Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition is today providing better support for young Australians by amending the means test for youth payments. As many parents, students and teachers in rural communities across the country will know, these tests have been a barrier to higher education for our kids. At last, our students will be the beneficiaries of common sense changes to youth allowance in order to let them be judged on their merits and not on their ability to pay. Education must be about the books not the bills—for students and parents. The system, as it stands, has prevented hundreds of young people from accessing payments and kept others from receiving the support they need. Whether through an adverse assessment of the family actual means test or the family assets test, some students are being left out in the cold in terms of the support that they are eligible for.

This bill will change the lives of hundreds of families living in rural communities in three key ways: (1) it will mean that the family farm is no longer included in the application for youth allowance; (2) families will no longer have other children kept out of means test and thereby make other children ineligible or eligible for less; and (3) it will mean that, when they do gain access to their youth allowance, students will benefit from a higher rate. For rural and regional families, supporting a child in further education is expensive. It often means that the child has to move away to university or to a TAFE to learn a trade. These young Australians cannot just nip home for lunch or to do a load of washing. The cost of living is something that they face up-front and in full.

Consider this, as we are nearly at the time of VCE exams: a student who is currently studying at a college in Wannon will no doubt take some well-earned rest after the gruelling experience of year 12. If they have done well and kept their head down, they might get into their preferred university in Melbourne or Geelong, some distance away from home. But these offers will only be sent out in January with classes starting in February. This gives our country student a month—maybe six weeks—to move their life to a brand new city. While some students their age will be making the same move out of home, few will be doing it hours of travel away in a different city. They have to pay rent, they have to try to find part-time work, they have to be able to try to get home and they have to do it between getting an offer in January and sitting down to their first class in February. All of these costs—rent, fuel et cetera—add up for these young Australians. Providing youth allowance to these people is incredibly important.

If our young students from rural areas are to be given the kinds of opportunities provided to those in the city, common sense must be applied to the challenges that face them. If we want to give our students the best start we can give them, with an equal opportunity for rural students, these measures will be passed. To the year 12s currently studying for their final exams at the end of this month I say good luck, but I also say that we will be with you when you are done. This bill will be with those students, if we can pass it this year—with the effects taking place on 1 January 2016. They are working hard for our future, so let us work hard for theirs.

In Warrnambool, in my electorate, we recently held a forum to discuss the challenges to accessing higher education for rural communities. I was joined by Senator Bridget McKenzie and representatives from the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Social Services in engaging with students, parents and teachers on this issue. The overwhelming view was that there are significant financial barriers to accessing further education for school leavers from rural and regional areas. I take a moment to thank Senator Bridget McKenzie for the work that she has done in highlighting this issue and conducting forums across the country, making sure that students, their parents and communities have had the ability to have a say on this issue.

At that Warrnambool forum, Rural Industries Skill Training Chief Executive, Bill Hamill, told the hearing that living away from home expenses concerned regional parents more than the fees to go to university. Very simply: the cost put on these students is far greater than those on their city counterparts. In relation to another major aspect to these changes—the dependency on parents after school—passing these changes will see fewer students having to rely on parents to pay for these living away from home expenses. Again, education should be about books not bills. It is particularly important for those parents who will, at stages in their lives, be dealing with this issue not just for one child but will sometimes have three or more children in higher education at the one time. In putting forward this legislation, the coalition government is doing just that. We are cutting regulation and red tape out of the support system for students and parents. By removing the family assets test, for example, around 4,100 more students will become eligible for youth allowance payments for the first time. This will mean each of these young people will on average get an extra $7,000 each year to help with their cost of living. This is a significant increase which will mean that their ability to focus on their books rather than on their bills will be the dominant theme of what they do throughout the year.

This money can go towards paying bills, getting home to see family and buying all the things that are needed to take up a trade or a degree. Education is so important, and this will help in this regard. Each one of these 4,100 students already knows that this is what their time studying should be focused on, and now their government, thanks to the coalition government, knows it too.

The government will also change parental income tests in relation to applying for youth allowance. Making this system more common sense and including all family tax benefit children in the family pool will mean that 13,700 families will have children who will become eligible for around $1,100 more in their payments each year. Around 5,800 families who currently miss out on payments due to the combined higher taper rates will also become eligible for an average payment of around $1,300. The coalition government's common sense has meant that families and students will benefit from these changes and these benefits will be felt strongest in rural communities.

Do not underestimate the importance of this move. Sure, it is not exactly where we want to be when it comes to ensuring that students have the ability to know what, if they want to pursue tertiary education, they can do so in a way where the cost burden on them or their families will not be a consideration in whether they should go on to tertiary education. This bill helps get us part way down the path. I must congratulate and thank the former minister for social security for the way that he consulted with members from regional and rural communities in bringing about these changes. Both he and his office were prepared to engage, listen and take advice from those members in regional and rural communities for whom this issue is significant.

It was only through that listening that we have got to where we are, but it will require us seeing how these changes work, looking and learning from them and then looking at other aspects. For instance, there are still some anomalies for those who defer to get independent youth allowance and the time frame for which they have to defer, which means that in some cases they are better off deferring for two years rather than one year before they take up tertiary studies. We all know from the statistics that, the longer they defer, the larger the percentage that will not go on to do tertiary education. While taking a gap year is one way of overcoming the expenses of relocating to get to tertiary education, sadly, it also means that we lose people from getting a tertiary degree. As we have seen from the previous bill that just went through the parliament—the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement—for us to capitalise on agreements like that, we need to be able to do so across the board, whether it is in the services sector, the agriculture sector, the manufacturing sector or the mining sector. In particular, when it comes to the education sector, we have to make sure that our students right across this great nation are all getting the type of tertiary education that they deserve and that cost is not a factor in this.

I would like to conclude by thanking all the people in my electorate of Wannon who have made submissions to me, who have written to me, who have campaigned for change in this area, who have not let go of their campaign to ensure that there is greater fairness and social justice in ensuring that people across the board can get access to tertiary education. I have had letters from families pointing out how they have had to make significant sacrifices to get their children to tertiary studies. I have heard other stories of families having to sit down with their kids and explain to them that their financial circumstances mean that they will have to defer, work and get the money themselves if they want to go on to tertiary studies. Students have said to me how they would have liked to be able to return home more often to see family but the cost of fuel or the cost involved in getting home has meant that, whereas they would have loved to get home every couple of months, they are restricted to doing it every three to six months.

That community feedback has meant that my passion to see change in this issue has grown from day 1—grown since that dreadful time when the previous Labor government first made those shameful changes discriminating against country students some six years ago. This bill goes part way to addressing that, and I commend and congratulate all the regional and rural MPs, both National and Liberal, on the coalition side who have worked in unison to make sure that we have got the outcome that we have got before us today.

Ensuring that our young students have the choice to get to tertiary education is something which is vital to the future of this nation. We have to ensure that our children are going to have the skills and the education to set them up for life in a globalised world in the 21st century. Our businesses are not just competing across state boundaries and communities; they are competing now across the globe. We have to make sure that we are innovative. We have to make sure that we are agile. Above all else, we have to make sure that our students have the education they need to ensure they will succeed in the coming years.

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