Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Faruqi, for highlighting yet another commitment of the Albanese Labor government to do something about the cost-of-living pressures that Australians are facing. We've had questions before from Senator Hodgins-May about the early childhood education and care payments that it took a Labor government to provide, and I appreciate you highlighting the commitment from a Labor government to deliver a reduction in student debt.

This is a very important change that took a Labor government to provide—not a Greens government, because that will never exist, and not a coalition government, that's for sure, because they were about loading up student debt. It took a Labor government to actually commit to cutting a further 20 per cent off all student loan debts, which will wipe around $16 billion in debt for around three million Australians.

That comes on top of the measures that we announced in this year's budget to change the indexation rate for students who had taken out significant debts, which grew exponentially under a coalition government. Again, it took a federal Labor government—the Albanese Labor government—to make the necessary changes to relieve that kind of pressure on students. I'm very proud of the fact that it is the Albanese Labor government that has now made a commitment to cutting 20 per cent off all student loan debts. That means that, for students with a debt of about $20,000 to $30,000, it's a reduction of $4,000 to $6,000 in their debt. For students with a debt of $30,000 to $40,000, it's a reduction of $6,000 to $8,000 in their debt. For students with debts of $50,000 to $60,000, which is about 147,500 Australians, it's a reduction of $10,000 to $12,000.

We've also heard, over the last week, the coalition oppose this policy, because they want students to have it even harder when they're trying to save up for house deposits. They want life to get harder for Australians, whether they're students, workers or anyone else.