not to mention their loss of income, plus or minus childcare costs. Those placements are much more burdensome for students from rural and regional settings and for those from First Nations and vulnerable backgrounds. They are more challenging for women, who are more likely to have dependants and other care responsibilities.

The Commonwealth Prac Payment program, which commenced on 1 July, was a response to the recommendation of the Universities Accord that we provide financial support for the nursing, care and teaching professions. But it is currently limited to students of nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work. There is no possible justification for excluding students from other care disciplines at a time when we have persistent and significant workforce shortages in virtually all healthcare disciplines. It is a false economy to force students to defer their studies or to go part time to cover the cost of their prac placements, knowing that, in many such cases, those decisions are followed by noncompletion. We're already investing in those students. We need the skill sets that they are acquiring in all good faith. Placement poverty is exacerbating workforce shortages in many key professions, like psychology and radiography. By worsening skills shortages, we are driving up the out-of-pocket costs for things like psychology support, mental health care and medical imaging. I join with the allied health professionals' association, the Australian Medical Students' Association, the AMA, the National Union of Students, the Health Services Union, the Australian Veterinary Association and the Pharmacy Guild in calling on the government to immediately extend support for compulsory prac placements to all care-sector students.

Finally, HECS loans are indexed annually on 1 June, using a formula based on either the CPI or the wage price index for the previous year, and that ensures that debts maintain their real value over time. The fact that the tax office doesn't adjust the balance owing until after a tax return is filed, after indexation is applied, means that many graduates see their debts increase, despite their very best efforts to pay them off. It is outrageous that payments made during the year by these graduates are not taken into account before that indexation is applied. We would not put up with this on our mortgages. Why do we expect graduates to put up with it? It is a sneaky, unnecessary cash grab which is costing Australian graduates $175 million every year.

We need fairer, more equitable and more systematic higher education contribution schemes. Young people are facing a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and a climate crisis, and now we've given them the additional burden of making their education too expensive. We need to align the cost of education with the earning potential of graduates. We have to ensure that Australians aren't saddled with a lifetime of debt, because they've worked to gain skills from which we will all benefit. We shouldn't make laws that prolong and increase their debt burden. That is what we are doing today.

HECS debts are stopping young people from starting degrees. They're preventing them from getting home loans. They're causing them to put off starting families at a time when our birthrate is lower than it's ever been before. We need to make degrees cheaper and we should start by scrapping the job-ready graduates scheme. We need to change indexation to make it more fair. We need to help young people complete practical training in the courses that they love so that we can benefit from the skills they bring to our healthcare system. We need to show some generosity. We will all benefit so much in return. I brought to the House today an amendment to those ends. I commend it to the House, as I commend this bill, and I trust that colleagues from all sides will support it.

Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (20:21): At the last federal election, the Albanese government promised to cut student debt by 20 per cent, and this week in parliament we're delivering on that promise. We said it would be the first thing we do when parliament returned after the election, and now we are here delivering it. We're delivering real cost-of-living relief for 18,000 Australians in my electorate with a student debt, we're delivering a better deal for three million Australians across the country with a student debt, and we're reducing the average student debt by about $5,500—in one hit, in one bill.

Labor's commitment to cutting student debts by 20 per cent was one of those policies that, I can tell you, really cut through at the last election. I can't tell you how many voters I met on the doors, on the streets or in the shopping centres in my electorate, at pre-poll or at polling booths on election day who I asked: 'Do you have a student debt? Do you want to buy your first home?' 'Well, vote Labor, and the first thing we'll do is cut your student debt by 20 per cent, then we'll also increase your borrowing capacity with the banks, and, to top it off, we'll enable every Australian to buy their first home with a five per cent deposit without having to pay lender's mortgage insurance.' This cut through because it spoke to a bigger intergenerational injustice. It was offering a fairer deal to young Australians who have gotten a raw deal in recent years. I agree with the member for Kooyong. Young Australians are facing a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and the legacy of a climate crisis.

Of course, it also cut through because the coalition, those opposite, opposed these cuts to student debt when Labor announced them at the last election. They called them 'wasteful'. In this parliament, the coalition's No. 1 priority is now protecting generous tax concessions for Australians with $3 million in superannuation, which is already there for their retirement. These are the intergenerational priorities of the coalition. They still don't get it, and it's no surprise that coalition MPs have been telling journalists in the press gallery that they suspect that even their own children weren't voting for the coalition at the last federal election—and, really, who can blame them?

