Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The Student Assistance Legislation Amendment Bill 2005 is testament to the bankruptcy of the Howard government’s policies in relation to student income support. On the face of it, the major purpose of this bill is to enable the government to close legislatively a student loans scheme that was earlier closed administratively. But, in moving to strip from legislation this student income support measure, what is laid bare is the complete absence of any suitable alternatives. Before I go through the details of the very sad and sorry record of student financial assistance under the Howard government, we need to remember the circumstances that have led to us considering this bill today.

In October 2003, the Howard government attempted to shut the Student Financial Supplement Scheme by legislation. It failed to muster sufficient support from the non-government senators, so, seeing the writing on the wall, the government did not proceed with the bill. But the saga did not end there. Following the withdrawal of the bill from the parliament, the government announced that it would close the Student Financial Supplement Scheme using administrative means. So it was that in December 2003 the then Minister for Education, Science and Training announced there would be no new loans from the Student Financial Supplement Scheme from 31 December that year. Basically, we had the Howard government thumbing its nose at the parliament and simply decreeing that the scheme was no longer open for business—the sort of arrogance that we are seeing more and more every day.

The method that the government chose to implement this edict was to allow its contract with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to provide finance for the Student Financial Supplement Scheme to lapse. The government decided not to negotiate a new contract or to roll-over the existing one. I can just imagine how the previous minister, Brendan Nelson, must have congratulated himself on being able to pull this swiftie to avoid the wishes of the parliament.

Now that the government have complete control of both the House and the Senate, this bill is brought back before us. Now they are just going to push this through and we can expect that, because the government have the numbers, the bill will be passed into law and it really will be curtains for a scheme that filled a need for students requiring additional income support. There is no question that the scheme provided extra options for students to tailor their individual needs and meet their circumstances.

The Student Financial Supplement Scheme was first established in 1993, and in its first year of operation about 44,000 students took advantage of this new supplement. By 1996 the number of students with a financial supplement loan had grown to about 68,000—about 13 per cent of all Austudy and Abstudy recipients. So a fairly substantial number of students had taken advantage of this scheme. Most of the loans were accessed through the scheme between 1995 and 1999, and, of course, a large number of students were assisted by this flexible facility beyond those years. In excess of 200,000 loans were made available through the scheme in the last five years of its operation until 2003.

In the last year of the scheme, about 40,000 students applied for and accepted these loans. Of those students, over 15 per cent were Indigenous, some from very remote regions, over 15 per cent were single parenting payment recipients, about 12 per cent were recorded as not having been born in Australia and, interestingly, over 50 per cent were women.

These figures really do reinforce data provided by the government that disclosed that the largest number of beneficiaries of these loans were low-income earners such as single parents, people with disabilities and Indigenous students—people who basically could not access support from other sources such as their parents or who faced other constraints in the labour market. If you look at the data that the government has provided, there is no doubt that this scheme was of greatest assistance to those students who were most financially vulnerable. Those students made it plain to us in letters and emails that they were in grave danger of not completing their studies if this scheme did not exist.

Unfortunately, when the government decided to pull the rug out from beneath the feet of these students in 2003 with the sudden closure of the scheme, it left many of those already disadvantaged students in a very difficult financial position. That is now a few years ago, so we in the opposition have to accept the reality that this scheme is closed—until now closed by administrative means—but we are not prepared to meekly accept that, with the closure of this scheme, there should be nothing to fill this void. The record of this government shows a complete lack of adequate income support for students, and there seems to be a complete lack of interest in the real hardships faced by many university students.

We only have to look at a major report done by the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee on student income support to see the severe shortcomings of the government in this area of public policy. The Senate report describes in great detail how, after 10 long years of policy neglect from this government, many tertiary education students face significant financial hardship and insecurity. I recommend the Senate report to the new minister. I hope she has a more sympathetic attitude to the needs of struggling students because there is no question that there are many of them. I draw the attention of the new minister to the preface of the Senate inquiry’s report, which records:

Over the last decade the student income support system has operated in a policy vacuum. It is now showing the signs of this neglect. The Government’s preoccupation with program efficiency over policy effectiveness and continuing problems with Centrelink’s delivery of payments have taken their toll on students. The current level of income support does not come close to providing students with a decent living wage to cover the cost of accommodation, food, bills, and transport. The level of income support has been falling steadily behind the rising cost of living. This has resulted in many students experiencing severe financial hardship and poverty.

