Labor will take 20 per cent off student debt

But a much closer system to that which we have in the UK is Australia’s – and in the run up to the next election down under, it’s set to be a big debate there too.

Over the weekend education minister Jason Clare made his big pitch to young graduates:

A lot of young Australians are doing it tough at the moment. They’re just starting out, they’ve just finished their uni degree … this will cut the cost of that bill.

The proposal is to take 20 per cent off students’ debts – which would apply to $16bn worth of loans – if Labor wins the next election.

That will mean students with the average HECS debt of $27,600 (£14,029) having more than $5,500 (£2,796) taken off their loans, helping an estimated 3 million graduates:

It will make a massive difference for a lot of young Australians right across the country, not just young Australians, though, everybody that has a student debt.

As well as that, as Theresa May argued in 2017, the aim is to give graduates “more disposable income now”.

So in addition the minimum repayment threshold will change from $54,435 (£27,670) in 2024-25 to $67,000 (£34,056) in 2025-26.

And repayments will be calculated only on the income above the new $67,000 threshold – right now, they’re based on total annual income.

It all comes on top of changes already introduced to interest rates – they’ve already wiped about $3 billion of student debt for more than 3 million Australians.

That budget also introduced, at a Commonwealth level, paid “prac” – financial support for teaching students and nursing students, midwifery students and social work students while on placement.

That was also a budget that expanded free courses that help people to get ready to do a university degree – “Fee-Free University Ready” courses. Sort of like free foundation years. Today’s announcement for England makes FYs pretty much unviable in a lot of universities.

It also hugely expanded Regional University Study Hubs – which help students in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia participate and succeed in tertiary education through the provision of support and facilities – and confirmed 500k fees-free vocational places.

Labour here may have somewhat taken younger votes for granted – but as well as an ageing population, its growing problem will be graduates in their 20s and early 30s who are not on the housing ladder, but are caught by a £25,000 repayment threshold.

Theresa May’s lowering of the repayment threshold was widely believed to have been expensive with little political benefit. Given how extreme right-left age bifurcation is in UK politics, coupled with university participation skewing graduates left, you can see why.

If Badenoch’s Conservatives dig in on culture wars and Telegraph Colonels, maybe Labour will be more fixated on the triple lock in 2028 than this sort of stuff. If not, the growing intergenerational issues may be impossible to ignore.