Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, with your indulgence for a moment before I ask my question to the Deputy Prime Minister, I recognise that this is a terrible day for Moe, Hazelwood North and Morwell and for the families that have been affected by the Papua New Guinea tragedy. I commend the government for all that they have done in response to this. We recognise the whole-of-government response has been amazing and excellent. With those few words, the work of the House goes on.

I refer my question to the Deputy Prime Minister in her capacity as the Minister for Education. I refer to the findings of the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into geographical differences in the rate in which Victorian students participate in higher education and I specifically refer to the comments made in relation to the proposed changes to the criteria for eligibility for the independent rate of youth allowance. The report says:

The Committee believes that this change will have a disastrous effect on young people in rural and regional areas.

Given the all-party inquiry was chaired by Ballarat Labor MP Geoff Howard, does the minister agree that the changes proposed by the Rudd government will have a disastrous effect on young people in rural and regional areas?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. No, I do not agree. What I do know is this: if we look at what happened with participation in higher education over the last decade, the percentage of kids from regional and rural Australia participating in uni went down. Anybody who is advocating the current student-financing model should recognise they are not advocating a system that supported regional and rural participation, because the statistics tell you the reverse. The statistics tell you that under that system regional and rural participation went down. When you see statistics like that, I think you have to ask: how can we do better? I think, too, that you have to ask how we can do better when the Bradley review into higher education found that 36 per cent of students who were living at home and receiving youth allowance and were considered independent from their families were in families with incomes of more than $100,000 and 10 per cent of them were in families with incomes of more than $200,000.

I understand that the member shares my concern. I suspect he truly does share my concern, and in the face of statistics like that what we have to ask is: how do we get those dollars to students who need them more and for whom it would do more good? As he comes from the electorate of McMillan, I know that his concern is for those students who need to move away from home in order to access an education. What I can say to him in terms of these student-financing reforms, because I am also familiar with the income profile of his electorate, is that what we have done with the family income profile will mean that more families in his electorate will find that they are eligible for student income support for their young people than under the old system, and consequently the need to rely on the independent status is not the same. The independent status became all-important because the family income cut-off points were so low that hardly anybody qualified. We have changed those family income cut-off points. Can I say to the member opposite that for concerned constituents there is an estimator on our departmental website which enables people to put in their family income, and many find when they do that that they are eligible on the basis of family income without needing to worry about the independence criteria.

Can I also say to the member opposite that the scholarship arrangements that we have engaged in mean a huge difference to the number of students that will get a scholarship. Let me give you just one figure. Our student start-up scholarship will go to 146,000 students. The old scholarship went to 12,700 students—that is, it was capped. The number of students who got it were capped and there were students who missed out and got nothing. We are talking about an increase of around 133,700 students getting our start-up scholarship. In addition to that, we are talking about new relocation scholarships. Under the old scholarship arrangements those scholarships too were capped, which meant that some students missed out on them, whereas under our scholarship arrangement people who need to relocate and have qualified for youth allowance will be able to access the relocation allowance. Working through these changes, it means tens of thousands of extra students will benefit, will get student income support for the first time and will get more income support than they would have under the old arrangements.

Can I say to the member opposite that if he is concerned about these matters I am more than willing to sit down with him and work through the details. I have done that with other members opposite—

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Haase interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and we have looked at individual circumstances from their electorate. Often when the debate is driven down to individual family circumstances of their constituents and we work through it, we find that, despite all the campaigning and imagery to the contrary, people will qualify under the new arrangements. More people are going to qualify, more people are going to get scholarships than before. This is a package that is there to deliver for the lower income parts of the country. We know the lower income parts of the country tend to be regional and rural Australia. I know that the member is concerned about his electorate and I would really open the door to him coming and working through individual examples, because this is a system that will be better for many of his constituents.