Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

To take an example which would have meaning for the member, given his electorate, under the new system that we are proposing a family from the bush with two kids of university age who have to move to study will now be able to automatically receive some support with a family income of up to $139,388. That figure has been increased from the Liberal figure of $75,000 in family income. You can see from those two figures the huge expansion in family income thresholds that will make a difference to people in his electorate. Then there are our Student Start-up Scholarships of $2,254 per year. We are estimating that 146,000 students will be eligible for them next year. That is 133,700 more than currently.

Then, of course, on top of that there are our relocation scholarships to benefit the kinds of kids in the member’s electorate who need to move to study. This is a system that overall will give extra student support—that is, 38,000 additional students will be on income support and 36,000 more will receive higher payments. I understand from the cat-calling that the position of the Liberal Party must be that they would prefer to give money to families with income over $200,000 and $300,000 a year than to see an extra 36,000 students get income support. They would prefer to do that than to see more students get more money. If that is the contemporary position of the Liberal Party, that says everything any Australian needs to know about their value system, and it is not very pretty indeed.

See this speech in context