Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Education plays an integral role, a vital role, a crucial role in developing vibrant and sustainable regional communities. It is absolutely critical that we get everything right with education, and certainly the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015 goes part of the way towards doing that. Of course, there are so many other things that we need to do as far as education is concerned, and we, the Turnbull-Truss government, are getting on with the job of doing that.

Access to educational opportunities increases, lifts and raises the aspirations of young people and of regional communities. It is an individual thing; it is a collective thing. There is a significant divide between rural and regional students and metropolitan students, and it is not just the Great Dividing Range. It is not just that great sandstone curtain that divides the Sydney-Wollongong-Newcastle metropolitan areas from the rest of New South Wales. There is a significant divide between country folk and their metropolitan cousins. Rural and regional communities have long suffered the consequences—economically, educationally and socially.

The figures are alarming when it comes to education.    Only 17 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds from regional areas have a bachelor's degree or higher qualification, compared with 36 per cent from the same age group who live in the capital cities—those who live within those big city lights. In remote areas, that figure is only 15.4 per cent. We just heard from the member for Calare, who has fiercely represented many of those remote areas. He mentioned the member for Parkes, who also has. When you look at the proposed boundaries for Parkes under last week's Australian Electoral Commission redistribution, he will be representing more than 400,000 square kilometres. If it were a country, Parkes would be the 60th largest in the world under the new boundaries. So he will represent—and has represented in the past—many remote students very well.

A student from regional Australia has only a 33 per cent chance of attending university, compared to a 55 per cent chance for students from major metropolitan areas. I see the member for Rankin is nodding. He understands. He gets it. As Australians, we all understand the tyranny of distance in modern society, but its significance has not been replicated across policy. Distance has created the significant divide between capital cities and regional Australia, resulting in what I would argue are policy inequalities.

The Nationals, both in opposition and in government, have been working hard to bridge the gap and to maintain a strong voice, as they always have, advocating in the best interests of regional young people, because that is what we do as National Party members, whether we are sitting on the opposition benches or whether we are, indeed, sitting on the government benches and are able to help formulate policy and help with the financing aspect.

Senator Fiona Nash has led the charge for years. With all due respect to my colleague opposite, I have to say, against Labor, that in the past government they made it extremely difficult and unfair for regional students to access youth allowance. This was due to the changes that were made during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. Regional students struggled immensely in those six years to afford tertiary education because of what I would argue, what I would say and what I rightly believe were unfair changes made to independent youth allowance. It demonstrates how completely out of touch Labor was with regional communities in those six years between 2007 and 2013. A sustained campaign led by regional communities and the Nationals in coalition eventually forced a Labor government backflip.

In the Riverina, access to youth allowance can be the determining factor for students and their families—and we have to include families in this because it is not just about the student. It is also about the cost that it brings to bear on what are often farming families, on what often are families with small businesses. Sometimes, under what were Labor's unfair policies, it meant that only one student from a family was able to go to university. The family was only able to afford one. Students need to be able to pursue a tertiary education.

I have three children. Georgina, who is now a secondary high school teacher at Griffith, was fortunate. She studied at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga and was able to live at home. Alexander, who is an accountant, is studying a course at the moment through Charles Sturt University. My and Catherine's youngest son, Nicholas, is doing an electrical apprenticeship next year, and I have always argued and always will argue that a trade certificate is every bit equal to a diploma or a degree. My children were fortunate that they were able to stay at home, but many country students do not have the good fortune to be able to do the courses that they want to do in their home town and therefore are forced to go elsewhere and to work many, many hours doing a job to help pay their way. It creates good time management skills but it also creates hardship for their families.

The Nationals recognise and understand there is a serious inequity which exists between regional and metropolitan students when it comes to accessing tertiary education, hence this bill before the parliament this afternoon. It costs between $15,000 and $20,000 a year to send a child away to a university or college of technical and further education, a cost which is greatly experienced on far more occasions by families living in regional Australia, outside of those bright city lights. The Nationals have been fighting hard for the establishment of a tertiary access allowance, a policy we developed prior to the last election. This proposal was designed to directly assist regional families and students needing to relocate significant distances to undertake tertiary studies.

Over the past three months, the Chair of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, Victorian Senator Bridget McKenzie, has been travelling to all corners of regional Australia to host regional higher education forums to discuss the barriers that regional, rural and remote students face when accessing higher education. The 20 or so forums that Senator McKenzie has held across the country will provide—and have provided—innovative ideas and inform policy going forward to better support students from regional and remote communities.

