Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What excellent contributions from the member for Grey and, previously, the member for Gippsland. I am pleased that you are in the chair, Deputy Speaker Schultz, because nobody in this House would understand the issues better than you, being the member for Hume.

I would like to explain to the public listening to this broadcast exactly what is going on here and highlight how many members of parliament are very concerned about the issues. If there is one thing that joins us together, whether we are from an outer metropolitan, regional, rural or remote area, whether we are an Independent or whether we come from the National Party, the Liberal Party or the Labor Party, it is the future of our children, the next generation. I was reminded of this the other day by the member for Moore, Mal Washer. He said that when he goes to a public meeting he asks people: ‘Do you think you’re better off than your parents? If so, raise your hand.’ Nearly 100 per cent of the people raise their hands to say that they are better off than their parents. Then he says, ‘Do you think in the future your children will be better off than you?’ Hardly anybody raises a hand. He goes and speaks to them afterwards and asks them why. The opportunity for education is one of the issues that comes up, especially in his area, which is partly rural, like mine.

This has been an issue I have been passionate about over many years. Perhaps I will have time to go into that a bit later. I will not take up much of the House’s time, but there are a couple of points I would like to make. We have a list in front of us of all those who are going to speak on a bill. I have here the list of people who have taken an interest in this particular bill, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009, and want to speak on it. It is very interesting. On the Labor side we have the member for Braddon, Mr Sidebottom; the member for Dawson, Mr Bidgood; the member for Lindsay, Mr Bradbury; and the member for Capricornia, Ms Livermore.

On the opposition side of the House we have the member for Forrest, Ms Marino; the member for Indi; Mrs Mirabella; the member for O’Connor, Mr Tuckey; the member for Murray, Dr Stone; the member for Farrer, Ms Ley; the member for Mayo, Mr Briggs; the member for Herbert, Mr Lindsay; the member for Barker, Mr Secker; me; the member for Grey, Mr Ramsey—whom you have just heard; the member for Gippsland, Mr Chester, who spoke previously; and the member for Pearce, Mrs Moylan. The member for Cowper, Mr Hartsuyker, is about to give his address. The member for Calare, Mr Cobb; the member for Riverina, Mrs Hull; the member for Flinders, Mr Hunt; the member for Lyne, Mr Oakeshott; the member for New England, Mr Windsor; and the member for Maranoa, Mr Scott, are also on the list. Those who took an interest in the issue outside the machinations of this debate are my old friend the member for Mallee, Mr Forrest, and an interesting one: the member for Mackellar, Mrs Bishop. She is absolutely in there, boots and all, on behalf of rural students or students from an electorate like hers who have to relocate for their education. Other members with an interest in this include the member for Kalgoorlie, Mr Haase; the member for Hume, Mr Schultz; the member for Parkes, Mr Coulton; the member for Moore, Dr Washer; and the member for McEwen, Ms Bailey. I should include the member for Paterson, who was absolutely forthright in his approach during our party discussions on this issue.

That is more than 20 per cent of the parliament who took up this issue immediately on the government announcing its changes. I am not one who is going to attack the government on this issue, because I believe the Deputy Prime Minister had the best interests of the students of Australia in mind when she suggested these changes. I believe that she wanted to stop the rorts, spread the benefits of these allowances over a greater number of people, give greater opportunities to tertiary students in the sector, bring the youth allowance support up to date and help more families. I think she was actually trying to do the right thing. But what happened? It was not her proposals but their implementation. Quite often in government the great difficulty is not the plan you have but the difficulties you fall into because you do not recognise the effect the implementation of the plan is going to have on families. I heard the member for Grey speak very honestly about the school that his daughter went to that helped the family out with finances so they were able to pay for her education. I think of my own dad, who sent four of his kids away to school in the city at the one time, away from our country town. I do not know how he did it. He was always at his best when his back was to the wall financially. It is an amazing investment, a desired investment, by families across Australia—an investment in their children and an investment in the future. That is why so many members of parliament have been so forthright and passionate about this issue.

