Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

That is because we want country students to be able to go to university. We do not want to see the sorts of statistics that the Howard government used to think were fine, where the participation of country students was going down.

The government will devote $265 million to deliver on a package to eliminate regional eligibility distinctions for youth allowance from 1 January 2012. Inner regional students will be able to access independent youth allowance in the same way as outer regional, remote and very remote students. The government is also providing further support for eligible students as they face additional barriers to accessing higher education and often have more limited access options. The government will increase to $2,000 both second and third year relocation scholarships for eligible regional university students required to live away from home. This represents a $900 increase in relocation scholarship payments for each of those two years. We expect that these new measures will continue to improve the support for students in regional areas. It will allow approximately 5,500 inner regional students to access payments or receive upward variation in their income support payments and provide about 15,000 regional students with higher relocation scholarship amounts each year.

I am pleased to be able to report to the House that on top of a proud track record of better support for country students, we are improving that support again.

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