Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take the opportunity this evening to highlight some of the difficulties faced by students in rural areas trying to access tertiary education. For many this means making some of the great decisions of life, such as: leaving home for the first time; having to engineer a new social group without their family’s support; probably having to juggle work and study, and in many cases to juggle ridiculous work hours to support themselves; meeting the cost of accommodation in the city; having difficulty in assessing youth allowance regarding the income and assets tests, particularly with some of those things affecting farming families; and dealing with the transport problems, not only around the city but in being able to get back to their family on a regular basis when in many of our rural areas adequate public transport systems do not exist.

School leavers in rural areas have very similar aspirations to those in urban areas. There was a survey in 1999 on school students’ intentions that showed that on average 50 per cent of rural students intended or desired to attend a university in the next year, compared to 54 per cent of city based students. In fact, when it came to delivering the goods on these ambitions, the gap was that about 26.6 per cent of city students, just 18.8 per cent of non-metropolitan students and as few as 15.8 per cent of students in regional, rural and remote areas ended up attending university. It is not that these kids are dumb or that they do not want to go to university; it is just that it is too hard.

The detriment of losing these people from our rural communities, losing the possibility of education in rural communities, closing down rural communities and shifting populations leads to a lot of extra costs in our community that we do not always readily identify. If we move more people into the cities, that means we have to build more hospitals, schools and transport infrastructure to cater for them. The abandonment of rural communities is not just a loss to those communities but, in fact, a cost to the city communities, and we should take that into account when we work out what we need to keep rural Australia properly populated.

Rural communities cannot survive without the support of educated leaders. Owing to the great difficulties we have enticing the uninitiated to come and live with us in the country, it is very important that those leaders come from within our own ranks. Why is this too hard? Why is it so hard for rural students to access tertiary education? Generally speaking, it is financial impediment. There are costs of around $13,000 a year for boarding in the city, blowing out to around $15,000 by the time they meet daily cost-of-living expenses. Shared rental is about the same. The total cost of keeping a student in the city is around $20,000 a year. It would seem to me that it is difficult enough if you qualify for youth allowance; it is almost impossible if you do not. Students do not qualify for youth allowance if they have assets exceeding $535,000 or their household income exceeds $31,400—you can imagine the difficulty in finding $15,000 or $20,000 to support a student if you were on $31,000 a year! If you have no youth allowance, you have no rent assistance. If you have no rent assistance, you have no access to government scholarships. In fact, you become self and family supporting only.

To qualify for independent youth allowance—except in extenuating circumstances, such as refugee status, state care, having children, living as a couple et cetera—you have to earn 75 per cent of the maximum rate of pay under wage level A of the Australian pay and classification scale, which is around $18,000 in 18 months. After 18 months away from uni, it can be very difficult to entice students back. I could suggest a raft of solutions, but one of the most important things we could do is introduce a living away from home allowance which is not means tested. This living away from home allowance should be available to all those who, by geographical consideration, are required to leave home to attend tertiary education. It would be a way of evening up the field. It is a fact that, if you live in the city, you can access this stuff easily; if you live in the country, you cannot. And, as I always say, it is not my problem that we did not build a university next to my farm in Buckleboo. (Time expired)