While we're in this chamber, cutting student debts this week, we should also remember that, when it was introduced, HECS was one of the great innovations of Australian public policy. Consider the challenge that HECS was designed to meet. When the Hawke government came into office, barely one in three Australians finished high school, barely one in three Australians completed grade 12. Through a decade of persistent policy effort, recognising the way the world was changing, recognising the way the global economy was changing and recognising the need for increased skills and increased levels of education, the Hawke government increased funding to secondary schools, targeted disadvantaged areas, modernised curricula, introduced vocational and applied learning pathways and made the case publicly on the need for kids to stay in school longer. After ten years, the Hawke government was able to lift the high school completion rate in Australia to nearly eight in ten—from three in ten Australians finishing high school to eight in ten Australians finishing high school—in a decade. That was an extraordinary expansion of the opportunity of education from a reforming, pioneering government. It's a great Labor legacy.

But what then to do with the now more than doubling of the proportion of Australian school leavers who are now able to dream of going to university? HECS, a deferred-repayment, income-contingent loan scheme, enabled Australian students to contribute to the cost of their degrees proportionate to the expected private salary returns that they could expect to receive from their qualifications, in a way that didn't force them to pay upfront or to face crippling interest repayments on large upfront loans. It enabled students to pay back their student debts only when they were earning the kinds of salaries expected from university study, with debts being indexed rather than subject to private interest rates.

HECS expanded educational opportunity, and did it in a fair and fiscally responsible way. It was a great Labor reform that the Hawke government; the Hawke government's education minister, John Dawkins; and the designer of HECS, Bruce Chapman, can rightly take great pride in. Income-contingent loans of this type have been copied by governments around the world, and it was a Labor innovation. It was an Australian innovation. But, unfortunately, over time, a series of reforms to higher education introduced by those opposite in the last decade—the wasted decade before the election of the Albanese government—broke the balance that made HECS work. The recent COVID-driven inflation spike really threw things off kilter. The spike in the indexation of loans through that period after COVID really got out of control. This bill fixes that. In the previous term of government we wiped $3 billion in student debt from Australian student loans. We fixed indexation to ensure that, in the future, debts cannot grow faster than the wages of the students who have incurred them. Now we are going further to ensure that more money is back in the pockets of more Australians, wiping another $16 billion from three million Australian student debts in the bill that we have debated this week. For the average Australian, with a student debt of $27,000, that's a reduction of more than $5,500.

This bill will also help Australians with student debts who are earning lower wages to keep more money in their pockets, increasing the repayment threshold from $54,000 to $67,000 a year, a recommendation made by the architect of the HECS scheme, Bruce Chapman, who designed it with Dawkins back in the 1980s. I know from media reports that Bruce is very, very excited about that particular reform. This will reduce yearly repayments. For someone on an income of $70,000 a year, it will reduce the amount of compulsory repayments by about $1,300 a year. Australians will only start to pay off their studies when their studies start paying off for them. We're also replacing the current repayment system with a new marginal repayment system. Instead of the amount Australians pay being a percentage of their entire wage, it is a percentage of their wage above the minimum repayment threshold of $54,435. It is a structural change and it's a fairer change that will benefit people with a student debt now and in the years ahead.

In the debate about this bill, particularly during the election, there were some ignorant and smart, snarky comments from conservatives about who these changes would benefit. I'll tell you who these changes will benefit. They will benefit teachers. They will benefit nurses. They will benefit engineers. They will benefit social workers. They will benefit doctors. They will benefit scientists. They will benefit researchers. They will benefit all Australians who've backed themselves by going to university to improve their skills to build our nation. This is betting on Australians who have bet on themselves. This is a bill that rewards aspirational Australians. And it comes on top of a suite of educational reforms that we made under the previous government and that we took to the last election, like fee-free TAFE and prac payments, expanding opportunity in the education system for more Australians.

