Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very glad to be able to continue my contribution on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009. When I was last speaking on this I was talking about the second scholarship which is being introduced under the scheme, the relocation scholarship. This scholarship will contribute $1,000 per year and $4,000 for students’ initial relocation. These scholarships will be available to all north-west, west coast and King Island students from my electorate of Braddon who must travel to the Launceston, Burnie or Hobart campuses of the University of Tasmania or, indeed, to the mainland and will make the world of difference in paying for things like bonds for rental houses or to contribute to fees to live on campus. This means all students from my electorate, spanning Latrobe to Smithton, King Island and the west coast, will qualify for a relocation scholarship so long as they are receiving youth allowance or Austudy. It is also important to note that the value of both the relocation scholarship and the start-up scholarship will be indexed from 2011.

Whilst I welcome with open arms the majority of changes to the Youth Allowance system, there was one facet which concerned me considerably. I certainly support the tightening of provisions for students to claim independence to ensure we target financial help to those who need it the most. But I made no secret of my concern for how this was going to affect those students who are currently undertaking a gap year with the view to beginning university in early January 2010. A number of concerned so-called ‘gap year’ students and their families contacted me to voice what they saw as a policy that would leave them in relative limbo—effectively retrospectively penalising them for choices they made a year ago to forgo pursuing tertiary studies for a gap year or two.

I took these concerns to my colleague and friend the Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, on a number of occasions, asking her to reconsider the time frames to introducing this particular amendment. She took these concerns on board and, in time, set up a roundtable discussion for a number of representative regional MPs and students to come to parliament and speak directly to her about their concerns. I must thank the minister for her willingness to listen to the needs of regional students, a courtesy never granted by the former government.

Eighteen-year-old gap year student Alan Nicholas, from Wynyard, was my special guest at the roundtable, which was held at Parliament House in August. Like me, Alan was supportive of the new policy overall but was worried about how the time frames for the introduction of changes would affect him and other gap year students. Alan, along with other regional student representatives, explained these concerns directly to Minister Gillard on behalf of his fellow gap year students—and I would add that he did this with substantive argument and persuasion. Alan was articulate and very clear about his views on these time frames, and I thank him for taking the time to make an appointment with me on this matter very early in the piece and for taking time off work to travel and represent his region.

I must also again thank Minister Gillard because, unlike the former government, which preferred to ignore arguments put by me and others in this place for over a decade, Minister Gillard listened. She revised these time frames to allow students who left school in 2008, are in the middle of a gap year now and are planning to leave home for university in 2010 to continue their plans to do so under the existing system. I acknowledge, however, that this revision does affect the government’s bottom line and, to compensate for this, the changes planned for the amount a student can earn before it affects their youth allowance will be deferred by 18 months. I think this is a fair trade-off. What this means—and this is another positive aspect of the reform program contained within this legislation—is that from 1 July 2012 eligible students will be able to earn $400 a week without having their payments reduced. That is a very important point, often forgotten in the hullabaloo surrounding criticism of this amendment. This significant exemption is an increase from the current $236 and will give participants the chance to access more opportunities to increase their income by up to an additional $164 per week without penalty on their allowance payment.

I know that the eligibility criteria for independence are more stringent than in the past and will require future claimants to genuinely prove this independence over a longer time period. I know that some people regard this tightened work eligibility criterion to be particularly hard for the regional students to fulfil in comparison to their urban cousins. I must say that I have pointed out what I regard to be the geographic discrimination or distinction that exists currently between urban students and those who live in regional Australia and must move for their studies. I will be particularly vigilant in monitoring this aspect of the reform and will not hesitate to inform my minister and my colleagues if this becomes too comparatively onerous for potential students in my region.

The package of reforms outlined in this legislation are premised and targeted to make many more students eligible to receive support to further their studies. The package should be seen in its entirety. These changes will see youth allowance targeted at those families that need assistance most. With a median income of $45,000, my region is exactly where it is targeted. Under the existing system, 18 per cent of students receiving youth allowance are from families with incomes of more than $150,000, 10 per cent above $200,000 and three per cent above $300,000. That is not right; that is not equitable. That has to change and it will.

Contrary to claims from those opposite, the current broken coalition system has seen regional and rural participation in tertiary education actually decline from 2002 to 2007. The extremely low parental income test has effectively forced students into claiming independence from their family and taking a compulsory gap year, after which we know that 30 per cent do not subsequently take up their university offer. Under the alternative coalition plan, almost $700 million over four years will be torn from the pockets of students as start-up scholarships are reduced permanently by $1,254 a year. This equates to more than 150,000 students losing the equivalent of $24 a week each and every week they are at university.

These changes are fair and equitable. I will monitor their effects on my regional students in terms of the income eligibility rule but I welcome news that these scholarships in particular and the allowance will be available to many more people who deserve our financial support. (Time expired)

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