Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to oppose the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017. This bill gives effect to two measures contained in the 2017-18 budget: 'better targeting of the relocation scholarship', and 'aligning the pensioner education supplement and education entry payment'. Currently, recipients of Youth Allowance and Abstudy payments are eligible to receive the relocation scholarship if they are moving to or from a regional or remote area to undertake study. Schedule 1 of this bill tightens eligibility for the relocation scholarship to students who are studying in Australia or whose family or usual place of residence is in Australia. Labor could potentially support this measure if it were separated from the other measures in the bill. The education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement are relatively small payments made to people with a disability, carers, single parents and jobseekers who take up study with the aim of improving their employment prospects and ability to support themselves.

The education entry payment is an annual payment of $208 to assist certain social security recipients with the costs of education so that they can eventually re-enter the workforce—upskill and participate. Recipients of Newstart, parenting payment single, disability support pension, special benefit carer payment and some closing payment recipients are eligible to receive the education entry payment if they are studying an approved course. It's particularly relevant that we're discussing this in a week that is both Anti-Poverty Week and Carers Week, given that both are affected by this piece of legislation.

The pensioner education supplement is a fortnightly payment to some social security recipients to assist with their ongoing costs of study. Currently, the pensioner education supplement is paid at $62.40 per fortnight for a full-time student and $31.20 per fortnight for a part-time student. Every fortnight, the recipient receives a payment from Centrelink. Schedules 2 and 3 of the bill remove eligibility for the education entry payment from recipients who undertake less than 25 per cent of the full-time study load, and progressively cut the amount payable under both payments for those undertaking between 26 per cent and 75 per cent of the full-time study load. The bill introduces a new schedule of payments for part-time study, resulting in some recipients being at least $15.60 a fortnight worse off. It also cuts the pensioner education supplement during long study periods, resulting in a cut for every recipient of the supplement. In pockets of my community where households are living on $600 a week and rental costs are now nudging $400-plus these changes are significant. They make a really big impact on people's budget and on their means for being able to actively participate.

These two measures are yet another example of this government slashing support to low-income and vulnerable Australians. This government continually says it is important to get social security recipients into the workforce. Only yesterday, while debating a matter of public importance, the member for Mitchell said this. Then we find ourselves considering a bill that cuts assistance to social security recipients who are studying so that they have the necessary skills to enter or re-enter the workforce. Actions speak louder than words. Over 11,000 people receive the education entry payment and almost 38,000 receive the pensioner education supplement. The overwhelming majority of people receiving these payments are parenting payment recipients, carer payment recipients and disability support pensioners.

In my previous role to this one, I was a pharmacist in a mental health unit in a public hospital. One of the things that people would commonly set as a goal, as part of getting well and staying well, was to pick up some study that they hadn't been able to finish, maybe go back to the trade that they had been doing, or perhaps go back to TAFE and finish that certificate they hadn't been able to finish. Because of their circumstances, these people were commonly recipients of disability support pensions. The changes being made in this area are significant to people in those situations. Part of getting well and staying well is being able to sit in a classroom again—just doing things that many of us are able to do but that they've been excluded from doing or that they haven't been able to actively participate in. This is really central to somebody being able to get well and stay well and actively participate. The overwhelming majority of people receiving these payments are vulnerable people. The recipients of these payments are less likely than other students to be able to undertake full-time study, as I've discussed, because of health issues that they may experience or because of caring commitments they may have in supporting friends or family members.

The changes in this bill are likely to disproportionately impact women who have started a course of training to get back into the workforce. Over 90 per cent of parenting payment single recipients are women, and nearly 70 per cent of carer payment recipients are women. It's disappointing that the government no longer produces a women's budget to keep Australians informed of the impact of this type of measure on Australian women. From looking at comparable countries, we know that Australia has one of the most segregated workforces. We know that this is largely gender segregation. We've discussed, only this week, some quite prominent women and the real discrimination and gender inequality that still exists. These types of measures will only continue to perpetuate things that we should be redressing.

The Abbott-Turnbull government has been trying to abolish the education entry supplement and the pension education supplement since 2014. For three years, we've been fighting to maintain these payments for income support recipients trying to make themselves work-ready. But this government is relentless in its attacks on the most vulnerable. So, having failed to abolish them altogether, they're now cutting them from those who are not in a position to undertake full-time study: people with a disability, single parents, carers finding it hard to study full-time. I recently met a young woman who was enrolled in training to be a teacher. After her mum, who worked as a cleaner, was diagnosed with breast cancer, she found herself in a situation where she had to withdraw from study. These are the types of people who will be most impacted by these measures—people who are really struggling, who are really vulnerable. Sixty-two dollars a fortnight might not sound a lot to some people, but it is to a single parent who is trying, in an already stretched family budget, to find the means to afford textbooks, travel costs and childcare to enable them to study.