Under the heading of ‘Policy neglect’ the report says:

... the student income support system has operated in a policy vacuum for too long, and is showing clear signs of policy neglect and poor service delivery. Many witnesses conveyed a strong view that the drift in student income support policy is not only unacceptable but has become an important factor contributing to the financial hardship of many students ... One of the consequences of this neglect is that the increasing financial hardship among the student population is not included on the national policy agenda.

You would have to say that this bill finally confirms that fact. The evidence presented to the Senate committee about the ramifications of the increasingly long hours that many students are being required to work led to a very blunt warning from the committee. They said:

There is general agreement among students and academic experts that Government measures are needed to arrest the deteriorating state of student finances. Without Government intervention, a combined weekly total of 60 hours of full-time study and part-time work will soon become the norm for a majority of students. The committee believes this is an unacceptable scenario for students to have to face.

It certainly is the case that many academics put to me. I have had vice-chancellors seriously complaining that so many students these days have to do so much paid work it is having a major impact on the capacity of students to attend to their university work. If that were not sufficiently clear, the committee then emphasised in its report that supplementing income support payments with paid employment is no longer an added extra for many students. Part-time work has become a necessity for students. As the report says, it is all about just making ends meet. It is about paying the rent, putting food on the table and paying for transport. The committee goes on to talk about the detriment to students who are not able to complete their studies. It is high time the government recognised that for many students the situation is very grim indeed. The casualties are, first and foremost, the students who are in the direct line of fire when it comes to this government.

This government has imposed so many different policy changes on students. Most recently there was a most extraordinary ideological change—the ramming through parliament of the voluntary student unionism legislation. We know the government did have warning from its own department that the voluntary student unionism legislation would also have a very negative impact on low income and disadvantaged students, but it seems that the government was more interested in its longstanding ideological view about voluntary student unionism rather than in worrying about the needs of disadvantaged students and the very important services which those students rely upon and which student organisations have provided over the years. The government had plenty of information in advance from its own department about how bad this would be. I quote from a FOI document from the department that the Australian newspaper received:

A student support argument has raised the concern that, without support services, many disadvantaged students would not be able to complete their studies.

So we have the minister’s own department making it very plain that it is concerned about many disadvantaged students not being able to complete their studies. This is in the face of what can only be described as the extraordinarily ideological legislation that was pushed through parliament on the last sitting day of last year.

This situation is particularly serious for rural students. I would have hoped that our National Party members in this parliament would recognise that it is very tough for rural students, especially those who have to come to the city to study at a university. A major study done at Melbourne University last year showed that one in five rural students deferred their university education, with the major reason given being ‘the greater need for rural students to accumulate savings to meet their additional costs of attending university’.

I am sure we all understand how much harder it is for rural students, so I would have hoped to see much more action from the National Party, with some pressure being brought to bear on the government to make sure there is decent income support to enable rural students who want to go on to tertiary education to do so. Unfortunately, we have not seen any of that sort of action. All we have seen is the National Party supporting the coalition, as usual, in the final abolition of this scheme that certainly did help many rural students. The remedy to this problem is in the hands of the government, but we on this side of the House will not hold our breath waiting for this government to act, because they have not done anything helpful to enable students to manage their financial commitments in the 10 years they have been in government.

By contrast, before the last election Labor put forward two very practical proposals: one was to extend rent assistance to Austudy recipients, which would certainly have helped those students who are dependent on Austudy by enabling them to get extra support to cover their rent. We also proposed reducing the age of independence for students on Youth Allowance from 25 to 23, another measure that certainly would have helped students in that age bracket. Unfortunately, we have not seen any proposals of any sort from the government which will help students in this regard. As I said before, we have a new minister. It is to be hoped that she will recognise that this is a very serious problem facing students in our tertiary institutions. I hope that with the cancellation of this scheme we might see some real proposals come forward, but, as I said before, we will not be holding our breath.

