Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I again rise to speak on the Rudd government’s Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. As I was saying, to make sure that the objective of deciding whether institutions have met their targets or not is realised by people with the best available knowledge, the government is setting up a new agency, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. Another key question is whether the media will be able to use this information to create league tables for universities. Quite frankly, I do not see a problem with that. The public interest demands that universities be held accountable for their performance. Some of the information generated should of course be in the public domain. I think that students, parents and the Australian and international public have a right to know how our universities are performing in these areas. After all, it must be remembered that the performance targets will be individual targets negotiated with individual universities. I think that what we are putting in place provides incentives for universities, encourages talent broadly and is open and transparent.

Obviously the level of change that we are talking about here is quite sweeping. We certainly could not be accused of being a faint-hearted government when it comes to education reform. We recognise that significant adjustments are required of universities. To support continuing transformation in the sector, $400 million will be provided over four years for structural adjustment. This includes $200 million for the capital component of structural adjustment provided through the third round of the Labor’s Education Investment Fund. This funding will promote long-term sustainability in the sector by assisting universities in making strategic decisions about their future mission and possible ways to enhance their place in the new education environment. It will replace the existing Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund and will support broader strategic and capital projects. In particular, the new fund will lay the groundwork for the provision of more sustainable higher education in regional areas ahead of decisions being taken on a better model of longer term funding for regional delivery.

The higher education sector will of course need time to adjust to the post-Bradley environment. The government will undertake further work throughout 2009 to better identify the issues facing regional provision, taking into account the changes in the operating environment, including the impact of the move to a more demand driven system. The government will consult with the sector in undertaking this further work. Without doubt, some regional and outer metropolitan universities may be affected by the move to a demand driven system in 2012. Funding for structural adjustment will support institutions that choose to reconsider their strategic direction as a result of this reform. Some universities may find that focusing research funding leads to reduced access to research funding. Regional institutions in this position will benefit from the opportunities and incentives for institutional collaboration in the shared deployment of research infrastructure, facilities and personnel through the Collaborative Research Networks program.

Regional universities play an enormous role in many rural and regional communities. In my own electorate of Corangamite, Deakin University is our largest employer. It is also one of the keys to the great change that must take place in our region, which is transitioning from a dirty brown industry base with a high-carbon footprint to a new low-emission high-technology future. Deakin is already playing a part in this transformation, and it is critical that this university is supported to achieve that. Deakin University is like a lot of regional and metropolitan universities. It is looking to carve out a particular niche where it can make a difference to the world and, of course, the region that it operates around. It is with great pleasure that I have spoken on this bill and I commend it to the House as another great Labor bill.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 because I want to raise the issue of this policy being at odds with the rest of the minister’s policy. I will go, first of all, to the minister’s second reading speech, wherein she explained that the bill was to amend the act to:

… provide for an increase in funding to address Australia’s historically poor record in increasing participation by low SES students.

The minister went on in her speech to say:

This goal will be directly supported by the injection of additional funding for universities to support the low SES participation targets.

She talked about the barriers to increased higher education participation by students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and she talked about ‘helping teachers raise the aspirations of their students’. She said:

Programs might include scholarships, mentoring of teachers and students, curriculum and teaching support or hands-on activities run by university staff in schools.

She talked about students from disadvantaged backgrounds and how they could perhaps benefit from the changes made within this bill.

Next I would like to go on to talk about and to reiterate some of the concerns and issues that have been raised with my office as a result of the minister’s changes to the Youth Allowance criteria. Basically, we are told that, on the one hand, what this bill is doing is trying to support those low SES people to be able to get to an education institution—to be able to get to university, so to speak. But then, on the other hand, the legislation that the minister has introduced with the changes to Youth Allowance precludes exactly those people from getting a university education. I am just going to take the time to read onto the Hansard for the minister just a small snippet of the many hundreds and hundreds of complaints that have come into my office on this particular issue of Youth Allowance. As I said in relation to this bill, the desire is to get those from low SES areas into university education.

