Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on a matter that is of particular concern and has caused extreme stress amongst certain communities in my electorate of Indi north-east Victoria—in fact, right across to rural and regional Australia. Young country kids with a dream to go on to tertiary study, and their families, are now being put in a position where they are paying for Labor’s reckless spending. They are paying for Labor’s $315 billion debt. They are some of the biggest losers that have emerged from the government’s current budget and projected budget. But they are not the only ones—they are the ones that are immediately apparent. I have been personally contacted and my office has been inundated with extremely stressed parents, educational institutions and young people who were caught unawares with the government changes to the Youth Allowance Scheme. They did not think that one of the poorest groups in the community, struggling students, would be slugged and would be punished by the current government. But that is exactly what has happened.

This is not a rort. Young students, particularly rural students, applying for the independent living away from home allowance is not a rort; it is an absolute necessity for some young people to go on and study. That does not mean that they themselves do not still work part-time jobs or that their parents do not save thousands of dollars to send them off to pursue further tertiary studies, but it is that bit of assistance for those students who do not have the luxury, like many students in capital cities, to live at home or to live close to home with their parents while they are studying. For rural students it is doubly hard, moving away from a familiar environment and also incurring all those expenses that one incurs when one moves out of home—not when they are prepared to do so but because they have to.

So what do a lot of students do? They work hard and they have been working hard trying to earn over $19,500 to qualify for the independent youth allowance entitlement. But the government has now said: ‘No, we don’t think that’s fair. We think that you must work 30 hours a week for at least 18 months.’ This is in an environment where we are told next year there are going to be a million people unemployed. They are saying to young people: ‘We’ve put your future into debt. We have hocked the future. We think we are going to pay it off by 2022, but it will probably go well on into the future.’ The $315 billion will not stay at that, I can assure you of that, Madam Deputy Speaker Moylan. Just as we are certain that by the time we retire superannuation laws will have challenged several times over, we can be just as confident that the debt will definitely increase beyond this amount under the current government.

So not only have they burdened future generations they are also saying, ‘You will work 30 hours a week over 18 months in an environment of increasing unemployment.’ This is when many rural areas are suffering from drought and it is really hurting. It is not just those farming businesses but also other industries that rely on that and those industries that see the filter-through effect in these regional towns and centres. In that sort of environment that is what Labor is saying to young people and young rural families. It is absolute proof that they are utterly out of touch and utterly insensitive to the aspirations of young country kids and their families.

We heard today, during question time in the House, one of the Labor ministers mock this notion of aspiration. But there is genuine aspiration out there in the community, even with the dark and difficult times ahead. Young people who are straight out of school have a right to dream; they have a right to pursue their further studies and not to be hampered by the fact that they live in the country. They still do it hard; they still work. Now we have a situation where those students who are currently having a gap year and who are fully expecting to start tertiary studies next year will slip through the cracks.

The government has been asked to make some changes to youth allowance. It has also been asked to put off some of its changes. I have received a lot of correspondence on this matter, and I want to read some extracts from some of these letters and emails. This one says:

Our son Joseph successfully completed his VC last year and gained placement at a university at Melbourne to undertake a degree in 3D animation, which has been his passion for many years. Whilst we would have loved for Joseph to continue to live at home whilst pursuing his dream, Albury-Wodonga tertiary institutions unfortunately do not offer this course. As proud parents, we were naturally thrilled and proud of our son’s achievement. Due to the substantial financial burden of having a son living away from home, Joseph and we decided that he would defer his university studies for a year and hopefully find work in order to qualify for Centrelink’s youth allowance. In February, Joseph gained employment in a local factory doing process work on night shift. Moving from a high school environment to working nights in a factory presents as a very dramatic transition. Joseph has met this challenge admirably. He is very goal oriented and we will do whatever it takes to get to where he wants to be.

The federal government’s 2009 budget proposes changes to the youth allowance eligibility criteria. Effective from 1 January 2010 the criteria for which Joseph was working towards have been removed—meaning that he cannot become eligible with the actions he has been undertaking for the past four months. We are devastated by this and completely fail to see any fairness in this change whatsoever. The impact of this change on Joseph is that his career aspirations are now in serious doubt.

