Anthony Albanese has been criticised by millennials for ‘misleading’ voters when he promised to cancel an outrageous $3 billion in student debt.
Labour pledged in May to change the HECS indexation rate to be set based on the consumer price index or the wage index, whichever is lower.
The Prime Minister promised that more than three million Australians would see thousands of dollars removed from their outstanding HECS-HELP and VET loans.
However, the policy was criticised as “misleading” after the prime minister took to social media to promote the controversial cost of living measure on Thursday.
“Stop browsing if you have student debt,” Albanese wrote.
“We just introduced our bill to remove $3 billion from that budget.”
Mr Albanese said the bill would also provide paid internships for nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work students.
“They haven’t cancelled any debt. All they’ve done is transfer the debt to other taxpayers who didn’t benefit from education,” responded one Australian.
Premier Anthony Albanese has been criticised by millennials for “misleading” voters when he promised to cancel $3 billion in student debt.
Australians accused Labor of transferring student debt to taxpayers instead of eliminating it
“Another attempt at vote buying by @AlboMP. He is happy to use Australian tax money as if it were his own – to buy votes due to his constant failures,” wrote another person.
“It’s shameful to have a Prime Minister who doesn’t understand the difference between eliminating debt and re-indexing,” shared a third.
“The government has not cancelled any debt, it has simply adjusted the indexation. Its communication on this issue is misleading and deceptive.”
A fourth commented: “They’re not erasing anything… They’re just transferring another $3 billion in debt to the rest of us.”
Others shared alternatives to politics.
“Freezing interest on those loans would benefit those with student debt more and would cost the taxpayer nothing,” one suggested.
“Maybe they should offer free higher education initiatives that people can aspire to, so they have hope and dreams,” wrote a second.
Under Labor’s debt-elimination pledge, the average amount of money students owe to the ATO for their HECS and HELP debt will be reduced by $1,200.
Students with larger debts, such as those with $50,000 in HELP debt, will see their payments reduced by $2,245.
The change will apply to all HELP accounts, VET student loans, Australian Learning Support Loans and Student Support Loans that existed on 1 June last year.
“There are a number of areas where we need to do a lot better for the younger generation and HECS is one of them,” Albanese said at the time.
Australians owed a total of $78.2 billion in HECS-HELP debt in 2023.
The indexation rate reached a whopping 7.1 percent last year, while inflation hit an annual rate of 7 percent during the first three months of 2023.