John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I currently represent the largest electorate in New South Wales—though not after the next election—which takes in a very large proportion of central western and western New South Wales. The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 we are debating today is enormously important to the electorate because there are very few students in it who can access tertiary education without living away from home. The point is that they do not have options. The cost of living away from home is a reality for virtually every student who lives in central and western New South Wales. The Rudd government’s proposed changes to the independent youth allowance criteria are seriously flawed, which is why it is currently being reviewed as part of a Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry.

If we allow this measure—which can only be described as cruel to the people who live out there—to go through, country students will be seriously disadvantaged. Many will simply be unable to afford a tertiary education. We have to appreciate the cost for somebody who lives in Orange let alone Condobolin, Cobar, Broken Hill or anywhere west of the Blue Mountains. The further you go, obviously, the higher the costs and the greater the dislocation. Most young people who live in regional Australia have to travel away from home for tertiary studies simply because there is no university on the street corner in regional communities. Where there are universities in bigger regional cities, they may not offer the course that the student requires to fulfil their role or their designs in life.

This issue, the youth allowance, has galvanised my electorate of Calare into action, which, I have to say with a great deal of pride, is being led by young students during a time which is very busy for them because they are just starting their HSC exams. Students Cody, Daniel, Amelia and Susan travelled to Canberra just last week or the week before to give evidence to the Senate inquiry which is looking into the issue. These young people did an outstanding job representing all young people. I believe they were from government and non-government schools in Orange and Cowra. They were representing every student west of the Blue Mountains who want a tertiary education and will be disadvantaged if Labor’s changes are passed through this parliament.

The students won widespread praise from the senators in representing the students of our region and for bringing to the attention of our inquiry that working 30 hours a week for 18 months is not doable in regional Australia, where there just are not the jobs. They do not exist no matter how keen people are to meet the criteria. One of the students has been watching job advertisements in the local paper and says there are very few which she and other school leavers could apply for. With 300 or so students looking for work, I guess that clearly says it all.

They raised the point at the Senate inquiry that if they needed to work essentially for two years at 30 hours a week to qualify for the independent youth allowance then next year that will effectively wipe out any of the handful of jobs usually made available to school leavers, therefore making it even harder for the next group of year 12 leavers.

They told the inquiry that the independent youth allowance assistance is the only way they can afford to go to university and that they did not want to rely on their families to help them achieve higher study. One of them made the comment, ‘I guess if they really had to, mum and dad might be able to take out another mortgage.’ Is that really the cost you want to impose on a family who are struggling?

These young people want to work. They are not frightened to work. There is a work ethic out there and they are a part of it. But they are now facing rules where they need to get 30 hours a week for 18 months. There are not the jobs there in regional Australia for that to be possible for anyone who wants to attend university in the future. Orange student, Cody, hopes to study medicine and hopes to get a great job next year with regular weekly work but will be just short of the 30-hour threshold. Particularly, being only a few days out from their HSC exams, the students put in a big effort to attend the Senate hearing because they felt so strongly about the issue. Under some tough questioning, they certainly held their own.

I have condemned before this the aggressive questioning by Labor senator Kerry O’Brien. To have an extremely experienced politician such as Senator O’Brien bombard 17-year-olds with questions about their parents’ personal situation and their opinions on an appropriate threshold for parental income was not on. Before they came down I met with them in Orange. They were very nervous, and why wouldn’t they be? They are facing their exams. Okay, those of us in this place may not think it that big a deal to appear before a Senate inquiry, but we are used to it. These are kids working their guts out, getting ready to do the biggest exam of their lives, and they are coming down to meet with the Senate. I said to them: ‘Don’t be nervous. The senators will do everything in their power to put you at ease. They will simply ask you to tell your story.’ I was wrong. One of those people did bombard them with questions, did give them a hard time and did ask them questions that I do not believe you should ask a 17-year-old student. But, to their credit—I am incredibly proud, as I believe all western New South Wales and regional people, be they in Indi or anywhere else in Australia, should be, of these four students—they handled themselves extremely well, better than many of the seasoned campaigners of this process. They turned the table on one of the committee’s most senior members. For Senator Brian to put himself in a position where he was not only asked by a 17-year-old what his question is but pulled up by the committee chair for asking personal information is simply proof that the Rudd government has no idea what impact its changes are going to have on Australia’s regional future and the ability of regional students to be educated and to take that knowledge back to their homes.