And the quotes go on. This quote is from two parents who are in their 50s:

Yes, my husband and I both work and are over 50 and have a large housing loan because we chose to make a move to a larger town where jobs were more plentiful. We are certainly living better than some out there but we are not really in a position to take full financial responsibility for Emma living and attending university in Melbourne. How many politicians or highly paid public servants would ever have to go through the decisions that every day students and parents are having to decide presently? I think that we have been severely short changed and sold out by the Rudd government.

It goes on to say:

I actually voted for them because I believed in them. I am sure both my husband and myself would have been happy to forgo our lots of $900 if it meant keeping the youth allowance in tact.

And it goes on. And why does it go on? Because this measure is really hurting people out there. It is hurting families and it is hurting young students.

But we saw today the Deputy Prime Minister in her sheer insensitivity and arrogance claim that the Liberal Party want to defend the current system. In criticising the existing system, she said:

If the Liberal Party want to go out and defend the current system with its skew to people who earn $200,000, $300,000 and $400,000 a year, we would simply say: ‘That is what the Liberal Party does. It always seeks to benefit those better off at the expense of the vast majority.

Well, Deputy Prime Minister, you are wrong. There are many decent Australians out there who are not earning $200,000, $300,000 or $400,000 a year. There are many families out there who need the current system to remain as it is. You ought to have the courage to say that you are wrong. You ought to have the courage to apologise to these families for the stress that you have caused them. And you ought to seriously reconsider the decision. It is not just the financial burden that this generation will have of paying back your debt and your reckless spending but also the impact of this decision on country kids. All sorts of organisations, such as the Albury Wodonga Careers Advisers Association, as well as parents and schools are trying to help by asking the government to enact a grandfather clause that will protect these young people who are currently deferring their studies. I fully support them in that pursuit.

Just think about the burden you have created and think about your responsibility in actually governing for all Australians and look beyond the politics of envy and the false assumptions that that has given you in looking at country students and their families. You need to have a look at these changes and you need for once to listen to rural and regional Australia and young students.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have no doubt that in the electorate of Brisbane and throughout the towns and cities and rural areas of Australia one of the most popular and welcomed initiatives has been the commitment of the Rudd Labor government to invest in our schools and in particular to the funding of private schools’ new buildings. It is a matter of grave concern to me which I have voiced within my electorate and in this parliament that those in opposition have failed to properly understand the policies and the opportunities that that program presents. Even worse, the shadow Treasurer is on the record as opposing it outright. On the Sunrise program of 13 February this year the shadow treasurer described the $14.7 billion investment in our school halls, our school libraries and our classrooms as bad spending and ridiculous. I quote from that interview. He said:

Let me tell you we would not be spending $14 billion on school halls. I mean, that is a phenomenal amount of money. It is just ridiculous.

That is hard to take from a government that in office, with that shadow minister as a senior minister in the government, saw its investment in schools priorities being ensuring that every school had a brand-new flagpole. That was the keynote investment of the former Howard government in schools across this land. It beggars belief that with that record they could now in opposition get themselves on their hind legs to voice concern about the program that is actually for the first time ever in living memory providing resources in primary education especially, but not just in primary education, that are badly needed.

I think of the many schools in my electorate that I have been to over the course of the last month or two to talk with parents, to talk with teachers, to look at plans and to discuss ways in which we can as a community together get the maximum benefits from these facilities. And I wonder which of these facilities it is that the shadow Treasurer thinks should not be built. A couple of weeks ago I was at Ashgrove State School opening the school fete. I was able to announce a $3 million funding approval for a multipurpose hall and resource centre. I wonder whether that is one of the buildings that those in opposition believe should not be built. Or perhaps the Bardon State School, whose school fete I attended just this weekend past, where because of the nature of the school layout they have a special design facility that they will be putting in, with the support of the Queensland government, that will provide undercover all-year-round sporting facilities for that school and assembly hall, together with sufficient funds to totally revamp their old resource centre. This is something desperately needed. I might mention the three representatives of the P&C who during the course of the fate as the morning went on came up to see me to thank me and the government for our commitment to their school. It is the sort of thing that those opposite need to start to take stock of.

