Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister, who is the Minister for Education, is, among her many other responsibilities, the Minister for Social Inclusion. The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 is all about social exclusion. If you are a country student who has done well in your secondary studies and you want to go to university but your parents cannot afford the $20,000-plus on top of the fees that must be paid, then you simply are not going to have a tertiary education. That is a social exclusion for those country students and it means rural and regional communities in the future will have an even greater problem attracting professionals to do the essential services that are carried out in country towns and cities. For example, we have got a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, social workers, lawyers, surveyors, hydrologists, IT specialists, and on it goes—a huge shortage. The only way we can guarantee that those professions are manned by men and women who will come through our tertiary sector is if a lot of them are born and bred in rural areas. That is simply the way our culture operates in this country.

I had the pleasure of opening a clinic the other day in Shepparton. It was a clinic for plastic surgery, a much needed service in our part of the world where sun damage too often leads to all sorts of cancers. In opening that clinic, the lead person, a very highly skilled and internationally renowned surgeon, said that the only reason he was working in Shepparton was because he went to school in Euroa, a nearby town, and he understands and appreciates what it takes to work, to set up a business and to thrive in a rural and regional area. This minister, the Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party, has made sure that country students are going to struggle and will not be able to afford tertiary education from a rural base. You have to wonder what is behind this. Is it a further gutting of rural and regional Australia’s economy or is it simply turning your back on Australians who struggle hard but who have the misfortune to be born beyond the tram tracks or congestion of Sydney? This is a serious problem.

The measures that the Deputy Prime Minister has introduced in this bill do not go anywhere near solving the problem of providing sufficient funds for those from families that have not got wealth to go to university. The first measure contains changes to the criteria that apply to youth allowance recipients if he or she is considered to be independent. As we know, independent youth allowance recipients are not currently subject to a test for parental income. The second measure makes significant changes to means testing of parents for payments to students and youth. From 1 January 2010 the annual parental income threshold for non-independent youth allowance recipients to get the maximum rate of youth allowance will be increased from $32,800 to $44,165. This is still far too low. You cannot have one or two students already at university or perhaps one or two students in your family still at school and find the $20,000 per year of additional fees to have your student go to a city to study at a university. It is simply not possible. Sadly, when I checked this year with career counsellors to look at how many promising Year 12 students were still applying for university, there is a huge drop off.

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