We can also look at this in the context of the proposed changes to enabling education, through Next Step and Open Foundation, where someone may be charged up to $3,200 for a university preparation course for people who otherwise wouldn't have the entry requirements. All of these things stacked up together just put another hurdle, another obstacle, in someone's path. I was recently talking to a friend of mine, Sam, who is now a speech pathologist and whose sister is training to be a teacher. She said she really noticed the impact on her sons of seeing her as a student. They could see that their mother was doing this and that it was something that they may be able to do—something that otherwise would have been out of their reach.

If the Prime Minister really cared about helping income support recipients find work, he would stop trying to make it harder for them just to get through the day or the next step. The pain doesn't stop there. A single mum working one shift a week has just had her family tax benefit rate frozen, and she's probably just lost her penalty rates. This has affected a mum that I met with. She had a young daughter and she was working evenings, because that was the time that her mum was able to look after her daughter, which meant that she had the ability to work which she otherwise wouldn't have.

The Liberals say that they have given up on their unfair cuts, but we know they're just waiting for the next opportunity—and here it is. Cuts to the pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment are just part of a whole raft of government cuts to education, cuts to universities, higher student fees and harsher repayment requirements for student loans—you'd almost think that the Prime Minister doesn't want disadvantaged Australians to be able to access education to improve their circumstances, because he's saying one thing and doing another. He says it's important to get social security recipients into the workforce, yet he's cutting assistance which is designed to do exactly that.

Labor will always stand up for fairness. Labor will always stand up for education. The Liberals want to make low- and middle-income Australians pay more so their wealthy mates can pay less. It's just not fair. These measures particularly affect vulnerable people in regional areas. These measures are expected to save the government $96 million over five years. That might sound like a big number, but it's less than the cost of the same-sex marriage survey, and it's a very small number compared to the annual cost of negative gearing and the capital gains tax concessions.

As a mental health worker and a pharmacist and someone who has worked with vulnerable people for most of my life, I have spent a lot of time working with social workers who are struggling to help people find a place to live and acquire the skills that they need to participate in the workforce and look after their families. I find it really distressing that these cuts are cruelly targeted at some of the most vulnerable people in our community—people that I've spent my life working with and caring for. The strain on them and their families, particularly young carers, is something that's not often recognised: the caring role that young people have and find themselves in in families. Young carers are ones who are likely to be particularly affected by these changes.

As I said, these measures are expected to save the government about $96 million over five years, which really, in terms of the government's budget, says a lot about its priorities. Governments set the priorities and budgets are about that. This government, over and over again, is targeting the most vulnerable people and the most disadvantaged pockets of our community—and it is doing it in a really callous way. But I can tell you a big number: $62 a fortnight is a big number to someone on an income of around $450 or $500 a week trying to meet the cost of study to better themselves, to improve their family's circumstances and to boost their chance of getting a job in what is a really competitive job market. In communities like mine, youth unemployment sits stubbornly high. The latest figures show it at 17.3 per cent, in a community where one in two adults have had the opportunity to have a post-school education.

The government talks about choice, but choice is a privilege. In this situation, we're taking from people who don't have the privilege of choice and who haven't had these opportunities that those on the other side may have enjoyed. The Liberals should stop expecting the lowest-income Australians, the most vulnerable people, those living in disadvantaged communities, to subsidise the wealthiest and the most affluent in our community. They should stop putting barriers in the way of carers, people with a disability and single parents who are using their initiative and using the education system to fight their way to a better life.

Michelle, in my electorate, is a nurse. This year she was recognised as the Wyong Hospital Nurse of the Year. She was someone who went through the Open Foundation pathway. Our community would be so much worse off if we didn't have people like Michelle, working as a nurse in Wyong Hospital, or people like my friend Renee, who is in a similar situation. On this side we all know someone who has had the benefit of this and whose families have changed because of this. It can transform lives. The government must stop putting barriers in the way of carers, of people with disability and of single parents who are trying to access the education system, which has been stacked against them, to find a way to a better life.

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