Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This issue is of utmost importance to me. My electorate is 107,000 square kilometres and many of the people who live in my electorate are very isolated. I also believe that no matter where you live in this country all our children should have the same opportunities when it comes to accessing quality educational services.

I believe this should start with early childhood education. During the election there was discussion of a rollout for early childhood preschool services to all children of four years of age. One of the problems is that in isolated areas it can quite often be a distance of 100 kilometres for a child to be delivered to preschool and therefore it is impractical for those children to attend on a regular basis. But there is an alternative, and in a couple of locations in my electorate the mobile preschools are doing an excellent job in delivering quality early childhood services to isolated children. The added bonus is that besides the children gaining social skills that they might not otherwise attain, it is a wonderful opportunity for relatively isolated parents to get together and network in a social manner.

One of the organisations in my electorate that I have had some relationship with is the Gwydir Mobile Preschool, which is operated by Wendy Baldwin. Wendy and her team travel hundreds of kilometres each week to ensure that children living in isolated areas of north-west New South Wales have access to educational services. I have met with Wendy and she has told me about the families they service and the areas they cover. Unfortunately, Wendy and her team are forever facing an uphill battle as there are not enough funding dollars available to assist them with this service. There are others as well—for example the Tharawonga Mobile Preschool, in my own area of Gwydir shire, which has been operating under the auspices of the council for some time. Once again, it provides a wonderful service but it is always scratching for funding. I believe it would be a wonderful opportunity for the federal government, as part of their policy to roll out early childcare to preschoolers, to look at this mobile preschool model.

Of course, for children to get to school, access is important. I have approximately 150 schools in my electorate. I do not think there would be many electorates that would have more than that. Many of them are small, one- and two-teacher schools. I have several schools that are over 1,000 students. But many of the schools are small. And the kids at these schools get an excellent education. Quite often, the children from these smaller, isolated schools excel when they get to high school because they have become self-reliant from the individual education they get from these teachers. One of the real issues that is confronting education, particularly in my area in the black soil plains, is the state of the roads. I firmly believe there is a case to be made for priority funding to school-bus routes. For instance, at the moment I have hundreds of children right across the north-western part of my electorate, in the Moree and Walgett-Coonamble areas, who cannot access school because the roads are impassable due to wet weather.

Finally, I come to tertiary education, in the few seconds I have left. One of the great anomalies that faces kids going to tertiary education is that they have to live away from home. As a father who has just put his third child into tertiary education, I fully understand the problem that these kids face—that is, their access to youth allowance. They have to work independently for 15 months to get that funding. They do not have an option to stay at home. They have to move off and live away from home. So they need this funding. (Time expired)

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take up the member for Parkes’ last point, if I may, and thank him for moving this motion, because it is certainly an important issue for a lot of families in rural and remote Australia. So I thank him for that.

When I had the privilege of being able to go to university in the early seventies—I know I look a lot younger than that!—I had a lot of advantages, in the sense that, firstly, I lived in a city, so I had direct access to tertiary education. Secondly, there were ample scholarships available—the Commonwealth scholarship, which was very broad in its application, and also teaching scholarships and others. And, thirdly, we did not pay fees. So I was paying for books—and other curriculum activities, of the swigging kind! But I do not want to demean what is really an important issue.

Then I moved to regional Australia, where I am very proud to be and which I am very proud to represent. Clearly an issue which has arisen over time is that there is a discriminatory factor based on geography. We try to deal with a lot of discrimination in our country by means-testing things. Okay—so be it; we think that is a fair thing to do. But I would like to have a look at the situation in regional and rural Australia for a lot of people.

Take the families that have reasonable incomes—not massive but reasonable incomes. Their children must leave home to access higher education. The differential—the discrimination based on geography—is that they have to move to do this. We can measure that differential cost by looking at accommodation receipts, or travel receipts and so forth. The difference is that those families are up for $10,000 at least—$10,000 to $15,000, and rising—for one of their children to access tertiary education. As my colleague the member for Parkes said, he has three children, so I can fully appreciate the cost. I have two. And you might say, ‘This is just self-interest talking.’ But, you see, the difference is that I do not mind doing my bit; it is when, above and beyond that, it is going to cost $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, or $25,000 because of where I live. That is what we are raising in terms of inequity—an enforced cost based on geography.

Some people have dubbed this middle-class welfare. We will have that argument; no doubt about it. The point is: I do not mind if it is purely means-tested and that is it, but in actual fact it is a discriminatory factor because of geography. They have to go away to do their courses, and they contribute to the economy of this country. That is holding a number of students back. They cannot do it, they are not able to do it, and so they have this gap year—which has become the trend now. People say that, for sociological reasons, that is a good thing.

