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

Thanks, Senator Tyrrell. The government was particularly prompted to act in terms of the indexation rate for those university or VET loans because of the high inflation that Australia was experiencing when we first came to office. It's well understood that inflation was much higher when we came to office than it is now, due to the work that we've undertaken to get inflation down. The indexation rate that we set in the budget was designed to deal with that high inflation environment that we inherited when we first came to office and that did last for the first 12 months or so of our time in office. Thankfully, we've now managed to get inflation down. That's the outcome of the actions of the Albanese government. We've had two surpluses in a row. We didn't bother making 'Back in black' mugs; we just delivered surpluses. We got it done. We didn't need mugs. In the process, we brought inflation down, which is obviously good news for university and VET graduates, as it is for the entire Australian community.