I have a letter here, addressed to me, which says:

I have like many others in my year have decided to go into the workforce for the year to earn $18 000 so we will have financial support from the government.

However, by the government changing the terms of gaining youth allowance it forced those in rural communities who do not have easy access to public transport, or university to stay in work force for an extra 12 months. This increased burden has a negative impact on rural students wanting to persevere with university, as motivation decreases it becomes easier to stay in the work force then to go into a different environment and seek a further education.

                  …              …              …

I am disappointed and frustrated because the Labour government is supposed to support the working class in gaining the same level of access to education and health as the business class. However this will not be apparent if the legislation for a change in the youth allowance is passed.

I am not going to put any names to these letters but they certainly are available for tabling at any stage. The next letter I will refer to it talks about the issue of the Youth Allowance changes in the 2009-10 federal budget. It says:

I completed my Higher School Certificate in 2008—

And that was at a particular college in Wagga Wagga—

My hard work and consistent effort throughout the year paid off and I was able to attain entry to Monash University in Melbourne where I plan on studying … .

The letter continues, saying that the course chosen is rarely offered to rural students and so the author:

… decided I would take a gap year and earn $19,532 to receive youth allowance during my course. I was well on my way to earning this amount, when it was announced on May 14th 2009 that this would no longer be available, and instead I would have to work thirty hours a week for eighteen months. This decision is so ridiculously unfair, that I am going to give the federal government the benefit of the doubt for not carefully thinking through the consequences this would have on current gap year students. Not only do I feel as though I’ve wasted a year that could have been spent studying towards my degree, I am unsure how I will be able to afford to live in Melbourne and therefore am reassessing my options.

The author then speaks about the offer of relocation scholarships. She says:

I am aware that the proposed changes included ‘relocation scholarships’, however, to be eligible I need to first qualify for youth allowance which is now increasingly difficult. The same worries apply to many of my peers from school. Out of the top ten UAI earning students, six of us decided to take a gap year to help pay for our university degrees such as law, international relations, medicine, journalism and Asian studies. However, if these proposed eligibility changes are passed, we may be forced to take a second gap year. This will be highly problematic as very few institutions will allow students to defer for more than twelve months, and thus our offers will lapse.

The letter goes on, and it is very articulate, basically indicating that the government is saying one thing and doing another as in many of the cases that I am pointing out here as relevant to this particular bill. This letter goes on to talk about the effect that this bill will have on rural students. It says:

The effect that this change will have on rural students will be radical, as the expense of university and living away from home will deter many students from earning a degree. For example, the shortage of doctors in rural areas is often reported; however, this will only decrease if these changes are passed through senate. Very few families would be able to pay for their child through seven years of medicine without government support …

The next letter that I would like to quote from says:

My primary concern is for those students who completed their HSC in 2008, and on the basis of the rules existing at that time made the decision to defer their university position and seek full time work in order to earn the money required to satisfy the independent youth allowance requirement.

Where does this decision leave these young people now? It is a travesty that the government has made the decision to leave these young people adrift…. they must now decide whether they should shelve their university plans (unfortunately a likelihood for many—particularly those in rural areas where it will be particularly difficult to qualify now), or delay their transition to university for a further 12 months—an eternity for young people who had the promise of university in 2010 within their grasp. The thoughtfully considered hopes, dreams, and aspirations of our future leaders should not be ‘toyed with’ at whim, and I am absolutely disgusted at the lack of sensitivity of the government to this group of young people.

This letter also relates to the government on the one hand saying that they are going to enable low-SES students to gain access to university and then, on the other hand, absolutely precluding them. This letter goes on to say:

This is even more important for country youth who often do not get the option in many cases to live at home while they study…. which adds hugely to the financial load of post school study for the family. This is just another example of lack of empathy, and more simply understanding of the functioning of rural communities. To give you an idea of accommodation costs—the costs of accommodation per annum at ANU is now around $13000—a cost in many cases not incurred by city dwellers who have a choice of university, each of which may be accessible by public transport and within reasonable distance from their homes. I predict even further decreases in young rural people articulating to university as a result of this…. and that would also tell you that the skill base of rural communities will be further undermined.