On 29 July I held a forum at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga with students, teachers, lecturers, career advisers and parents to discuss regional barriers our local students face. The media turned up as well, which was good because it meant that the awareness message was able to get out there. The common theme from the Wagga Wagga forum was the financial barriers regional students face when pursuing a tertiary education. I am pleased to say that the measures contained in this bill will help to alleviate and address some of the concerns and issues raised on that day.

The Nationals in government will continue to    push for equity and fairness for regional students. In coalition negotiations, Prime Minister Turnbull made the commitment to Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Nationals Warren Truss to implement a plan to address the financial barriers regional students face in pursuing higher education pathways. This is very important. It is a huge win for regional students and families and a direct result of the Nationals delivering a strong voice for regional Australia in the coalition, as we have always done and as we will continue to do.

In the budget, in May this year, the coalition announced the measures contained in this bill to assist families and to encourage more young people, particularly from rural, regional and remote Australia, into further study. Students from asset-rich but cash-poor farming families will be more than $7,000 a year better off following the removal of the family assets test when considering eligibility for youth allowance. That is important because some of these rural, regional and remote families might be asset rich but, particularly in north-west New South Wales and southern Queensland, they have been in drought conditions for four years, and that was after only a couple of years of good seasons, preceded by a decade or more of the Millennium Drought. So they have had tough times for going on 14 of the past 16 years. When they are asset rich but cash poor, it is a bit difficult to send young Johnny or young Mary off to university for a better future, for that tertiary degree.

For farming families and small businesses across the country, this removal of the family assets test will mean the value of farms and trusts will no longer be considered when people apply for youth allowance. That is an important measure. It will benefit around 4,100 dependent young people who will qualify for youth allowance. That is 4,100 young people who are going to get access to a better future and possibly a better life because of this legislation. This is a game changer for many young people, who will now qualify for the very first time. It is a positive change for the families in the regions who have for far too long been disadvantaged due to the application of the family assets test.

I have been the member for Riverina since 2010, following Kay Hull, a strident advocate for a fairer deal for young students. I know how great a priority she placed on this. I see the member for Forrest up the back, ready to speak, and she knows how important this is, because she attended the meetings that I attended when we discussed this with the relevant ministers. When it comes to this issue, she has been a strident advocate for fairer measures for many, many years, and I know she will continue to be a great advocate for young students in her regional area in Western Australia. Mrs Hull told me of the importance of this. I always knew how important it would be, but the number of phone calls, letters and emails that my electorate office received when I became the member for Riverina in 2010 and the number of people who pulled me up in Wagga Wagga, Griffith, West Wyalong, Tumbarumba, or wherever I went throughout my electorate, showed that this was an issue that was so important to people. I am glad that this legislation is before the House today so that we can do something positive about it. It is a positive change for families in the region. They have been far too long disadvantaged by the application of the family assets test.

With the removal of both the family assets test and the family actual means test from the youth allowance parental income test, the assessment of a young person's access to youth allowance will be based on a fairer measure of family income. Simplifying the parental means test will provide additional assistance for farming families—and all those others in regional areas too; they are not just farming families. Regional Australia is transforming, but farming families and small business are the great drivers of regional Australia. This is making the system fairer for students who need the support the most. Treating the family farm or business as income is illogical. Many farming families have significant assets on paper, but this does not translate to the bank balance. It is the same for small business, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly. You know that, coming from the electorate of Hughes.

When a farmer's son or daughter is accepted into university, the cash-poor farmer cannot just sell half a paddock or hock the tractor to fully fund the extent of relocating their children to attend university. That is why it is important that the measures in this bill are implemented. They will greatly benefit young people and make a difference to families who the face geographic challenges of living and working in rural and regional Australia. I commend the work of the regional coalition MPs for the development of these measures. The government is doing what it can to lift higher education participation rates in country areas and allow regional students to be more competitive with students in the capital cities.

It is concerning that, of the one-third of the Australian population living in regional Australia, only 21 per cent make up Australia's university population. We need to change that and this bill will help. There is still a lot of hard work to undertake to close the gap between regional and city students. We must continue to work hard—I know the member for Forrest will—to increase participation rates in tertiary education and to address the unique challenges facing regional students. The removal of the Family Assets Test as well as the decision to remove the Family Actual Means Test are positive first steps in making the system fairer for regional and rural young people.

I commend the work done by Senators Nash and McKenzie, the member for Gippsland and others. The Nationals will continue to fight for fairness and deliver positive outcomes for young people across regional Australia in this parliament.

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