Key details as millions in for cash boost
For those with an average debt of $27,600, it's a saving of $5520.
The Bill also included changes to when the money needs to be repaid, saving those on lower incomes from mandatory deductions.
Here's everything you need to know about the changes – and when they'll come into effect. About $16 billion will be slashed from the nation's student loan debts. NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar Credit: NewsWire
HOW MUCH WILL I SAVE?
The reforms will wipe about $16bn of HELP debt, VET loans and apprenticeship loans for approximately three million Australians.
According to calculations from the government someone with the average HELP debt of $27,600 will have $5520 wiped from their outstanding loans.
People at the upper end of debt, exceeding $60,000, could see a reduction of more than $12,000.
HOW DO I GET MY DEBT REDUCED?
Those with a debt don't have to do a thing – the reduction will be automatically applied by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
Calculations will take into account the most recent indexation of debt, and will be backdated to the amount owed as of June 1, 2025, meaning you won't be penalised for having paid off extra between then and now. Changes will be implemented automatically, and Aussies will receive a text when the reduction has been applied. Credit: News Limited
WHEN WILL I GET MY MONEY?
Australians have been urged to be patient as the changes are implemented.
Education Minister Jason Clare said the ATO would need to 'write about 50,000 lines of code to implement' the policy and 'make sure that they get it right'.
He assured those with a debt that the passing of the legislation meant the changes were 'guaranteed', regardless of how long it took.
When the reduction has been applied, debt holders will receive a text notifying them.
WHAT ELSE HAS CHANGED?
Thursday's Bill also contained measures to increase the minimum income repayment threshold – the amount you earn before repaying the loan becomes mandatory – from $54,000 to $67,000.
The amount to be repaid will now be calculated only on the income above the new $67,000 threshold, rather than on a person's total annual income.
After the legislation has been signed off by the governor-general (receives royal assent), the new repayment schedule will take effect for the 2025-26 income year.
This is expected to take place within the next two weeks.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News AU
27 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
'Wake up call': Securty expert says Australians must take security more seriously following ASIO boss' espionage warning
Strategic Analysis Australia founder and Director Peter Jennings told Sky News host Steve Price that comments made by the boss of ASIO should be a wake-up call to all Australians on the threat foreign espionage poses. ASIO chief Mike Burgess at a conference in Adelaide revealed foreign espionage was costing the Australian economy $12.5 billion a year as he unveiled the inaugural cost of espionage report. Reacting on Sky News on Friday, Mr Jennings told host Steve Price that it was not surprising. 'This is industrial level espionage and intellectual property theft," he said. 'And of course it's being directed against Australia because we're a high technology country with very significant alliance relations with the United States and other developed economies, and it will be happening all the time.' Mr Jennings said that Australia needed to be taking steps to protect its military and economy from people who were looking to take advantage of the situation, adding that businesses needed to be aware of the risks they are facing. 'Mike Burgess touches on this in his speech as well, how naive Australians are to imagine that it couldn't possibly happen here or it wouldn't happen to my business,' he said. 'And Mike actually quotes Australian officials saying, oh, well, no one would be interested in going after my information. This is industrial level espionage and intellectual property theft' Mr Burgess on Thursday said "Many entities do not know their secrets have been stolen, or do not realise they've been stolen by espionage, or do not report the theft.' He also said that there were many countries that were committing this espionage. 'The obvious candidates are very active – I've previously named China, Russia and Iran – but many other countries are also targeting anyone and anything that could give them a strategic or tactical advantage, including sensitive but unclassified information.' Mr Burgess also said that he could not understand why some people were mentioning on social media that they carried a security clearance. "On just one professional networking site, the profiles of more than 35,000 Australians indicate they have access to sensitive and potentially classified information. Around 7,000 reference their work in the defence sector, including the specific project they are working on, the team they are working in, and the critical technologies they are working with," he said. "Close to 400 explicitly say they work on AUKUS, and the figure rises above 2,000 if you include broader references to 'submarines' and 'nuclear'.
