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

I thank the member for Cunningham for her question. I know she is someone who has dedicated a great deal of her life to supporting education and supporting students getting through school and into options beyond school. We have inherited from the former government a student income support system that is failing country students. Under the current student income support system, the participation rates of country students and poorer students in higher education are falling—the percentage is falling. At the same time, the student income support system we inherited from the Liberal Party and National Party government is one where some of Australia’s richest families end up with a benefit. In particular, three per cent of the so-called independent students who actually live at home live in families with incomes of more than $300,000. That student income system is telling you something about the values of the Liberal Party and the National Party and the character of the people who were in leadership positions in those parties and could have made a difference to this gross inequity. It is a system where country and poorer kids’ participation was falling and some of Australia’s richest families were getting a benefit. We are determined to change this. Who is, of course, defending this inequity? They are the same old characters: the Liberal Party and the National Party.

I had thought, in the time that the member for Casey was the shadow minister for education, that we were going to see an outbreak of reason in the Liberal Party. He actually said—

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