The next point that was put into one of these selected snippets that I have just hurriedly grabbed is from a parent who talks about her son:

He is also doing voluntary work and has taken up lessons to learn French at night in preparation for his uni course in International Studies/Law. He has taken a gap year in good faith that the Youth Allowance will be available to him, providing that he kept his end of the bargain (ie earned money). He also opted to forgo uni this year as my husband lost his job in February and we still need to meet our financial commitments. Stretching to accommodating a uni student was just going to be beyond our means … (We are already supporting our daughter—

who is at university.

I believe that our son has been honourable and mature in his decision. We are very worried that he may have to postpone uni even longer. Can you please reassure us that—

your—

response will be to oppose the proposed changes to the Youth Allowance.

It seems to me that rural students are once again disadvantaged. Our son cannot do his course at—

the local university—

as it is not offered, so he must go to a metropolitan university. He will not have the option of continuing to live at home as students in Sydney—

and other metropolitan cities—

may have. He, or we, have no choice but to foot the bill for his accommodation … At this stage we are aware that this may be around $15,000 for each year of the course.

He is a clever young man, who was school captain … he has a social conscience. He has a potentially bright future as a high earner and a contributor to the community. It just seems unfair that for him the rules change halfway through the game.

That is another instance of a person referring to the fact that the government, in the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009, has said that it wants to give access to university to low-SES students but is precluding access.

This is a letter from a property out in a very small town located quite a distance away from anywhere. It talks about the closest town having ‘a pub and a one-teacher primary school’. Education choices are very limited. Basically, it says:

Since leaving school—

our child—

has driven a tractor for the wheat harvest, worked on a building site and was a Lab technician for the wine vintage. All of these jobs were seasonal and two involved living away from home.

This is a young lady who did this work, mind you—working on the harvest, driving a tractor and working on a building site, so keen was she to get to university. The parent talks about the employment prospects for her in the local area being absolutely zero, and this parent is absolutely right. The letter goes on to say that she is now down at the Central Coast living with family friends trying to find work, but that is very difficult. They go on:

Should the changes to Youth Allowance be implemented it will be almost impossible for rural students to find a full time job for 30 hours a week for an average of 18 months out of two years. Potential students will have to defer studies … and leave home. At present Universities only allow students to defer for one year so students will have to work full time, live away from home and try to study as well.

The next letter asks:

How do you study at university, relocate to the cities AND work a 30 hour week? How is it going to effect our children and their future and the future of rural Australia? Many prospective university students have taken responsible action in gaining employment, waiting 12 months before starting university (known as a gap year) and saving as much as they can to help with the costs of university.

The next one talks about a girl who works part time waitressing. She uses youth allowance to pay the monthly rent. She has had to change accommodation three times due to increasing rent charges. She could never have lived and studied in Melbourne without the help of youth allowance, but now the next child in the family is in this most dire predicament. The parents say:

Families from regional areas have so many disadvantages against them, when their children need to study away from the area. The cost of rent, travel and food is extensive and we all depend very much on the Centrelink Youth Allowance. We have a son and daughter still in high school and both wish to further their study after Year 12.

To think that children will “fall into” a full time job of approximately 30hrs per week, after leaving school is just fanciful. Especially in this economic climate, with more work opportunities disappearing each day.