We all know what is driving a lot of this. It is purely and simply that mum and dad cannot afford it, or the children take the attitude that ‘I’m not going to impose on them.’ Let’s face it: when most of our children go to university, and up to the age of 25, many are dependent on us. This is demeaning, in a sense. They have to work. Most of them have part-time or almost full-time jobs. I think we have got to take into account that discriminatory factor based on geography. We can do it through a tax rebate. For instance, you have to prove your accommodation expenses, and you get a tax rebate for those whom you depend on—because if they do not depend on us they are either on allowances or they are virtually in full-time work. So I reckon it is an issue that is well worth taking up on the grounds of equity. I am not pleading poverty but I honestly believe it is discriminatory and it stops a lot of our kids—particularly in rural and regional Australia, where the tertiary retention rates are too low, and it affects the economic future of this country as well as the social wellbeing and the development of social capital in our area. So I thank the member for Parkes.

I recommend the report Time running out: shaping regional Australia’s future for commentary on this issue. It is a very good report from an inquiry in the year 2000, and a number of my colleagues in the House at present participated in it: the member for Lyons, the member for Barker and me, and the former member for Parkes. I think this is something we can take up, we can measure it, we can support it, and it will have positive benefits socially, economically and educationally.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support this motion from the member for Parkes, and I think we should congratulate him for it. If I can take up where the member for Braddon left off, this is an important issue. I was part of the committee inquiry in 2000, and I think we came up with some good recommendations. Whilst over the years we have made some improvements, we still have this discrimination of rural students based on where they live, not on what they earn. There is no doubt that we could make a change to this without too great a cost to the Australian taxpayer.

It is a basic right of Australian children that their educational needs and their future aspirations should not be disadvantaged simply because of the location of their family home. To add to what the member for Braddon was saying, I know of many examples of parents who, when their children are getting close to tertiary education, actually leave the rural areas to go to Adelaide on the basis of making it easier for their children to go to university. The problem with that is the brain drain out of the rural areas. This is happening all the time. Many students living in rural and isolated areas are unable to easily access all levels of schooling—not only primary and secondary but also preschool and post-secondary education. We have excellent facilities at our universities in Adelaide and Melbourne, but that is of little consequence to many students in my electorate who simply cannot access them due to distance and cost.

It is a well-known fact that the alarmingly low participation rate in tertiary education for rural and remote students was 16 per cent in 1997, compared to nearly 30 per cent for metropolitan students. This is not because country students are dumber; it is just harder for them to get to university. Whilst this was last measured some years ago, I have been talking to many families in my electorate, and it is still unacceptably low. It is much harder to get our rural students to university.

The cost of accessing tertiary studies is always very difficult for isolated rural and remote families. Many people in my electorate live 400 kilometres away from a university. You cannot travel that every day, can you? So you have to shift house. With the economic downturn that we are now facing, together with the ongoing impact of drought—every part of my electorate is under EC funding, so that shows that we are all under drought—it is impossible for many parents to meet the rising costs associated with children attending boarding institutions to go to university.

Means testing of rural students’ entitlement to youth allowance or Austudy against parental income and assets denies many students the assistance that would mean the difference between them attending and not attending university. Like the member for Braddon, I think we do need a means test. We can all agree that a means test should come into it, but this is on the basis of equity. Rural students do not face the same thing as their city cousins. If you are in the city, you can live at home. If you are in the country, you have to shift, and that is an extra cost. Recent research estimated expenses of $15,000 to $20,000 per year, plus up to $6,000 for start-up costs. I am not saying we should pay all of that, but if we paid, say, $5,000 or a bit more than that then it would at least give some encouragement for rural students, and it might make the difference between that student going to university and not. It is a barrier that must be removed so that tertiary education can become a viable option for all rural young people.

I have raised this on many occasions in this parliament, as I am sure the member for Parkes and the member for Braddon have. It was again brought to the attention of the Prime Minister with a collaborative proposal which was developed by 10 members of the rural industries and rural communities stream at the Australia 2020 Summit. This summit concluded, as I have been calling for for years, that rural young people should be eligible for youth allowance if they must leave home for tertiary education.

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

I congratulate the member for Parkes for bringing this important motion to the House. It is an issue that affects thousands of children throughout Australia. I think that, over a period of time, the number of children who are affected by living outside metropolitan areas has shrunk but the degree of disadvantage for those people who are outside the area is still just as great. When my father went to school, he went to school in Yass. At that time, the school there finished at third year, and the only way that he could extend his education was to go to the city. He was fortunate enough to obtain a scholarship to a boarding school in Sydney. When I went to school, I went to school, once again, in the country. At that time, you could complete your high school education, but if you wanted to obtain tertiary education then you had to leave that country town and come to the city. I might add that, if I lived in that country town now and undertook my education there, I would be able to go on to university. So things have improved over a period of time for students living in country areas, but disadvantage still exists.

I have a friend, Cheryl Daley, who moved to Broken Hill with her husband. He is teaching at Broken Hill High School. She is teaching with the School of the Air. I was in Broken Hill for committee hearings, and I went along and sat in on a couple of her classes prior to the committee hearing’s commencing. Of course, the students start early and organise their days around their other activities.

