Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the issues that I think the government has not addressed properly is the chronic skills shortage throughout Australia. Three areas that particularly suffer from skill shortages are doctors, nurses and pharmacists. So you can imagine my surprise when in a very short time frame I had three constituents come and see me about the fact that they had been denied assistance from Centrelink because they had gone over their time. I will share with the House the stories of these three people, and members can judge for themselves. I believe that the rules are very inflexible and that there needs to be the ability for Centrelink to make some discretionary decisions.

The first person I will talk about is a woman who commenced study at the University of Newcastle in 1999 to become a doctor. She studied in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Her fourth year was 2002, but she did not complete it because she was ill. She had a recurrence of the illness in 2003. Now she is well, back at university and completing her degree. But she has been denied support from Centrelink. She has been forced to go onto Newstart and to look for work. She is currently balancing her study and doing some work in the hospital but finding it very difficult. That is because Centrelink only allows 5½ years to complete the degree.

Another case I would like to raise with you is that of a pharmacy student. To become a pharmacist there is no option other than to complete a master’s degree. Centrelink is saying that they will not pay the student for the final year of his studies, which means that once again we are putting in jeopardy an entrant to our pharmacy workforce.

The final constituent I would like to mention is a person doing nursing full time at the University of Newcastle. He has less than six months to complete his degree, lives with his aged grandmother and needs to extend his studies by six months. Unfortunately, once again, Centrelink is refusing to give him any income support.

If we are serious about addressing the skills shortage we need to be able to support students like these three students who are studying in areas of great shortage. Unless there is some flexibility put in the legislation, the whole of Australia and our workforce will suffer.