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

Indeed, and you can copy it too. I really look forward to the member for Riverina having some substance in her argument instead of rhetoric I have listened to for the last few years. I really look forward to it. Go ahead and explain to us how you are going to continue the rort system. The parental income test will remain at $32,800, so students with parents earning more than this will continue to lose youth allowance. We were raising it from $32,800 to $44,165. It will include many more low-income families in Braddon. I know such families exist for many members here, particularly in regional and rural Australia. The age of independence will remain at 25 years rather than be lowered to 22 years by 2012, which would have seen an estimated 7,600 new recipients of the independent rate of allowance across Australia.

I ask those opposite to really consider the hundreds of thousands of students who will be negatively impacted if they do not support these amendments, which have been agreed to by the Greens and Senator Xenophon. At the same time, I ask those opposite to take on board the comments made particularly on the issue of retrospectivity. I ask you to consider what you are doing for hundreds of thousands of families.

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