Sky News AU
27 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
'I know that my mother always wanted me to visit Australia': HRH Prince Leka II of Albania exclusively opens up about royal duties
My interview with His Royal Highness Crown Prince Leka II of Albania has been over a year in the works. It all began about 18 months ago, when the proclamation of Tasmanian-born Mary Donaldson as Queen of Denmark revived interest in her fairytale meet-cute with Prince Frederik in that Sydney pub all those years ago. Few journalists bothered to mention that decades earlier, another Aussie girl met a Crown Prince in Sydney. Their love story did not end in a proclamation ceremony or fireworks, but decades of exile and upheaval that saw them perpetually moving around the world. The couple had one son, who today serves as the head of the House of Zogu after finally being allowed to return to Albania. On the evening of our Zoom call, I half expect to hear word from the royal household that the call is off and the Crown Prince would need to reschedule or cancel altogether. But five minutes before the scheduled start of our interview, I receive a notification confirming the Crown Prince has already logged on and is in the virtual waiting room. 'I hope that the hour is not inconvenient for you,' he said. The sandy-haired Crown Prince, 43, is speaking from his bright and well-appointed home office inside the royal residence in Tirana. Our interview coincides with high season for tourism in Albania, which is currently one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in Europe. This year alone, thousands of Aussies will visit Albania as part of their European getaways for the first time, most likely unaware of the Crown Prince's family link to Australia. 'Five years ago before the pandemic, we had three million tourists and I think the Ministry of Culture foresees 11 million tourists this year,' Leka II said. 'Albania is a country which is in a transition. 'We're a country which has beautiful beaches - we share the Ionian sea with Greece - and we have the ancient history of all the empires, from the Romans, the Persians, and the Ottomans, to our own dynasties in history.' The history of the monarchy in Albania is a relatively short but tragic tale of a country caught in the crossroads of ideology - first fascism, then communism. Albania was officially proclaimed a monarchy in 1928, at which time Leka II's grandfather acceded to the throne as Zog I, King of the Albanians. In 1939, Zog I and his wife Queen Geraldine were forced into exile with their newborn son Leka I (Leka II's father) after Italy invaded the country and Benito Mussolini barred the King from returning to Albania. After the war, a communist regime was installed and Albania was largely sealed off to the outside world, leaving the royal family effectively stateless. Decades of harsh communist rule under dictator Enver Hoxha followed before the country transitioned to a democracy in 1991. In 2003, the Albanian Parliament passed a law recognising the royal family and granting them a special status, which enabled the family to come home without restoring them in an official capacity. 'It's the first step in giving certain amounts of recognition and allowing us to play a role within a society while being part of the diplomatic life of the society as well,' Leka II said. Today, the southern European country of about 2.7 million people is enjoying a major economic upswing and is eyeing accession into the EU in the coming years. The country now enjoys relative political stability and a building boom is currently transforming the face of Tirana. Of all the non-reigning monarchies in Europe, the Crown Prince has arguably carved out the most compelling role for a hereditary royal living in a modern republic. He enjoys limited recognition within Albania's present political structure and works as an informal roving ambassador for the country abroad. Just weeks ago, Leka II was made an honorary ambassador to the State of Louisiana by Republican Governor Jeff Landry. In 2016, the Albanian government even gave permission for the royal family to use the former Royal Palace – now the president's official residence - for Leka II's wedding to actress Elia Zaharia. The guest list featured a Madame Tussaud's-worthy selection of reigning and non-reigning royals from across Europe, including Queen Sofia of Spain and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. The royal couple divorced last year but continue to co-parent their daughter Princess Geraldine – the presumed heir to the Albanian throne. In recent years, some of the other royal properties have been returned to the family, including the impressive Royal Villa of Durrës in Albania's second largest city. The former summer residence sits atop a hill overlooking the Adriatic Sea but has fallen into ruin after decades of neglect and earthquakes in the area. Restoring the crumbling residences is an 'incredible challenge' for Leka II. So much so that he recently opted to sell the Royal Villa to a businessman who can properly fund the restoration. 'The new owner is a very, very successful businessman, and he's taking up the incredible challenge to rehabilitate, to rebuild the villa, which unfortunately due to the earthquakes and due to mismanagement and being destroyed, really needs that TLC,' he said. While Leka II credits his father Leka I for instilling in him a drive to serve the country, he was equally influenced by his 'very loving' mother Princess Susan. Leka II says he is 'very proud' of his Australian heritage and credits his late mother's Aussie roots for instilling in him both 'openness' and an uncanny ability to 'read the room'. Born Susan Barbara Cullen-Ward in Sydney, Leka II's mother came from a good eastern suburbs family before meeting the exiled Crown Prince of Albania at a dinner party in the mid-1970s. The couple wed in a small civil ceremony in Biarritz in 1975 and lived in exile in Spain, Zimbabwe and finally South Africa, where they welcomed Leka II in 1982. 