Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate that the opposition will be supporting the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. However, we have substantial reservations about the timing of this debate. One of the consequences of this bill is the abolition of the Commonwealth scholarship programs. The government wishes to replace those scholarships as a part of its changes to the youth allowance arrangements. We all know that those changes are contentious, and the opposition have indicated that we will be moving amendments to them when the government introduces that bill. The Greens have announced their opposition to sections of that bill, which I expect we will see in the very short term future.

However, those changes, to be detailed in the forthcoming Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill, are inextricably related to the abolition of Commonwealth Scholarships in this bill. It is quite unreasonable for the government to expect the parliament to abolish the existing Commonwealth Scholarships when they have yet even to introduce legislation providing for their replacements.

We know, by the way, that there are problems with the government’s changes to youth allowance too. The abolition of the workforce participation route for youth allowance eligibility as an independent will make it harder for thousands of young people from rural and regional families to go to university—a debate that we have been traversing in this House over the last week and a half of the sitting. Young people in rural and regional Australia have to move to the city if they are to pursue further study and are not necessarily able to rely on financial support from their parents, even if their parents’ income or assets mean that they are ineligible for youth allowance under the parental means test. There would be many such young people in the electorate of Mallee—

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