It just goes on and on. I could continue to talk about these issues, but what disturbs me greatly is that these are smart people—intellectually brilliant, in many cases. They are able to eke out a living off the land, and probably not one of us here in this House could do that. They are by no means low-value people. But rural people are being treated as low-value people, because every time the minister stands at the dispatch box and tells us that the changes to the youth allowance are good for us, she is treating every one of these people—around 33,000 of them, in fact—like they are idiots. They know what these changes mean. They are not misunderstanding them. They are not idiots; they can read; they know; they are very intelligent people. They know that the changes are catastrophic for them. So every time the minister says that these concerns are all in our minds, that they are all froth and bubble, and that what these people are constantly writing to us about is just a furphy, she is literally abusing the real integrity of these people. They do know what the changes mean. They are not stupid. For the minister to continually say, ‘You don’t understand,’ is belittling and demoralising to each and every person who lives in rural Australia and who knows that these changes are going to impact on them badly. They know how much these changes are in contrast to what the minister says in her second reading speech that she is trying to achieve.

When you look at the second reading speech, you think, ‘How could the same minister pull out this speech at the dispatch box and then pull out another speech to do literally exactly the opposite, and that is: preclude those from rural areas—which are the low SES areas—from gaining an education. It is not right. It is not justice. It is not fair. We will be opposing the changes. We will try to take away the retrospectivity, because that in itself is just so unfair. I am hopeful that, when we get into government next time, we will change that 30-hour week. I did so much work to try to exclude any work test for those kids who are studying high workload degrees such as medicine, dentistry, vet science and others, so that they would not have to compromise their study in order to go out and be a lifeguard or this or that to try to meet the test—and put off or defer their degrees in medicine, dentistry, allied health and other areas where there are desperate shortages in rural and regional areas.

This must be changed, and the opposition are determined to change this. The Nationals are absolutely determined that this cannot succeed, because you cannot discriminate against rural students and families like this. It is unjust and simply an inequity for those Australians who live in these low SES areas.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following my colleague the member for Riverina, I am always interested in what she has to say, because I think she is a very good representative of her local constituency, and no doubt she speaks with a great deal of passion about the individual cases that she referred to in her contribution. But I would make the point that the member may not have alluded to in any great detail that many of the people she talked about in the House today will in fact continue to be eligible for the youth allowance with the increase in the parental income cut-off. The member shakes her head. I do not know the answer to that, but I do believe that she has a genuine concern about the issues of equity; it is just a pity that, as a member of a government for more than a decade or so, the broad issues to do with equity in higher education and the rates of participation of people from low SES backgrounds was an issue that was left very much on the backburner. That is an issue which is very much at the forefront of the Minister for Education’s concerns. I think that for the first time, as I will get to in my contribution, the issue of equity is going to be very much centrestage of the minister’s reform agenda for the future.

I am pleased to be able to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009, because it does chart the beginnings of the reform of the higher education sector; and that, coupled with all the changes that are occurring through the Building the Education Revolution—the new national partnerships, the huge investment in capital works, the new programs to enhance teacher quality, and the programs to deal with disadvantaged schools—is really ushering in the most exciting changes in education that I can recall. I was a young teacher in the days of the Whitlam era, and that era brought in massive changes and made it possible for students from poorer backgrounds to access the opportunities that education brings. I know that the minister has a personal commitment to make sure that we do better in the future. The bill before us today begins that reform process, and it addresses some of the issues that were very much at the forefront of our concerns when we were in opposition.

We consistently expressed to the community our concerns about the decline in public expenditure on postsecondary education, particularly by comparison to other comparable OECD nations, and the clearly occurring shift in funding from public sources onto the shoulders of students and their families, both domestically and, in many cases, internationally, to cover up the shortfalls in commitment from the Howard government. Alongside that shift of funding to private sources, it is not surprising that there was a consequent erosion of opportunities for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

I take the point made by the member for Riverina that that decade or so had a profound effect on the rates of participation of young people from regional Australia. I think that clearly comes through in the analysis undertaken in the Bradley report. But, going into the election, we promised a substantial increase in public funding and a program of long-term reform. It was very clear to all that investment in education is so important in global terms, that we were losing ground against our competitors and that, as a nation, we had squandered and failed to invest the proceeds of the boom years. Our national participation and attainment in higher education, in fact, saw us slipping down on the OECD tables, and we needed to do more to ensure that our economy prospered in a globally competitive environment where investment in knowledge and human capital was going to be so much more important.