'My mother was a fourth-generation Australian,' he said. 'I believe - and I'm not certain about this so maybe some verification could be made - that she was a descendent of Banjo Paterson.' Leka II says he hopes to visit Australia soon and reconnect with cousins and relatives from the Cullen and Ward families. 'My cousins are all pushing for me to come and visit hopefully next year,' he said. 'I know that my mother always wanted me to visit Australia.' Leka II was largely raised in exile in South Africa with his parents in what one 1980s feature by The Australian Women's Weekly gently described as 'reduced circumstances'. Growing up, nobody at school knew Leka II's true identity and he only got a sense of his royal lineage when interacting with the Albanian diaspora on holidays to Europe. I ask the Crown Prince whether his relatively normal upbringing was a blessing in some ways. After all, Prince Harry's memoir Spare was a pretty damning account about the pitfalls of growing up as a royal Prince in the media's glare. 'I had a very normal youth as a child, but at the same time, meeting the diaspora I felt the pressures of position,' he said. 'When we finally came back to Albania in 2002, I was really pushed into the deep end.' Sadly, Susan died in 2004 at age 63 from cancer, just two years after the royal family finally returned to Albania. His father Leka I died in 2012 and both are buried in the Mausoleum of the Albanian Royal Family. As Crown Prince, Leka II can be commended for restoring the royal family to prominence in the country through tireless work promoting Albania abroad. It is plausible that this goodwill could lead to a more official role for the family in the future. But Leka II says he is making great effort to ensure his daughter Geraldine, 4, does not grow up fretting over the future of the House of Zogu. 'She's fluent both in English and Albanian and she's a chatterbox in all senses,' he said. 'But it's important that she is given the best education and time will define her role, you can't force someone to become a monarch.'
West Australian
an hour ago
- West Australian
Paul Murray: Futile bid to hit unachievable net zero target continues to cost households
Anywhere you choose to look, evidence that Labor's renewable energy transition policy is a failure is mounting. For those who don't give primacy to abolishing fossil fuels, the crippling increase in power bills — when we were told renewable energy would make them lower — is enough proof. But for people on the net zero bandwagon, this week has been full of other disappointments. One of the architects of Labor's first attempts at climate change strategies, Professor Ross Garnaut, proclaimed on Monday that the Albanese Government will fail to hit its 2030 renewable energy targets 'by a big margin'. That's because the rollout of new wind and solar projects hit the wall last year, right at the time they needed to be supercharged to meet Labor's policy goal of 82 per cent renewables by the end of this decade. To meet that target would require adding an extra 14GW of wind and 11GW of solar capacity per year. About 7GW was expected to be installed last year. To put that more simply, we would have to install more than 11 wind turbines every day and 3000 solar panels every hour to December 31, 2029. But investment in new renewable energy projects last year was the lowest since 2017. Not one new wind farm has come on stream this year. Labor has put almost all its eggs in the one basket, Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen's capacity investment scheme (CIS) through which taxpayers underwrite renewables projects. The scheme seeks to take the risk out of the projects by guaranteeing revenue streams for some $73 billion of needed investment by 2027. The eventual cost of those guarantees is unknown, but potentially massive. This week Bowen increased the target under CIS from 32 gigawatts to 40, despite the clear evidence that it isn't working at attracting sufficient new capacity. Garnaut says the CIS distorts the market, arguing the best solution was to introduce a carbon price — what most people regard as a tax — having convinced former Prime Minister Julia Gillard to do just that in 2011. And we all remember how that ended. 'The underwriting falls far short of the levels necessary to reach the 82 per cent target,' Garnaut said. 'The big gap on the current trajectory is growing wider now that demand for power through the grid is growing again with electrification and data centres.' Which seems to make the heavy political focus on these targets pretty dumb if they can't be met. Into this scenario of failure to hit any of the targets rides the head of the United Nations' climate change agency, Simon Stiell, who was a speaker at the same renewables talkfest as Garnaut. Stiell is exactly the sort of person who gives the UN its bad name, a second-rate politician from a tiny Caribbean island nation advanced well beyond his capacity with a penchant for exaggeration. He told the conference run by the Smart Energy Council — a lobby group funded mainly by people selling Chinese solar panels — that unless Australia set itself an even higher renewables target for 2035 we would be responsible for very dire consequences. 