This bill also contains a clause unrelated to the closure of the Student Financial Supplement Scheme but which is potentially of significant moment in relation to two further income support schemes. I particularly want to draw the attention of the House to this clause. It would remove the need to make new regulations each time the guidelines for Abstudy and the Assistance for Isolated Children schemes are altered. Such a provision is described by the government as a ‘minor technical amendment’, but advice from the Parliamentary Library indicates that it is not minor at all and may have major consequences for parliamentary oversight of important elements of these two schemes.

One of the very important roles for any parliament is to make sure there is sufficient scrutiny of the proposals advanced by the executive in any act. Appropriate levels of accountability demand that such scrutiny and oversight occur in relation to all instruments of legislative authority. This is particularly the case for non-statutory programs such as Abstudy. In fact, in relation to Abstudy, it seems that the only opportunity for the parliament to be aware of changes to certain important components of the scheme in the past was via the process for notification from time to time of the date of changes to the relevant Abstudy policy manual, which is, in effect, the compendium of guidelines made under the scheme.

I say in the past because the Department of Education, Science and Training has advised the Senate committee which conducted an inquiry into this bill that references to Abstudy and the isolated children schemes have recently been removed altogether from the regulations. Where that leaves parliamentary scrutiny of these schemes is entirely unclear. I do not for a minute pretend that this issue is not legally complex or difficult and, as I said, I am relying on the expertise of the Parliamentary Library’s research service, which has set out the two competing interpretations of the bill’s provisions in this regard. To try to help the House I want to quote from the Bills Digest prepared on this bill, because it is a complex matter. It states:

The changes to section 48 of the SSA will modify the way in which notification obligations are to be defined. Under the new regime, the scope of the obligation and matching offence can be defined by the executive. These changes have an immediate influence upon the offence provision section 49. Accordingly, the proposed amendment in Schedule 2, Part 2, item 10 is not without difficulties. In particular, should the broad view be followed, the proposed amendments could:

• remove parliamentary scrutiny with respect to the scope of the obligation and, as result, of the offence, and
• erode the rule of law because they have the potential to deprive the obligation and matching offence.

Parliament may want to consider whether the proposed law should be amended to put beyond doubt that the expansion of the regulation-making power does not include the determination of prescribed events; but is limited to the prescription of the notification process.

I want to make clear that this final paragraph of the Bills Digest has formed the basis for the amendment I will move during the consideration in detail stage of the bill. It is for these reasons in particular, and because of the competing and valid legal interpretations of the consequences of the bill, that I really urge the government to consider the very serious grounds that I have for proposing the amendment.

We do remain of the view that continued oversight of legislative instruments which can effect changes in access and eligibility criteria is a crucial function of the parliament, and should not be watered down under cover of a so-called technical amendment. I also noted with interest that the department of education informed the Senate committee that they were prepared to recommend to the minister that the following be included:

An express statement that, to remove doubt, the power in proposed subsection 48(2) is not intended to permit the determination of prescribed events in extrinsic materials, and that prescribed events may only be determined expressly in the Regulations.

The former minister for education did issue a replacement explanatory memorandum to the bill. Unfortunately, what that said is ‘trust us’. It said:

... the power proposed in subsection 48(2) is not intended to permit the creation, determination or variation of prescribed events by extrinsic materials ...

If that is the government’s intention, I would say to the new minister that it should accept the opposition’s amendment to remove all doubt because, I am afraid to say, the parliament and the Australian people have learned time and time again that this government is not to be trusted. So if the department’s advice is right and if the previous minister’s intentions are as set out in the change to the explanatory memorandum, I hope we will have the new minister actually accepting Labor’s amendment. Of course, at this stage of the debate we do not know whether we are going to get this change from the new minister, but I hope she will seriously consider the issue that I have set out today because it is an important matter.

Taken as whole, unfortunately the bill will enshrine a much diminished set of options for student income support. It is important that we recognise that this is against the backdrop of this government’s record of complete policy failure in this area. We have not had any attempt by this government to improve financial support for students. As I have said, the other provisions of this bill attack the role of the parliament as a watchdog, and for that reason as well we find the nature of the current bill unacceptable. So we would certainly not be able to accept the bill in its current form. I look to the new minister to look at Labor’s amendment and make sure that we can protect the oversight role of the parliament in the way that we are setting out that it could be done.

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