Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When it comes to supporting young people, there is daylight between the approach of the government and that of the Liberals. In their nine long years in government, the Liberals dropped the ball on the housing crisis. They did nothing to address housing supply and wasted billions on HomeBuilder, and their grand plan today is to allow young people to empty their super for housing. On this side, we reject that approach. We want the cities and the regions to be places where young people can afford to live and thrive. The government's Homes for Australia plan allocates $32 billion to housing supply and will deliver a better deal for renters and get more market and non-market housing built to address demand.

Unlike those opposite, we support young people who study, because we know that education is a springboard to better wages and a better life. It is a Labor government that will legislate to make fee-free TAFE permanent, it is a Labor government that will slash 20 per cent off student debt, and it is only a Labor government that will reform HECS to make student debts fairer and more affordable, because we know that, for young people, renting or buying a house or studying at university is harder than it has ever been. I want Bennelong to be a place where young people study, where young people can rent and where young people can buy their first home, and it's only a Labor government that will have the plans to make that vision a reality.

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