Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Can I say at the outset that it appears to me that the Deputy Prime Minister is living in a parallel universe, or even in a fifth dimension quite removed from reality, if she thinks that she can continue to say that black is white and have us believe it. In that contribution the Deputy Prime Minister just gave to the House, she had the audacity to suggest that the coalition had proposed amendments that would cost money without identifying any matching savings. Perhaps she needs to get better staff, who will actually print off the Senate Hansard for her and show her that one of our amendments moved in the Senate, which the government voted down, was a $720 million saving in the budget which would have paid for the amendments that we were moving to remove retrospectivity and also give rural and regional students an opportunity to fulfil their higher education dreams. It is sad to me that she will stand up here and say things that are utterly untrue in the hope that it will be reported in the press.

The coalition has moved amendments in the Senate. I would note that the Greens, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding supported those amendments. Those amendments remove the retrospectivity from the legislation that would have seen the goalposts moved halfway through the game for at least 25,000 students who are currently in their gap year, who planned their futures, who planned their higher education dreams, around the rules as they were when they entered their gap year. Those rules have been changed on them halfway through the game. The coalition and, it appears, the Greens, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding will not support that retrospective change.

The second amendment came out of the Senate’s committee inquiry into the disadvantage that rural and regional students face. It was an amendment to put students who have to leave home in order to go to university back in the position they would have been in if the government had not introduced these changes to the Youth Allowance—in effect, removing the 30-hour work test that the government introduced and applying a gap year test for rural and regional students and others who have to leave home to go to university so they can access the independent rate of youth allowance. Both of those amendments were supported by the Senate, both now form part of the bill and the Deputy Prime Minister is now seeking to remove both.

The Deputy Prime Minister would also have people believe that the coalition is somehow responsible for the government’s legislative agenda. I know it will come as a surprise to some people in this House, but the opposition lost the election in November 2007 and we do not determine the government’s legislative agenda. I think many people wish the government would start behaving like a government and take the tough decisions that need to be taken, rather than behaving like a continual opposition. The government’s legislative agenda has been botched by the Deputy Prime Minister in yet another display of the slipshod manner in which she manages the education portfolio. It was the government’s choice to introduce the Youth Allowance changes so late in the legislative year that there is virtually no time to turn these bills around in the Senate before the end of the year and before the 1 January start-up for scholarships. It was the government’s choice to delay this legislation until the very last minute. Again, perhaps the minister is being poorly advised. But, really, she has to take responsibility for the decisions she has made about the government’s legislative agenda.

Secondly, we warned the government that, by putting the Commonwealth Scholarships abolition in the bill that we voted upon a few months ago—the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009—they were in danger of abolishing Commonwealth Scholarships without replacing them with the new Commonwealth Scholarships. The coalition supports the new Commonwealth Scholarships. We support them starting on 1 January, but it is not our fault that the Deputy Prime Minister has so mismanaged this bill and this process that she finds herself in the position where she may well, on 1 January, not have replacement scholarships for those that were abolished some months ago. The coalition tried to help the Deputy Prime Minister. We warned her in May, we warned her in June, we warned her in August and we warned her in October that by putting the Commonwealth Scholarships in the wrong bill she would abolish them and have nothing to replace them with. (Time expired)

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