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Jim Chalmers has this morning announced the government is changing rules so banks won’t consider student debt when granting home loans.

Home ownership among young people is low. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, data from August shows the home ownership rate of those born during 1992–96 was 36% in 2021 (when they were aged 25–29), a whole 18 percentage points lower than the 1947–51 cohort at the same age.

We’ve asked the regulators and the banks to take a more reasonable approach to student debt.

It taken Jim Chalmers three years to work out it’s really hard to buy a home if you’re a young person … and we do have to make the environment that everyone lives in much more affordable and get the economy back on track.

Our preference here is for a private sale. We’ve indicated to the bidders in the sale process that we are prepared to negotiate with them packages of support subject to strict conditions

We have already … helped out with some of the debt and in other ways as well, and that’s because we really want to see these flights continuing into regional Australia.

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