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

I thank the member for his question. No, I do not agree. What I do know is this: if we look at what happened with participation in higher education over the last decade, the percentage of kids from regional and rural Australia participating in uni went down. Anybody who is advocating the current student-financing model should recognise they are not advocating a system that supported regional and rural participation, because the statistics tell you the reverse. The statistics tell you that under that system regional and rural participation went down. When you see statistics like that, I think you have to ask: how can we do better? I think, too, that you have to ask how we can do better when the Bradley review into higher education found that 36 per cent of students who were living at home and receiving youth allowance and were considered independent from their families were in families with incomes of more than $100,000 and 10 per cent of them were in families with incomes of more than $200,000.

I understand that the member shares my concern. I suspect he truly does share my concern, and in the face of statistics like that what we have to ask is: how do we get those dollars to students who need them more and for whom it would do more good? As he comes from the electorate of McMillan, I know that his concern is for those students who need to move away from home in order to access an education. What I can say to him in terms of these student-financing reforms, because I am also familiar with the income profile of his electorate, is that what we have done with the family income profile will mean that more families in his electorate will find that they are eligible for student income support for their young people than under the old system, and consequently the need to rely on the independent status is not the same. The independent status became all-important because the family income cut-off points were so low that hardly anybody qualified. We have changed those family income cut-off points. Can I say to the member opposite that for concerned constituents there is an estimator on our departmental website which enables people to put in their family income, and many find when they do that that they are eligible on the basis of family income without needing to worry about the independence criteria.

Can I also say to the member opposite that the scholarship arrangements that we have engaged in mean a huge difference to the number of students that will get a scholarship. Let me give you just one figure. Our student start-up scholarship will go to 146,000 students. The old scholarship went to 12,700 students—that is, it was capped. The number of students who got it were capped and there were students who missed out and got nothing. We are talking about an increase of around 133,700 students getting our start-up scholarship. In addition to that, we are talking about new relocation scholarships. Under the old scholarship arrangements those scholarships too were capped, which meant that some students missed out on them, whereas under our scholarship arrangement people who need to relocate and have qualified for youth allowance will be able to access the relocation allowance. Working through these changes, it means tens of thousands of extra students will benefit, will get student income support for the first time and will get more income support than they would have under the old arrangements.

Can I say to the member opposite that if he is concerned about these matters I am more than willing to sit down with him and work through the details. I have done that with other members opposite—

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