Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome this opportunity to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011. As part of my address, I call on this Labor government to address the anomalies in the criteria for inner regional and outer regional students applying for youth allowance. It was the Labor Party in the last parliament that changed the rules for access to independent youth allowance and that has had a detrimental effect on students who come from rural areas who have to leave home to gain access to postsecondary education.

This debate is about fairness and equity between city and country and about assisting the regional students to have the same opportunities for postsecondary education as those students who live in capital cities. This government claims to be one for regional Australia. We heard that when the Prime Minister took the office of Prime Minister when she was given the support of the Independents and crossbenchers to form government. She said it would be a government for regional Australia. We are still waiting to hear where the policy direction or shift from the Labor Party is going to be to make it a party supportive of and friendly to regional Australia. But I can assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that Labor’s claims have rung hollow thus far since the Prime Minister became Prime Minister.

This Prime Minister and this Labor government have ignored concerns about the financial and emotional burden that their youth allowance criteria are having on the students who live in what is called ‘inner regional’ Australia. It is a concern for those students and it is also a concern for their parents. But the government made a commitment to Independents to bring forward the review. What we would like to see, after 12 months of pressure from the opposition and the private members’ bills that we have passed in the upper house and now in the lower house, is this process being fast-tracked so that the changes that were approved by both houses of parliament come into effect on 1 July this year. The Liberal National Party want to see those changes put in place from 1 July this year.

If Labor do make changes after this review—and a review is what they are talking about; they can accept the umpire’s decision from the two houses of parliament, but we do not need another review—it will be too late. If they conduct a review and start to implement changes as of 1 January next year, it will be too late for the inner regional students who left school in 2009, had a gap year in 2010—last year—and are now still required to work 30 hours a week and defer for up to two years before going on to postsecondary education. Had the coalition’s bill passed by now, they would now be relieved of this unfair criterion. Last year’s school leavers are also left in limbo whilst we wait for the government to act.

The work test used to determine eligibility for youth allowance is just nonsensical for students who live in rural and regional Australia. They would have to leave home to gain access to postsecondary education. This is particularly so in my federal electorate of Maranoa. Under this city-centric Labor government approach, young people in inner regional Australia—areas such as Dalby, Kingaroy and Warwick on the inner Darling Downs in my electorate—are now forced to work 30 hours per week to be eligible for independent youth allowance, whereas those in outer regional Australia, under changes that we were able to achieve in the last parliament, have to work only 15 hours per week, which was the rule for inner and outer regional areas when we were in government. There were not arbitrary lines drawn on maps. The 15-hour rule also applied for those students who lived in our capital cities.

To give you some idea of just how ridiculous these lines on maps are, there is a town called Kaimkillenbun just north of Dalby in my electorate. It is a little village. About 100 people live there. There are 30 students at a wonderful little state school, which a few years ago celebrated its centenary. It is a wonderful school and a wonderful community. It was once serviced by a railway line that came from Dalby out to Kaimkillenbun. When you cross that line now and head up to Cooyar on the way to Kingaroy, on one side of that railway line the criterion is 15 hours per week for access to independent youth allowance; on the other side of the railway line students have to work 30 hours per week. This is just crazy. This is a little community with a local store, hotels, a school, a few houses and a couple of small manufacturing businesses.

It is a classic example. If you are on the wrong side of the tracks in Kaimkillenbun, your children who want to gain access to post-secondary education will be disadvantaged. Many students could have been at the same school, perhaps at high school in Dalby, and caught the bus in and out every day. Because some of them happen to live on one side of the tracks in Kaimkillenbun, they will be subject to the 15-hour work test. On the other side of the tracks, in a community of fewer than 100 people, they will have to work 30 hours per week to gain access to the independent youth allowance. That is how stupid these rules are.

Other towns in my electorate are similarly affected. Millmerran, in the Toowoomba Regional Council area, will be under the 15-hour rule, and that is great. Blackbutt, in the South Burnett region, is also exempt. But Nanango, which is within 15 minutes drive of Blackbutt, is under the 30-hour rule. It is just nonsensical. So students might attend the same high school but, because they happen to live in a different town 15 kilometres away or, in the case of Kaimkillenbun, just on the other side of the railway tracks, they will have a different work test. Under this government’s approach to financial assistance, that is how students from regional and rural Australia gain access to the independent youth allowance.

The other thing that is important is that students who live in rural and regional Australia do not have a choice: they have to leave home to gain access to university or other post-secondary education. They are not privileged like the children who live in our capital cities—and good luck to them all—who also have access to subsidised urban transport to get from their family homes to university. Students in the bush do not have that. They pay full price to get down there on the bus and take up a flat, and the parents have to find the money for the flat so they can live away from home. A town like Dalby is more than 200 kilometres away from Brisbane. Imagine being a student who was living at home there and had to drive to Brisbane daily to gain access to post-secondary education. They would be required to work 30 hours a week, the same as a student living in the city, to gain access to independent youth allowance. In Kingaroy, another town in my electorate, they are in a similar situation.