As we all know, the minister commissioned Professor Bradley to undertake the review, and she set out some very bold recommendations: a national target of at least 40 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds having achieved a bachelor qualification by 2020; very importantly, setting a target that by 2020 20 per cent of higher education enrolments would be of people from low SES backgrounds; recommendations that went to the heart of reforming student income support, as we have heard in the contribution just preceding mine; the longstanding issue of the indexation formula and proposals to revise that formula for base funding, which I know has been a major concern of the academic union and the sector generally; and the move to introduce a demand-driven entitlement system—not a voucher system but a demand-driven entitlement system.

Following from the Bradley review the government looked at, I think, 46 recommendations that were made. In relation to some of them we have already made it clear that we will embark upon the route of ensuring that by 2025—so we have taken the time line a bit further than the Bradley report—we see 40 per cent of all 25- to 34-year-olds with a qualification at bachelor level, which is going to be a significant boost from today’s figure, which I think is about 32 per cent. Secondly, this bill will also begin the process of transition arrangements as we move to funding unis on the basis of student demand. We will provide in this bill the budgetary measures that will begin the process of funding on the basis of student places, we will revise the indexation arrangements, we will establish a new regulatory agency and we will bring into being some institutional performance targets.

But, as the minister explains in her second reading speech, after a decade of neglect we are not going to turn the world upside down in one or two budgets. But this is the beginning of the process of reform, and the year 2012 will see these major reforms begin to take effect. The bill proposes a new system of allocating student places at a cost of $490.6 million over the next four years. On projections, it is anticipated that this will lead to an additional 50,000 student places by 2013. There is provision to allow for a small overenrolment for the institutions in this transition period. We are also providing interim funding arrangements to move to a new indexation formula, as well as $202 million for the Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund and a significant boost to research funding that was announced in the budget. Additional funding of $436.9 million over 4 years will be targeted at supporting increased participation for low SES students, with around $30 million in this financial year. This is an important first step in our commitment to boost participation of low SES students to 20 per cent of enrolments by 2020, an issue which I said earlier was very much on the backburner in the Howard era.

The investment of $491 million over the next four years will significantly increase public university places, and it is our intention, as I understand the commitments, that from 2012 places will be uncapped, meaning that if universities accept appropriately qualified students for recognised courses then the government will fund that place. This will certainly help in achieving our national goal and ambition of 40 per cent of Australians in the 25- to 34-year age group having a bachelor’s qualification.

But, in achieving that very ambitious target, of course we will need to increase the proportion of students from under-represented backgrounds, and I want to spend most of my comments on that very important issue. I do so because education is the key to success for many in our community and it is the means of providing the opportunities for students from lower SES backgrounds and from backgrounds where a parent might be unemployed or a sole parent to get the benefits that we all know tertiary education brings. Of course, in the era of conservative rule in this country prior to Whitlam, we saw tertiary education very correlated to the income levels of parents, so kids like me were very much in the minority in having any chance to go to university, and it was usually only because you happened to either win a Commonwealth scholarship or get a teacher’s scholarship that you were able to knock on those hallowed doors that had been the preserve of the elite and the wealthy in our community.

The Whitlam era fundamentally transformed that. There are so many people I know in this chamber today who are the beneficiaries of the free tertiary education that happened in that era and, subsequent to that, there have been changes with the introduction of HECS. But what we have seen is a disappointingly constant percentage of low-SES students participating in higher education despite everybody’s best efforts. I am pleased that the Bradley review investigated in some detail this very important national issue of inequity in higher education participation and concluded:

Australia has not provided equal access to all groups in our society.

The report points to the underrepresentation of not just people from lower SES backgrounds but young people from regional and remote Australia and, very obviously, the low participation rates among Indigenous Australians. The Bradley report showed that the participation rate for low-SES students overall in Australia was around 15 per cent, much lower than the overall 25 per cent representation of people in the general population.