'The change is working,' Stiell said. 'Now consider the alternative: missing the opportunity and letting the world overheat.' So a nation that contributes just over one percent of global carbon emissions would be responsible for cooking the planet unless it sets a new unreachable target, having missed the existing one by a country mile? This sort of moral blackmail has characterised the climate change debate for decades and clearly is as useless as the targets Stiell envisages for Australia. It got worse. 'Mega-droughts will make fresh fruit and veg a once-a-year treat,' he warned. 'Australia has a strong economy and among the highest living standards in the world. If you want to keep them, doubling down on clean energy is an economic no-brainer.' Stiell obviously is unaware that Australia's standard of living has toppled since 2022 by the biggest amount of any developed nation, according to the OECD's measure of household income per person. What fools like him will never accept is that the reckless push to adopt renewables quickly has inflated the cost of electricity, one of the main drivers of that loss in living standards. But he believes the dystopian 'alternative' he presented is redeemable merely by Australia setting a new, higher target for cutting emissions. And there's the rub. The idea that an unachievable target has merit because it lifts ambition and effort is hollow. What it really does is distort economic reality and inflate costs. But in the climate change game, these targets are the currency for buying political power as we see being played out within the Liberal Party. An opinion poll emerged this week claiming that support for the transition to renewables is growing, up from 53 to 58 per cent since April. The SEC Newgate Mood of the Nation survey of 1855 respondents found 64 per cent backed the 2030 target and 59 per cent endorsed the commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. That result is unsurprising given that most Australians have been comprehensively misled about the reliability of renewables and their ability to meet demand in a post-coal world. And many climate change opinion polls have found that support levels crash when questions are asked about the cost that respondents are willing to bear, something absent in this one. The idea that wind and solar can meet peak power demand without massive support from gas turbines appears to have some public support. The media has to take its share of the blame. We still get reports about new wind projects, for example, which routinely contain claims that they 'will be able to power 170,000 homes.' What does that mean? That the wind farm can meet all the daily power needs of those homes 24/7 for 365 days a year? If not, what? Because if it is based on the average power use of a home divided into the output of the wind farm, it is fairly meaningless. Those 170,000 homes need to be powered continuously, especially at times of highest demand which is always when the sun isn't shining strongest — if at all — and often when the wind isn't blowing. The reports usually say the farm has a capacity of, say 250MW, but the reality is that they operate on average at below 30 per cent of that maximum output and in some parts of the year, known as wind droughts, they can produce nothing for days on end. But the effect of these repetitive claims is that many people get an unwavering belief in renewable power sources at odds with reality, which is something those considering the Liberals' net zero policy need to keep in mind. The next WA State election will be held on March 10, 2029. That's locked in. With the size of Labor's majority in Canberra, there will not be another Federal poll due until the year before. So the idea that the Liberals should come up with a new net zero carbon emissions policy in a hurry is simply ludicrous. The Liberals don't have to scrap a commitment to achieving net zero, thereby making themselves a target for another Labor scare campaign. By demonstrating the now-obvious inability of Labor's policy to hit its targets, they can argue for a more realistic timeline and a different way of getting there. Scrapping further rounds of the CIS would be a good start. And they must do a better job of convincing the public that the power bill burden householders have carried in recent years is a direct consequence of Labor's renewable energy policies. Renewables are good at producing power at times of average demand, but can't provide guaranteed supplies at affordable prices at peak hours. Those peaks just happen to coincide with the sun coming up and going down, meaning the big quantities of power from rooftop solar is not available. And if the wind isn't blowing strongly at those times, even the recourse to very expensive big battery power will not be enough to avoid system failure. That essential weakness is where the Coalition's policy focus should go. The failings of Labor's policies will be starting to bite in 2027 as coal continues to be retired, gas prices rise thanks to demand pressures, wind turbine prices continue to soar and the shortfall in new renewables capacity combine. Labor has been allowed to paint renewables as affordable and reliable, which they aren't. Anthony Albanese escaped any penalty for breaking his 2022 election promise that power prices for the average home would be $275 lower by this year. The focus on the Liberals' internal wrangling over a 2050 net zero target should not be a distraction from the fact that Labor's policy has made electricity more expensive and potentially less reliable.
