Budget 2024-25: Changes to education debt indexing are a start

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The Federal Government is giving some relief to students and graduates who still carry an education debt, but the AVA is continuing to push the Government to go much further. 

The AVA ran a strong advocacy campaign in the lead up to the Federal Budget. This began with our Pre-Budget submission and saw our new Government Relations Officers taking the message to Canberra, getting much needed time with Ministers, MPs and their advisors.  

With the recently announced Federal Government promise to fund financial support for nursing, teaching, midwifery and social work students on unpaid placement, an additional plank was added to our Budget pitch – getting Vet students included. The AVA got to work, speaking with Minister’s offices and the media to ensure veterinary students weren’t forgotten. The team worked on this right up to Budget day.  

While the Government chose not to include us in this Budget, we have made significant progress in building relationships, as well as the foundation for our case. So, our advocacy doesn’t stop here. We have further meetings with the Minister for Higher Education and Minister for Skills and Training in the coming weeks, as well as meetings with MPs, Senators, and departmental officials.  

In the meantime, there are a number of things in the current budget that will interest and assist members: 

• Indexation of HECS/HELP education debt is being adjusted to be the lower of either the CPI or the wage index. The wage index is currently less than half the CPI (CPI is 7.1% and wage index is 3.2%). The difference is less in 2024, but taking the lower of the two will reduce debt overall, and ensure that education debt doesn’t grow faster than wages.  
• Small business instant asset write-off is being extended until the end of the next financial year, giving eligible businesses with a turnover of less than $10 million the ability to write off $20,000 per eligible asset. 
• Energy rebates for both individuals and small businesses ($300 for households and $325 for businesses). 
• Biosecurity protection is receiving over $500 billion in new funds over the forward estimates. 
• Live export phase-out is seeing the Government spend $107 million over 5 years in support for industry transition. 
• PAYG tax thresholds are being raised from $45,001 - $120,000 to $45,001 - $135,000 and lowering of tax rate in this threshold by 2.5%  

The AVA will continue to raise issues facing the veterinary profession directly to government. Now the Federal Budget process is behind us, our focus is squarely on ensuring our Federal Election platform is widely disseminated within all levels of government.