There's an enormous legacy in this country of pioneering reforms to our education system made by Labor governments. They have a few things in common. They're fair, they expand opportunity, and they let more Australians have access to that ladder of opportunity—the opportunity to improve yourself, to aspire to something better, to back yourself to develop those skills—but they do it in a fair way. That's what this bill that we have passed this week is all about. It's delivering on our commitment to young Australians, to support them to improve their own skills without being burdened with a crippling debt in the future.

This is just the start, though. This government has a big agenda in education policy. It's one that we will continue to work on through the life of this government. The member for Gippsland is on manoeuvres at the moment! I'll be finishing my speech in some seconds, and, if he wants the call next, he can get back to the chamber.

Mr WATTS: Thank you. On that note, I will conclude my comments.

Mr JOYCE (New England) (20:30): I was going through this, and I was fascinated. I went to the website of the Australian government Department of Education. It goes through the grand outcomes of the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. It tells me whether the 20 per cent reduction applies to me, whether I should consider making a voluntary repayment, when I will see the 20 per cent, why will my student loan debt go up, what if my HELP loan for recent studies is not showing and on and on it goes.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I'll tell you one thing it doesn't show you—how much it's costing the Australian people. It doesn't tell you that. When we hear this and when we say, 'This is what the government is doing,' it sounds like it's almost coming out of Treasurer Jim Chalmers's pocket or maybe out of Mr Anthony Albanese's new house or a magical place. It's actually the Australian people. The Australian people are paying off other people's debts. The Australian people are forking out the money from their pockets to pay off another person's debt. That is actually what is happening here. Let's talk about some of the other Australian people who are paying off people who go to university's debt, and I went to university. They're fitters and turners. They're plumbers. They're shearers. They're bricklayers. They're chippies. They're boilermakers. They're just farm labourers. They don't get their debt paid off, but they're paying off another person's debt. How do you think they see this sort of conceit? 'I'm entitled, after I've been to university, to have the taxpayer pay off my debt.' Why?

I know that you've got the numbers in the House to get this through, but let's just end this rhetoric. Just remember who's actually paying for this. It's not the government, as if you whip the tin around the Labor Party and say, 'Chuck your money in here; we're going to pay off the debt.' It's actually other taxpayers that are paying off the debt. If they don't pay off the debt from the other taxpayers, it'll go on the $950 billion that tonight is in Australian government securities outstanding, on the Australian Office of Financial Management website. It hasn't been through $1 trillion yet, but it will. It's another one of those mistruths that was peddled, but if you keep doing things like this—borrowing money to basically give to somebody else, which is what you're really doing—you're just giving the money to somebody else, and you're making somebody else stack bricks, go to work on building sites or work as a contract musterer on a farm. You're making them pay off the other person's debt. Just inform your rhetoric about exactly what it is. It is not a gift from the government. It is a payment by one group of people to another group of people. You're paying off somebody else's debt with their money.

An honourable member interjecting—

Mr JOYCE: Yes, I did. I did pay mine off. I take the interjection. He asked if I paid off my debt, and I did.

An honourable member interjecting—

Mr JOYCE: I've had a hard life, mate. One of the things that's interesting in this, in paying off university debts, is the one regional city that doesn't have a university. They've put the money aside, but they haven't started building it. It's Tamworth, with the lowest tertiary education rate in regional cities in Australia. So, while you're throwing garlands down on tertiary education, when are you going to actually get a university campus into Tamworth, or is university only a thing for the big cities? Little ones don't have to worry about it. That's something you can put your energy into. I'll hear back from the minister, talking about how we're going to go ahead with the university. We've got the land for it, we've got money put aside for it, but you just never started the university. It's just sitting in abeyance.

What I'd also like to bring to people's attention is that when you talk about degrees—we have arts degrees and we have all sorts of wonderful white-collar degrees that have been brought up—you have to be aware right now of one of the great disruptors is coming to Australia. You cannot stop it. I've had briefings on it today. It's going to happen around the world. The great disruptor today is going to be AI. What you are going to see is that if you have a job that requires a keyboard, a computer and a person, over the next decade, that job will probably go, because it has to. AI works around the clock, 24/7. It doesn't require superannuation, it doesn't want overtime and it doesn't need an office. It doesn't need it. In the past, in the Industrial Revolution, we had machines that replaced trades. They replaced weavers and other trades. AI is a product that replaces people. What we have to do in this nation is realise: are we setting up tertiary degrees to put people into jobs which won't be there? Has that discussion happened in this bill? Have you worked out that this is not a dream; it's actually happening?