The debate is about the reforms to student income support. Students in their final years of secondary schooling have been in limbo for more than a year—since early May 2008. The changes that the government proposes particularly affect rural, regional and remote students and even those from outer urban areas who have to transfer, for instance, from one side of Melbourne to Geelong so that they have to go and live there, as in my case. Up until now, access to the youth allowance has been gained through working a gap year. This opportunity was to be removed retrospectively. These families had no chance to plan for the changes. That is what we offer them: no chance to plan for these changes. In one case I remember a woman had had three children go through the process—a planned exercise—and the last child was to miss out because of the government’s changes. Can you imagine how devastating these changes were for the family—and I will come to the teachers and career advisers in a few minutes—because they had advised the children on the appropriate course they needed to take to get a university education? The rug was pulled out from under them.

Thousands of young people have done the right thing—planned, shown initiative and worked hard—only to find those plans in disarray. I have had a few issues, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, but never have I had an issue that has come with such great anxiety, such stress and such a response from students, their peers, their mothers and fathers and their grandparents because the whole of the family wishes the best for their next generation. My phone, like that of all the members whom I listed before, ran hot. We had people in the office in tears of distress about their situation because it was their kids who were involved. As I said, educators and career advisers who had advised their students to defer felt that they had completely let the student body of that year down. Their advice and their professionalism were called into question, and a palpable depression came across many of those teachers in those schools because they thought they had advised their students inappropriately. Professionals who had worked in education all their lives were aghast at the effect this would have on students in their final years. One parent wrote:

These kids have done the right thing and planned their future. They want to study to better themselves and are now left in limbo. My daughter is 18. She finished year 12 last year. She was accepted into university to study law but deferred. She deferred so that she could work this year to be eligible for independent youth allowance. My daughter will now no longer be eligible. I am quite frantic about this. If we could have afforded to send her to university we would have done it this year. The course she wants to study is not available where we live so she needs to go away to study.

That was a parent who thought they were informed and went through a lot of information to be sure that the next year their child could go. They thought they were informed. They thought they had done the right thing by their child. We have good intentions from government to do the right thing and then this situation comes and affects all of those thousands of families. I whispered across the chamber in a loud voice to the Prime Minister, ‘Prime Minister, you are going to have to make some changes,’ because it is not just the 20,000 to 30,000 young people out there that this affects; it affects their brothers and sisters, it affects their mums and dads and uncles and aunts, it affects all the plans that they had from the future and it affects their grandparents. There were a lot of people who were pretty upset by this whole issue. One thing we have offered the government they might like to consider is the provision of scholarships to students from rural and regional areas who are eligible for youth allowance but whose financial circumstances are preventing them from accessing higher education.

I said before that this issue has been on my plate for a long time. A fellow named Mick Murphy is the head of LLEN Trafalgar in our area. He is probably the strongest Labor voter I know. In fact, if he tried to vote for me, I think the piece of paper and pencil would ignite in his hand. If there is one thing he has been absolutely determined about for years, it is the provision of education and opportunities for young people. He has been absolutely dedicated to that cause. Knowing that, I asked him for help on this issue. But he was already out there, full bore, presenting to the government what could be some better options—things that they could do. He was desperate to break the chain of inequity that encumbers rural and regional students. He was desperate to give them a boost up. You heard the figures from the member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, on the numbers of young people that attend tertiary education. There are such differences in the figures. There is a view when you live in the city—probably your parents have attended university—that you will to go on to tertiary study. Those expectations are embodied in the family. And you only have to get on a tram or a train to get there. It is not an issue of relocation; it is not an issue of funds. There is greater opportunity for those that live in the cities to access all sorts of services. We know that. Mick Murphy was desperate to break that chain.