The recent natural disasters have closed most of those roads, and the Blackbutt Range crossing, on the D’Aguilar Highway between Kingaroy and Brisbane, has been closed for several weeks. It has been progressively reopened, but you can only cross Blackbutt Range on the D’Aguilar Highway on the half-hour. There is a common lane used for coming north-west and for heading to Brisbane, so you can only go on the half-hour. Imagine if students have to travel from Kingaroy to Brisbane to gain access to post-secondary education. It is nonsensical. Recently, I drove from Brisbane to Dalby and it took four hours, just to drive one way. Yet students there have the same work test as students who live in the capital city.

The other great anomaly in this practice of drawing lines on maps is that the cities of Townsville and Cairns are considered ‘outer regional Australia’. They have universities in those cities. They have international airports. We do not have an international airport at Dalby; we do not have a university. We do not have one at Warwick, nor do we have one at Kingaroy. But those students are subject to the 15-hour work test. It is just nonsensical.

We need to encourage students from rural and regional Australia to go on to post-secondary education and take up the professions that we so desperately need in our rural and regional areas, like doctors, veterinarians and pharmacists. Students from rural Australia are the most likely to go back home once they complete their university studies, because they are from the bush, their families are there, they grew up there, they love it. But if they cannot get access to education, to that opportunity to study, that is another loss to rural and regional Australia, because the students in many regional towns—such as Dalby, Warwick and Kingaroy—will now have to work 30 hours a week.

And why would an employer hire someone for 30 hours per week for up to two years so they can gain access to independent youth allowance to become a student? An employer would say, ‘Well, why would we employ them in the first place if we are going to lose them in two years?’ The other situation that is manifesting itself is that, if these young people do start to work 30 hours a week, they might then think, ‘Why would I go on to university? I’ve got a job. I’m enjoying the money.’ They might not only defer; they might not go on to post-secondary education at all. They have a job. They are living at home. They will lose the opportunity of post-secondary education because of this government’s policy, its failure to address the needs of students from rural and regional Australia and these ridiculous, arbitrary lines on maps.

I will now touch on the issue raised by the member for Fisher in relation to the milk-pricing regime of Coles and now Woolworths of selling fresh milk at $1 a litre as a loss leader. This is doing enormous damage not only to the dairy industry potentially down the track but also to small businesses—corner stores and convenience stores. Businesses in my electorate have rung me since Coles started this very aggressive approach to marketing milk at $1 a litre. The corner stores and after-hours stores used to sell 14 or 15 crates of milk a week; they are now selling one or two crates a week and they are also losing sales of other products—Weet-Bix and other grocery items that they would normally sell.

It is not just the milk issue that I find offensive in the actions of Coles and now Woolworths, it is also their unconscionable conduct in relation to a trade practice that is going to impact on small businesses, especially family owned small businesses. It looks like their approach is to use milk, in this case, as a loss leader. It has implications down the track as to how it will affect the dairy industry. I really wonder whether they think of families—family dairy farmers and other people they compete against. Small businesses—those corner stores and convenience stores—are quite happy to compete, but let us do it on a fair and equitable basis.

Milk vendors are coming to me now—the people who sell to restaurants and coffee shops. They have small businesses and they have families. What is happening to their businesses? The coffee shops say, ‘It’s cheaper to go across the road to Coles and buy milk for $1 a litre than to buy it from you, a milk vendor.’ These are other small businesses that are affected by the actions of Coles.

I call on this government to take this issue up with the ACCC. There is going to be a Senate inquiry into it, but I do not believe we can wait that long. We want the senior people from Coles and Woolworths to come when that Senate inquiry is being conducted, but I also believe we should get the ACCC, if it has any teeth at all, to urgently look at this matter and start its process. I find the trade practices being used to bring increased traffic through the doors of the giant supermarkets unconscionable. Whilst they may do a great job, they are also going to destroy in time the livelihoods of many small dairy farmers everywhere.

Dairy farms are usually family owned. The farmers are out of bed at four o’clock in the morning milking to provide this wonderful source of protein to the nation—not only milk but also other dairy products. They will be affected, as will small convenience stores and milk vendors. I am on their side and I am also on the side of fairness. This is just not fair; it is unconscionable conduct and I hope that the minister will at least call in the ACCC to see what they can do quickly, because while they wait and procrastinate damage is being done. (Time expired)

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