Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I come from a farming family and I am the first person in my family to finish high school—I have two older brothers—let alone go on to further tertiary study. I am actually still technically completing my tertiary study. It is a very proud moment for me to be able to stand in this House and see the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015 come before this parliament. There has been a very long journey to this moment. Senator McKenzie, in the other place; the member for Murray and many of our rural and regional MPs on this side have done an enormous amount of work and a lot of advocacy in the face of significant adversity to see this bill come before the House. This bill levels the playing field. It says, 'Despite where you come from—whether you come from a rural or regional community, or you come from the inner city—your access to tertiary education, higher education, should be exactly the same.' It is a truly egalitarian moment for our country to say that regardless of your background and regardless of where you come from, you should have equal access to educational opportunities.

We know, as a country, that when our young people access educational opportunities, particularly higher education, that is the most enabling thing that a government really can do for the next generation of Australians. To say that you can go on and better yourself, upskill yourself, really provides a significant personal boost to our young Australians. Beyond that, this bill boosts the assistance for working families and it better supports young people into study to build their careers, which ultimately develops our whole nation's economic opportunities through their contribution to the Australian economy.

This bill will implement a range of measures that will make a very big difference. From 1 January 2016, this will include removing the family assets test and the family actual means test from the Youth allowance parental means test arrangements. This will result in a more consistent level of support for families as young people move from family tax benefit part A to an individual income support payment. The parental income test exemption for youth allowance will also be aligned with existing arrangements for family tax benefit part A. The bill has a range of other measures, but it does say that young people, regardless of their background, have a right to access the high level of education that will fundamentally change their lives.

In my own electorate, I have a campus of QUT in Caboolture. My electorate, unfortunately, ranks one of the lowest in the country when it comes to tertiary education. I sat down with the director of the QUT Caboolture campus and I said to him: 'What is it that is stopping young people from accessing this further education? What is it stopping them from accessing this opportunity?' Many of us will think that it is their background, the income of their parents or the need to move. But he had a very insightful comment. He said, 'The thing that is most stopping young people from accessing education here is simply the belief that they can.'

When we step back and we look at the educational opportunities for the next generation of Australians, it is easy to forget that it is often a very big thing for a young person to take hold of those opportunities—for people like me and my own family where no-one before me has gone on to access those opportunities, where no-one has even finished high school let alone gone on to further education, where no-one has walked through the front doors of a university campus anywhere in the country. It is a very big psychological step for them to say: 'Yes, I can actually do this. Yes, I can work to better myself and to open up new opportunities in my life.'

Any barrier that stops a young person from accessing those opportunities, any barrier gets in the way and says that somebody from a rural or regional community does not have the same opportunity, has enormous impact on their approach to further education. This bill goes a very long way to addressing those challenges and overcoming what might be not just a financial barrier but also a very significant psychological barrier from a young person accessing an opportunity that will fundamentally change their life and that will change the opportunities they have and, ultimately, collectively will contribute to Australian society and the Australian economy.

For those reasons, I strongly commend these bills to the House.

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