Whether it's Elon Musk, who I was reading about just then, and the new generation of chips that he's developing, or whether it's Meta, there is a range of houses in the world now that are developing AI. We don't have OpenAI, but it's going to happen in myriad places. I'll tell you why they want to do it. It's because they're going to make trillions of dollars in profit because they're going to be able to take out people's jobs. If we're not prepared for that, we're going to get smacked between the eyes with a big AI stick. This is the thing. We'll also have ramifications because once the jobs go—and they will go; there's no point smirking about it—you don't need the real estate. You don't need the offices. You saw the precursor to that during COVID, with people staying at home. This time it will be permanent, because they won't be staying at home; the job just won't be there.

We haven't, in this nation, really had a forensic look at how we are going to do this. One of the things you must do is broaden your economy to be resilient enough to absorb these people who will be put out of work. To broaden that economy means you have to really concentrate on areas which are not a computer, a person and a keyboard. You need trade jobs. They are your chippies, they are your boilermakers, they are your electricians, they are your contract musterers. They are jobs that require hands and legs and moving. We haven't really focused on that. But with these macro policies—and, I hate to say, such things as net zero—you're actually taking an economy, a nation, to a place and pushing it towards the jobs which will disappear and which won't be there. I'm not saying it's going to happen tomorrow. But in the next decade, though? Absolutely, a hundred per cent.

We had them upstairs in the Mural Hall. They were fascinating people to talk to. You should have got up and had a yarn with them. How fast they're getting this ahead is amazing. We had people from Silicon Valley at Mural Hall. I had some of them come down to my office. We were just churning through where this world is going to end up. But there's a conversation to be had—when's it going to happen?—about how you have jobs for your children and grandchildren. If it's a white-collar job and you put them through uni and you pay off 20 per cent of their HECS debt, what is the point if, in 10 years time, that job is just not there? We sit back here blindly going forward. In fact, the only thing we've done in this chamber is take away the prospective jobs that they could have otherwise had if we had cheap energy, if we had the capacity with cheap energy to drive forward manufacturing and drive forward heavy industry, because you just put heavy industry out of business. Those jobs have also gone. So what's your nirvana for that?

In closing, I would like to thank the boilermakers, the fitters and turners, the meatworkers, the farmers and all those other people who have never been to uni. You should be thanking them for paying off somebody else's debt, because this is what this is all about. Thank them for paying off another person's debt. Next time I'm in an abattoir—there are a number in Tamworth—or out with those workers, which is what I do when I go home, I'll just say to them: 'At the end of the day, are you happy that you paid off a uni student's debt? How do you feel about that? Does that blow your hair back? That is what fascinates the Australian Labor Party—that you pay off white collar workers' debts.'

Ms COKER (Corangamite) (20:40): We said we'd do it, and we've done it. Today the Albanese government has passed through this House a bill to reduce student debt by 20 per cent. On average, that's a $5½ thousand reduction for all those with a student loan debt. The Albanese government has done this because we believe that one of the keys to a bright future is a good and fair education, and getting that education shouldn't mean a lifetime of debt. I know this principle is close to the heart of our education minister. I would like to acknowledge his passion and commitment to reducing barriers to educational achievement and his unwavering commitment to enabling this reform.

We want everyone to have opportunity regardless of their financial circumstances. We want to reduce the barriers for people with a student loan to buy their first home, start a family or transition to a new career, and that's what this bill does. As promised, it cuts the student debt of three million Australians by 20 per cent. Overall, it will cut all student debt by over $16 billion. In my electorate of Corangamite, this means a lot, with almost 18,000 people about to have their student loan debt cut. That's significant, particularly when we know the average HELP debt today is about $28,000. Most of the people with this debt are young Australians, just out of uni or TAFE, just getting started trying to save to buy a home and thinking about starting a family—teachers, tradies, nurses, doctors and paramedics, engineers, architects, IT workers and AI experts. These are the Australians who will build Australia's future—who are already building it—and this will take a weight off their backs. When this legislation passes, their debt will be cut by 20 per cent based on what it was on 1 June this year, before this year's indexation occurred. This will ensure graduates get the maximum financial benefit and that we honour our promise in full, and it will happen automatically. The Australian Taxation Office will process the changes and, when their work is done, Australians with student debt will receive a text—a text worth celebrating. That's real cost-of-living help.