There are things that we could do. You know, Mr Deputy Speaker Shultz, within the previous government, that this issue came up time and time and time again, and we did make some changes, because we know our rural students. I want to pay tribute to Mick Murphy. He has never given up. He has been raising this issue for years and when these changes came he had to voice his opinion. At the public meetings that we had that Mick Murphy was at we recognized that the government was trying to do the right thing but that this was a mistake. He was generous in that he knew that I acknowledged that the Deputy Prime Minister, as the Minister for Education, was trying to do the right thing and, I am sure, had no idea of the effect it would have on rural and regional families. I think I have made my point. I give all credit to Mick for the support and help he has given us in this process. He has given it to the parliament. I cannot say he gave it to me, because he would be in too much trouble.

We know our students cannot live at home; they have extra travel needs and their expenses in set-up and accommodation are enormous. I went through it myself when my daughter went off to university. It is a lot of money. There is also the emotional effect. It was interesting when the member for Grey told his story. He was sending a 15-year-old away—it must have been breaking his family’s hearts. We were sending an 18-year-old away. The wrenching from my wife of her daughter was difficult at that time. It is hard enough to cope with the change of lifestyle as it is. Most rural and regional students do not move to the city until the last minute because of the expense and then they find that the jobs that might have been available for them to get have gone.

It has been made very clear by the presentations today that there are real difficulties in rural areas meeting the criteria that the government has now set down. I personally believe the government is going to have to make further changes. If they are going to give real opportunities for rural students to access university in the same way they are giving them to urban students, they are going to have to make further changes and give this further consideration. The whole parliament might like to give this some consideration—the whole parliament might like to think about this. I just want to make this point and I have made it on rural and regional issues before. I tell you what: if this country walks away from its regions and its rural communities and all the concentration is on the eastern seaboard and on the capital cities, you are cutting off your arms to the future, because regional communities and agriculture will be a very, very important part of this nation’s future. I do not have to talk about food security to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Shultz—I do not have to talk about how important our exports are.

These are the people who, after leaving their regional community and completing their tertiary education—whether they become doctors, lawyers, agronomist or whatever else—will come back and work in our regions. That is why they are important to this nation. That is why they need to get an extra helping hand. That is why we as a government and a parliament need to recognise how important it is to give regional people support. Every day in the paper you read about it. I think even Canberra is trying to find a way to get more GPs here, because they are treating themselves as a regional community, saying, ‘We need to supply more doctors into this place.’ How do we feel at Foster and Leongatha in my electorate or in outer Melbourne when we are trying to attract doctors? The people who will come to you are people born in regional communities. We need to propagate them—if can put it that way—and plant them in tertiary education, so that they will come back and be of greater benefit to this nation and greater benefit to those regional communities. They know those regional communities and will want to come back and be part of them—to grow their lives and that of the next generation in that regional community.

I have never liked retrospective legislation. This is all about equity of access, and particularly equity of access to tertiary education. Equity of access is something that rural and regional students do not enjoy. Another complication is that under the government’s plan you just about have to defer for two years. The experience of young people is that once they have deferred for two years they have probably got themselves into a decent job. I had a situation where a young fellow had been accepted at a very high level by a university. He deferred for a year, got a job as a plumber and loved it, and it is going to be his career. I have nothing against plumbers—they are more highly paid than solicitors in most cases—but what I am saying is that this guy has made a lifestyle choice that he is not going to go along with the opportunity that he had. If there was ever a time when this nation wanted the best skills and the best education for our young people—for our next generation—it is right now. When there are financial difficulties across the world we want to make our mark and we want to be a star performer. That will come through our kids—our future.

I have made my point. I have not really got to the speech that was designed for me to deliver today, but I do want the Australian people to know that more than half of this parliament is concerned about rural issues and the needs of rural communities. At the heart of that are the love, care and future of their children. As long as the Liberal and National parties are standing here we are going to promote that cause. As long as we have Liberals who come from country areas and are passionate about our communities, our constituents will know that they have a voice that will not be quieted and will not be held back. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the consideration you have given me in this address.

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