But unfortunately this is not just a loose comment from the shadow Treasurer at the time. Even yesterday we saw no less a person than the Leader of the Opposition echoing the same sort of sentiments. The Leader of the Opposition, in an interview on the ABC Insiders program, attacked the government’s spending in Building the Education Revolution. Being interviewed by Barry Cassidy he said this:

Well, Barry, we have not voted against any projects.

You would think from this that they actually supported it and voted for it. Of course, they voted against every single one of the projects. He went on and said:

What we voted against was the overall package. We put an alternative which would have involved spending money on schools but not so much, spending $3 billion instead of $14 billion.

Okay, let us take that at face value: spending $3 billion instead of $14 billion. That means that three or four out of every five projects are not going to be funded under the Liberal Party. So which three or four out of every five projects do they intend to scrap?

Before I start going through that, let me go back one step to the Leader of the Opposition’s comments when he said, ‘They didn’t vote against the projects, they just voted against the whole package.’ I want to remind this House what was in that package. I will go through just a few of them. The Liberals say now that they support the new building program although they only support about 20 per cent of it, about one building in every five. They say they support it but they voted against it. They say they support the $950 payment for parents with children going back to school but they voted against that as well. In fact, the Liberals say that they support the $900 tax bonus for working Australians but they voted against that. They say that they support the building of 803 new defence homes but they voted against that one as well. The Liberals say they support 20,000 new social houses but they voted against that too. The Liberals say they support the $1,600 rebate for ceiling insulation but, guess what, they voted against that as well. The Liberals say they support the increase in the solar hot water rebate but they voted against that too. And, finally, they say they support the $950 cash bonus for farmers devastated by drought but, would you believe it, they even voted against that. How the members of the National Party got conned into voting against the money for drought affected farmers really does beggar belief.

So when the Leader of the Opposition says, ‘Well, Barry, we haven’t voted against the project’—trying to let on that really they support these things—’it is just that we voted against this big package,’ when you have a look at every element of the package it is the same story. They want to turn around and say, ‘We supported all these benefits, we just happened to vote against every single one of them.’ Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it. This is a new 21st century version of the magic pudding on the other side of parliament: they think you can eat it and it just grows back. This is an absurd proposition. It is duplicitous, and the people of Australia understand that. The people at those two schools I mentioned clearly understand it. What I fail to comprehend is that some opposite seem to think that in this parliament they can actively undermine the government’s effort and vote against it but then go out to the school community and even put out press releases claiming credit for it.

If the position is as the Leader of the Opposition stated yesterday, and you would think he knows—the Leader of the Opposition does have his problems at the moment; we’re not quite sure how long he will retain that post, but assuming that he knows what he is talking about—then that means that between three and four out of every five proposals that the government is now funding would be defunded. Is it the Enoggera state school in my electorate that has a $2 million resource centre already approved? Grovely state school—I was there just a week or so ago with the local state member who happily is also the Queensland Minister for Education—are getting a $2 million performing arts centre. That is a really exciting program for a school in a low-socioeconomic area that would never ever have the capacity to raise the funds that this government is providing to them. The New Farm state school, in a very old, established inner city area, is getting a $2 million multipurpose hall especially designed for the particular layout of that school. So there is about five projects. If the Liberal Party had their way and if the Leader of the Opposition had his way, only one of those five would get money on average. Which of the four do they intend to scrub? That is the real situation confronting the people of Australia. It is about time those opposite started to tell the truth, instead of playing cute like they were today about plaques. They have that much hide that the next thing they will be saying is that the Leader of the Opposition’s name should be on the plaque as supporting the program. That will be the next step in the process.

There is a long list of schools, and I have many of them in front of me, that I have had the opportunity of visiting in recent times where there are really exciting, valuable projects being funded by this government that establish important infrastructure not just for the schools, although clearly the students today and well into the future will the beneficiaries, but for the wider community because these facilities will be available to the wider community.

It is a real shame to see the level of the Liberal Party debate on this stoop so low. But it appears to have become contagious because I noticed in the local newspaper last week that even the Lord Mayor of Brisbane has himself confused by what is going on and is claiming credit for a $208,000 Black Spot Program which he says, ‘Was part of Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s road action program.’ Well, in June of last year I issued a press release on behalf of the government announcing $208,000 for that very project. Somewhere between last June and now the lord mayor has decided it was part of his road action plan. It is time there was some genuine honesty in the way these programs were publicised. (Time expired)