Key Points
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be focused on ‘wiping student debt’.
- His party will govern with a majority in the House of Representatives.
- Some students will have 20 per cent of their student loan debt wiped.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will make cutting student loan debt his first priority once parliament resumes.
He will also prioritise housing supply and a federal environmental protection agency, once he picks his new ministers.
But he said while his party will govern with an overwhelming majority, he would be open to consultation from all sides of parliament and wouldn’t go beyond their agenda.
“We’re not getting carried away,” he told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
“We are open to listening if people have valuable suggestions.”
HECS debt first order of business
Roughly three million Australians will have
Labor said this would wipe out around $16 billion in student debt.
Albanese said this would be his first item on the agenda, “as promised”, once his frontbench is sorted.
“I’m very confident we have a mandate for that. We can’t have been clearer,” he said.
He said the issue of housing would also be a top priority.
Individuals with debts might be eligible for thousands in credit.
“I note both the Coalition and the Greens’ housing spokespeople won’t be in the parliament,” Albanese said, referring to the failed re-election of the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather and the Liberal Party’s Michael Sukkar.
“I think part of the reason … is they held up public housing, they held up emergency housing for women and children escaping violence. They held up our build to rent scheme. They held up our help to buy scheme.
“I say this message to the Senate and members of the House of Representatives, we have a clear mandate to build more housing, the key is supply.
“You know, get out of the way and let the private sector build it.”
Albanese said he wants a federal environmental protection agency that “supports industry, but also supports sustainability”.
He said he would consult with colleagues in the coming days about the shape of his cabinet.
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