What this means is more money in your pocket—in the pockets of students who have debt, not the government's. It means less pressure on graduates, because we have increased the repayment threshold from around $54,000 to $67,000. This is an important structural reform. We're replacing the current repayment system with a new marginal repayment system. It'll mean you start paying off your university degree when university starts to pay off for you. For someone earning $70,000, it will reduce the minimum repayments they have to make by $1,300 a year, and, rather than loan repayments being calculated based on the percentage of someone's repayment income, a new marginal system that kicks in at a threshold of about $67,000 will be introduced. By making these adjustments to repayment rates and thresholds, the government is ensuring that more people have more money in their take-home pay right now by smoothing out the time and pace at which debt is repaid.

It should be noted that this is a recommendation of the Universities Accord. The architect of HECS, Professor Bruce Chapman, said:

That is the most important thing that's happened to the system in 35 years. It's a marginal collection, it's much gentler and much fairer than previously—we should have done it years ago.

And, when our prime minister first announced the proposal, he said the following:

It will help everyone repaying a student debt right now—and it delivers a better deal for every student in the years ahead.

Permanent structural reform to boost take home pay for young Australians.

This is about putting money into your pocket and putting intergenerational equity back into the system.

It's good for cost of living.

Good for this generation—and for generations to come.

Ensuring all Australians can thrive is at the heart of this reform, and it builds on work we've done to empower teaching and nursing students with paid prac. It also builds on our work to strengthen TAFE. Free TAFE is changing lives, and it's delivering new opportunities for people transitioning to a new job or starting a new career. Every day, more Australians are enrolling in free TAFE courses, and, every day, more Australians are completing much-needed qualifications. Data from states and territories shows that, from January 2023 to March this year, there were more than 170,000 courses completed. It also found there were more than 650,000 free TAFE enrolments in the same period.

Free TAFE is opening doors to new careers and giving Australians the chance to find secure, well-paid work that they're passionate about. At the heart of our free TAFE agenda is our commitment to helping more Australians get ahead. As part of that agenda, we're continuing our work to take cost-of-living pressures off people right across the nation, from two rounds of tax cuts to significant investments in Medicare, expanding the Paid Parental Leave scheme to 26 weeks with super on top and so much more. The Albanese government is progressing reforms that help people get ahead, start a family, enter the property market and embrace the opportunities our nation has on offer.

Our government is committed to building a world-class education system, providing opportunities and pathways for all young Australians. Education is empowerment. I saw it myself as a teacher in the past. Decent schools mean that a child who comes from the most disadvantaged circumstances can succeed in life with the right support, and those young Australians coming out of school deserve the opportunity to go to university or TAFE without being held back by the fear of financial burden. That's why this bill is so important and why I urge those opposite to accept what the Australian people voted for on 3 May. They voted for student debt reduction. They voted for it because it does not reek of elitism. They voted for it because it's fair. That's what thousands of local people told me in the pre-poll line and on 3 May. They said reducing student debt is the right thing to do. They said investing in Medicare and establishing more urgent care clinics is the right thing to do. They said Australians want a government that's focused on building a future and that listens to them and responds to their needs, and they said Australians want a government that' is focussed on their futures. That's what Australians voted for and that's what the Albanese Labor government will continue to deliver. We'll continue to back in Australians to provide help with the cost of living and to ensure more people get ahead. That's why this bill is the first piece of legislation that we introduced in this new term of parliament.

In closing, education allows students to grow and flourish as people and as Australians, and it gives them hope for the future. Education is an investment. It is never wasted, and that's what the bill represents. To all Australians with a student debt and to the 18,000 who have student debt in my electorate of Corangamite: you will soon receive a text from the ATO. It will be good news. It will cut your HECS debt, and please know that it is your Labor government that has enabled this reform, because we do not want financial burden to be a barrier to grasping the opportunities that come with a tertiary qualification.