More than 25,000 students in my electorate of Newcastle will see their student debt slashed by a further 20 per cent during the next term of an Albanese Labor government. That's 20 per cent slashed from all student debt. Whether you undertook a degree program at the University of Newcastle, did an apprenticeship through TAFE or took out an apprentice loan scheme, you will get a 20 per cent discount off your debt. Combined with the Albanese Labor government's other measures-making indexation fairer and increasing the threshold for when you need to start repaying the debt-we're wiping close to $20 billion from student loans, benefitting more than three million Australians. That's about putting money back into the pockets of students and indeed those former students.
Labor are the party of education, and, when we talk about higher education, we mean both university and TAFE. We're also locking in 100,000 free TAFE places every year, because, under Labor, free TAFE is here to stay. We've introduced the legislation as a matter of urgency because we know that, after a decade of neglect under the Liberals, Australia had the second-highest labour shortages amongst the OECD, and we can't afford to go back there. Tragically, the Liberals and Nationals are refusing to back our plans to make the student loan scheme fairer, and they are refusing to support our legislation to lock in free TAFE forever. It seems some people never learn.