Technology has improved access to education, but still not on the same level that students in metropolitan areas obtain. I think that there is a need to expand that technology and there is a need to use the internet to a greater degree. This is one way that we can address some of the isolation that students living in rural and remote areas experience. It is also interesting to note that tertiary education can also be undertaken on the internet now—that is something that needs to be expanded. It does create new opportunities for children and students that are of university age. We need to make more use of the technology that is available.

It is vitally important that we ensure there is equity in education for students, no matter where they live. If a student is born in Lake Macquarie, which is where I live, they have every opportunity, and students that live in Parkes, Bourke or Wilcannia—places like that—should have exactly the same opportunities. Children in areas like the member for Barker’s electorate should have that opportunity to access education. The future of education is all about providing equity.

What concerns me too is that there are some extremely disadvantaged young people in some of those rural electorates—Indigenous Australians that really are denied that opportunity to access education on any level. Their access to education is even further exacerbated by the isolated areas that they live in and the level of disadvantage that they experience. That is not only Indigenous students, but other students as well. I know that other members are very mindful of the needs of their constituents, so I commend the member for bringing this to the House.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the motion, and commend the member for Parkes for raising this issue. I also thank other members for their thoughtful contributions to the debate. As we have already heard, there are many education challenges which are unique to children and their parents living in the more isolated parts of our nation. The Gippsland region is probably typical of many other country electorates. We have some larger towns which offer a more diverse range of educational opportunities, but there are also many rural and isolated areas where the services are more difficult to provide and also more difficult for families to access.

In moving this motion, the member for Parkes has sought to highlight the need for additional government support and assistance to help children access a full range of educational services from early childhood right through to tertiary studies. I congratulate the member for Parkes for putting forward some practical and common-sense solutions such as the mobile preschool services in his electorate.

Education is an issue that is dear not only to my heart but to all other parents that I speak to in regional areas. We simply want to make sure that our children have access to the services that sometimes I fear metropolitan families may take for granted. From a social justice perspective it is a question of equity, and for the hard-nosed economists of the world it is a question also of productivity. Helping children from rural and regional areas to achieve their full potential will help to improve the skill base of country areas and reduce the skill shortages we are constantly faced with across a range of industries.

In a broader sense, an issue of major concern in many regional areas—and I include Gippsland in this—is the comparatively poor retention rates and participation in higher education. The Gippsland region has one of the worst retention rates in Victoria—compared to the state and metropolitan rate of about 80 per cent, in 2006 just 65 per cent of Gippsland students finished year 12.

I take up the contribution of the member for Braddon and of the member for Barker and their thoughtful comments in relation to the geographical barriers that we are placing in front of these students. There are many barriers to accessing higher education, including the lack of access in our electorates. But I believe the biggest factor is undoubtedly the cost. When you have to move hundreds of kilometres to study, set up home, get a part-time job and then excel in your studies, it is an enormous burden for students from regional areas. I fear that we are actually setting them up to fail. We need to be doing more to help rural and regional students and their families overcome these cost barriers. I support greater use of cadetships and bonded scholarships or studentships to pay students an allowance while at university and then guarantee them a job after a fixed period if they return to serve in a regional area. It is an approach that has been used at various times and I think it is worthy of further investment. I think we also need to be innovative in regard to the extra costs borne by country families when sending students away from home for further study. We need to explore all the options to overcome those accommodation and cost of living pressures, which I believe place a disproportionate burden on rural and regional families.

I would like to expand on what the member for Braddon touched on, which is the opportunities to provide a level of tax deductibility for accommodation costs for the parents who are supporting students while living away from home. Making these accommodation costs tax deductible for supporting parents would have the extra benefit of increasing the expendable income for the families back in those regional areas where there are low-socioeconomic factors and the household disposable income is somewhat lower than in metropolitan areas. Such initiatives to reduce the cost barrier would help to open the door to further studies for regional Australians.

I take up also the previous speaker’s comments in relation to the disadvantage being felt. A lot of the students from isolated areas are Indigenous students, and it is the same in Gippsland. The level of disadvantage within our Indigenous community in terms of health outcomes, unemployment and the incidence of violence in homes is, I believe, directly related to their lack of participation in the education system at an early age. To give these young people the best possible chance, the best possible start in life, we must support them through those early stages of education. It is not just an issue in the more remote parts of the Northern Territory. In our rural and regional communities in Victoria we have issues relating to our Indigenous students not participating in the formal education system. We must take up the challenge to get them to school and get them learning the skills they are going to need to succeed in our community in the future.

I believe it is going to require innovative local solutions which recognise individual circumstances in different communities rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to policy making. In my electorate there has been some excellent work done by people such as Doug Vickers, the Principal of Bairnsdale West Primary School, to encourage greater participation by Indigenous and disadvantaged children. Sometimes it may be as simple as providing resources to go to the homes of these children and bring them to school and provide them with a decent breakfast, getting them engaged in the lifelong education experience even if their parents are perhaps not as committed to the cause.

I congratulate all members for their contribution to this debate and I believe that a genuine education revolution, if that is what we are actually aspiring to achieve, must meet the needs of families in rural, regional and isolated areas.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.