Before our students gave evidence to the senators, they raised the issue in every way possible. They tried to organise a protest rally, which, without doubt, would have had 500 or 1,000 students in the city of Orange. But because these students are law-abiding and believe in doing the right thing—some of us would not have bothered—they went to the police to check that everything was okay. They were told they had to have signatures from somebody taking responsibility for what they would all do. They were not able to get them. I would have signed it myself, but I could not because you had to be the organiser to sign it. These same people, within 24 hours of the issue first coming to light, had organised 1,600 signatures opposing the changes and putt forward not just a belief but the facts and the reasons why this would be so tough, so hard, for the students of regional Australia. It does not matter whether you are in Orange, Wilcannia or Kalgoorlie: this is going to be awfully tough. Despite these setbacks, our young regional students did not give up. They kept going, and they made their concerns and their protests—let us not be fooled about what this is about—heard at the highest levels. Hopefully, their efforts will pay off for country kids right around Australia. I hope so, because I have never been as proud of any of my constituents of any age, whether they were old enough to vote or not, than I am of those four students representing everybody west of the mountains.

Any young person from an average farming family will be ineligible to receive youth allowance because the value of the average family farm exceeds the asset test for the dependent rate of youth allowance. This is the case for an awful lot of students in my electorate of Calare. We all know that the average farming family income is nowhere near enough to support a child’s move to the city plus rent and living expenses where that student is at university. And, as the four high-school students told the Senate inquiry, the independent youth allowance is the only way they will be able to leave home and afford a tertiary education.

It has got me beat, to put it in an Australian way, why the Rudd government would want to make it harder for rural students. Rural Australia needs education as much as anywhere—more, in fact, because they do not have the opportunities, they do not have the alternatives, that exist within the metropolitan areas. I understand the federal government thinks it will save about $1.8 billion from people not accessing youth allowance through the workforce participation criteria. This is penny-pinching of the worst kind. At least 30,000 young people are likely to lose eligibility under the new rules. It is a well-known fact that country kids are most likely to return and practise what they learn back where it is needed the most. That has been proven in medicine. In the time of our government, we were able to increase the percentage of country kids attending medical school from a mere eight per cent to more than 26 per cent. All of that work we did all of those years ago to get more country kids into medicine and nursing is slowly starting to pay dividends. And we all know the only answer to having professionals—doctors, nurses or whatever it might be—in sufficient quantities out in the bush is to train our own kids. I am sure the member for Indi would agree nursing is the same: if we train our own, we have far more chance of keeping our own. That is a very big issue with the youth allowance. It does not matter whether you want to be a tradesperson or a professional. Every time I speak to schoolchildren or university students, I say: ‘Go away and learn what you have to learn. Take every opportunity you are given to reach the criteria of your chosen profession. But, whether you become a carpenter, a welder, a teacher, a policeman or whatever, come back to regional Australia, where you are needed the most, and make use of those skills.’

The youth allowance requirements set out that kids cannot have a gap year of 12 months, even if they could fit the required hours within 12 months. It is designed to prevent kids being able to take advantage of the youth allowance. The kids are aware of that. It is very obvious. You are denying them the chance to plan their education through the youth allowance. That is pretty sad because it has been an extraordinarily successful program. If you think extraordinarily wealthy people are taking advantage of it then put some fences in, but do not kill it. The way it is now, only those from regional Australia who are in particularly humble circumstances, or those who are particularly wealthy, will be able to take advantage of youth allowance. Only they will be able to leave home and get a tertiary education for the betterment not just of rural Australia but of our whole country.

I have people coming into my office and phoning regularly just checking to see where this is up to. They are either worried about themselves, their kids or their grandkids and whether or not a tertiary education for country people will be out of reach. I guess, by and large, that the political persuasion of younger people and a lot of teachers is no great secret but I have never seen a lot of those same teachers get as upset with a Labor government as they have over this issue. I have never seen parents so galvanised. I have certainly—and I can say this standing here without the slightest shadow of a doubt—never seen students so upset. In fact, at a breakfast meeting at which we invited some 20 to 30 students the other day from five different high schools around Orange one of them got up and said, ‘Is this the Rudd education revolution?’.

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