Australian prime minister says reducing student debt is his re-elected government's first priority
Albanese addressed a crowded room full of center-left Labor Party lawmakers in Parliament House for the first time since his government won an emphatic election victory on May 3.
The struggle a growing number of young Australians — particularly those burdened with student loans — face to buy their first home, due to soaring real estate prices and a lack of new housing construction was a major election issue.
Albanese said a bill to reduce student debt by 20% would be the first legislation to be introduced when Parliament resumes in late July.
Australia committed to intergenerational equity
'I think that's important, not just in itself but for what it says about our commitment to intergenerational equity,' Albanese said.
Baby Boomers are often defined as people born between World War II and 1964. Their needs have long dominated Australian election campaigns.
As vote counting continued on Friday, Labor was on track to win 88 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties need a majority to form government. The party held 78 seats in the last parliament.
The conservative opposition alliance of parties was likely to claim only 41 seats.
Albanese praised the diversity of Labor's elected lawmakers and said at least 57% of them are expected to be women once the vote counting is completed. The Australian population was 50.7% female at the last census in 2021.
'I … see people of different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different experiences, different faiths. I see a diverse group of people that are truly representative of our nation,' Albanese told his government colleagues.
Jewish and Muslim ministers dropped from Cabinet
But the government has been criticized for dropping Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, the government's most senior Jew, and Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic, the government's most prominent Muslim, from the new Cabinet that will be sworn in on Tuesday.
The government would be the first in Australia without a Jewish minister since 2010, Dreyfus staffer Stephen Spencer said. Dreyfus is one of three Jewish lawmakers in the government.
Cabinet ministers are decided by party factions that are entitled to a proportion of ministerial seats that reflects their share of government lawmakers.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Defense Minister Richard Marles, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher have been assured they will hold their portfolios. But Albanese has yet to announce the remainder of his ministers.
The meeting of Labor lawmakers on Friday endorsed the 30 appointments to the Cabinet and junior ministries.
Health Minister Mark Bulter said Anne Aly, a junior minister, was expected to be promoted to Cabinet next week which would mean a Muslim woman replacing Husic.
'It's a tough day for Ed and for Mark,' Bulter told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Sydney Muslim leader calls for the prime minister to intervene
Sydney Muslim community leader Jamal Rifi called for Albanese to intervene to keep Husic, a Sydney lawmaker, in Cabinet.
'The prime minister needs to reflect on what sort of message he sends to all these people who worked hard in southwestern Sydney' for the government's re-election, Rifi said. Southwest Sydney has a large Muslim population.
Husic is one of the government's most vocal critics of how Israel has waged war on Hamas in Gaza.
Two weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Husic said: 'I feel very strongly that Palestinians are being collectively punished ... for Hamas' barbarism.'
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Laurent sees the anti-squatter push as part of a broader effort to crack down on tenants' rights that is increasing homelessness in Florida. In the aftermath of the pandemic, Florida Rising and other pro-tenant organizations had won Tenants' Bills of Rights and Offices of Tenant Advocacy in various Democratic-leaning Florida cities, Laurent explained. But those wins were blocked — 'preempted' — by the Florida state legislature. ALEC has also been deeply involved in promoting preemption legislation. 'There's skyrocketing insurance costs in Florida due to disasters,' which pushes people out of home ownership, Laurent pointed out. The situation for renters is equally bad. 'Since the pandemic there has been an increase in private equity coming into the state purchasing homes to rent them out and make profit that way,' she said. 'It was revealed that landlords were colluding in setting prices artificially high using platforms like RealPage, those renters were then forced into a motel/hotel lease [and] technically … designated as transient.' By expanding the squatter legislation to motels and hotels, Florida Republicans are trying to claw back some of the last housing security there is, as motels and hotels will not sign leases for longer than 30 days, Laurent concluded. Indiana In May, Indiana Governor Mike Braun (R) signed SB 157 into law, which is similar to the ALEC model legislation except that it exempts 'invitees' of former tenants and does not require any fact-finding before removal. The bill was sponsored by State Senator Linda Rogers (R–11), who is an ALEC state chair. Indiana Legal Services warned that the way the bill was written, '[Landlords] file a statement with law enforcement and the police can remove people without a hearing or judicial review.' Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) signed HB 10 into law in Kentucky in March. Similar to the ALEC model bill, it provides protections only for immediate family members of the owner but not immediate family members of tenants, with the only remedy being for a removed occupant to sue in civil court. Maryland Maryland legislators introduced SB 46, a draconian version of the ALEC model bill, in January. It was cosponsored by State Senator Justin Ready (R–05), one of ALEC's state chairs in Maryland. As introduced, the bill would have required a sheriff to remove anyone from any property based solely on an owner's affidavit that they were 'fraudulently in possession of the property,' with no protections for tenants, former tenants, or their family members. Thanks to pushback from housing groups, the bill was amended to mandate that courts hold a hearing within 10 days if a landlord alleges squatting. However, Zafar Shah, a housing attorney with Maryland Legal Aid, said that this bill still filled an extremely important purpose for the landlord lobby. Advocates had been pushing a broad-based reform to the eviction process, mandating that landlords have legal good cause prior to evicting a tenant. The need to ensure that the squatter bill didn't short-circuit the existing eviction process helped contribute to the good cause legislation stalling. 'The whole legislature, left and right, is really backtracking on the right to housing,' Shah told the Center for Media and Democracy. 'The 'stop squatters' push is a part of that.' Mississippi In April, Governor Tate Reeves (R) signed the Real Property Owners Protection Act (HB 1200) into law in Mississippi. The bill contains no exemptions for immediate family members of tenants who remain after a lease has ended. The bill was cosponsored by State Representative Lee Yancey (R–74), another ALEC state chair. Montana Montana Governor Greg Gianforte (R) signed a bill (SB 101) in April that closely hews to ALEC's model legislation by making squatting a crime and allowing property owners to request that law enforcement officers remove any unauthorized person. Amy Hall, the supervising attorney for housing with Montana Legal Services, was perplexed by the legislation. 'I have not seen any clients who have contacted us because they're being removed as a squatter. Squatting is just not a huge issue in Montana,' Hall said. 'As far as I'm concerned, this whole bill was 100 percent unnecessary.' Jim Manley, PLF's vice president for legal affairs, testified in favor of the bill. North Carolina In July, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein (D) vetoed a squatting bill (HB 96) that is similar to the ALEC model bill but with expanded protections for due process — effectively a substantially expedited eviction process — despite initially supporting the legislation. Stein stated that the only reason he had vetoed it was because it contained a provision that blocked municipalities from regulating puppy mills, an unrelated addition made to the squatter bill once it reached the state Senate. Texas As in Maryland, ALEC legislators in Texas sought to use the squatting issue to weaken tenants' rights. State Senator Bryan Hughes (R–1), an ALEC member, authored a bill (SB 1333) that went beyond the ALEC model by allowing immediate removal of 'unauthorized occupants' (without any opportunity for a hearing) based on an owner's 'verified' petition, and by making squatting a felony if the owner's loss is $2,500 or more. Like the ALEC model, the law provides protections only for immediate family members of the property owner, not the tenant. ALEC's Texas Senate chair, State Senator Paul Bettencourt (R–7), authored a second bill (SB 38) framed as anti-squatter legislation that would have created a streamlined eviction process without a hearing or trial for tenants and squatters alike. 'What the Texas Apartment Association was trying to do was to piggyback on the attention on squatting to pass really radical anti-renter legislation in Texas,' Ben Martin, the research director of the pro-tenant group Texas Housers, told the Center for Media and Democracy. 'One person who gave testimony from a landlord perspective stated that, 'From our point of view, a holdover tenant is a squatter.' What they were seeking was a top-to-bottom rewrite of civil law in Texas to favor landlords at the expense of tenants.' Advocates won an amendment to Bettencourt's bill that limited the expedited removal process to squatting cases only. Both bills were enacted in May and signed by Governor Greg Abbott (R). State Senator Molly Cook (D–15), who opposed both bills, told CMD that, 'As an ER nurse, I've seen how housing insecurity leads to poor public health. There's been a confluence of awful policies that has led to the worst housing inequality we've ever seen. There is a way to make sure that everyone is taken care of. Just slapping 'squatter' on a bill that erodes protections for due process is not the right approach. [In Texas] it is a lot easier to get a criminal penalty passed than to get real policy passed that addresses homelessness.' West Virginia On the heels of criminalizing squatting through HB 4940 last year, the West Virginia legislature enacted HB 2434, a very similar version of ALEC's model bill, in April. Traci Strickland, executive director of Kanawha Valley Collective, which seeks to end homelessness, told CMD that 'it's a bill with no solution. I don't want people squatting in houses either. I want a housing solution for people. Tickets for squatting means you're just going to have people who are racking up tickets and criminal offenses, which then hurts their housing and employment opportunities once we get them on the pathway to housing.' Wyoming Wyoming's legislature passed a law (SF 6) in February that is very similar to ALEC's model bill. It provides for immediate removal of an 'unauthorized person' with no opportunity for a hearing and does not exclude immediate family members of tenants, only offering protections for immediate family members of owners. The bill was introduced by the House Judiciary Committee, which includes one of ALEC's state chairs, State Representative Daniel Singh (R–61). Colleen Scerpella and Arn Pearson contributed research to this article. More from Rolling Stone Trump Declares War on Unhoused D.C. Residents: 'No MR. 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