In answer to some questions on notice a couple of years ago when I was looking at the breakdown of the participation rates in my own local university, the University of Wollongong, the data showed that they were pretty much at that level. Wollongong university is a fantastic institution. As a regional university it does incredibly well on a range of scores and is always at the top end—just recently it was awarded five stars on a number of indicators. But, despite its best efforts, it was obvious that the life chances of children in the electorate of Throsby were not significantly different from those of their parents’ generation. The Bradley report argued that a student from a high-socioeconomic background is about three times more likely to attend university than a student from a low-SES background. Her report shows that the participation rates that I have referred to have remained relatively unchanged since 2002.

What I find interesting in the data is that once at university it appears that a student’s background does not negatively affect their chances of completing the course they undertake. But quite distinct differences exist in low-SES participation by type of institution or university, by the course undertaken and by the field of study. Not surprisingly, low-SES students are even more poorly represented in the G8 universities, poorly represented in the fields of architecture and law and grossly underrepresented in the fields of medicine, dentistry and economics. Those findings correlate with the exact breakdowns that I have for the University of Wollongong.

Not surprisingly to the nation, the statistics from the Bradley review confirmed that Indigenous people are incredibly underrepresented and it showed again that, while the underrepresentation is very obvious, an equally important issue for Indigenous students is that of success and retention once enrolled. I know a number of universities, including my own, have specialist Indigenous units that assist in the process of mentoring and encouragement. The Bradley review concluded, and this is my fundamental belief too:

Social inclusion must be a core responsibility for all institutions that accept public funding, irrespective of history and circumstances.

That is right. Why should the honest hardworking families in the electorate of Throsby, who pay their taxes for the provision of good public services, find when they look at the representation of the children of those families in post secondary education that the measures are so distinctly inadequate? The minister does not find this good enough either, she, coming from her background, is very committed also, as I am, to see the nation achieve this objective of 20 per cent representation by 2020.

The bill commits $437 million over four years to reward those universities that enrol more students from low-SES backgrounds. Part of that money is targeted to funding robust partnerships between universities and schools. We all know that patterns of social and educational disadvantage are experienced well before people reach the point of considering whether attending university is possible and relevant for them. In my wildest dreams when growing up I would never have thought that one day I might be at university and that goes for lots of children from working-class families.

It follows therefore that programs that focus solely on the higher education sector can only partially influence the problems and come up with the solutions. We know that endemic educational disadvantage begins in the earliest years of schooling and is often reinforced by low achievement and parental influences. We need improved efforts to increase school retention and student achievement, and to raise aspirations with regard to the chances of people going on to higher ed. We need more outreach programs and pathways that circumvent competitive entry based on academic achievement alone, such as teacher recommendations or other forms of interviews that I know apply in some of our tertiary institutions. Certainly, more scholarships and financial incentives for students from rural communities and for Indigenous students would also be required.

One way of tackling this is to change the university admission process so that innate ability rather than required knowledge is better tested. Several universities I believe are already trialling uniTEST for students who may have experienced difficulties or disadvantage at a crucial time in their schooling which might have affected their final results. The vice-chancellor at Macquarie University said recently that the uniTEST trial showed students selected by this method have done as well in their first undergraduate year as students admitted normally.

Another approach is to encourage and help early-promise students persist through to the HSC. I know that the University of Western Sydney has run a Fast Forward program since 2004 for students in years nine and 10 who show potential but are considered at risk of dropping out before year 12. Currently, their program involves 23 schools with activities including coaching, mentoring and talking to the parents. According to the vice-chancellor of the University of Western Sydney:

The challenge is to reach this partially invisible cohort of students before they decide about the rest of their lives, and to encourage them to aspire to go to university.

I have read also that recently the University of Sydney, my old alma mater, has launched a social inclusion program which forges relationships with two local schools, Marrickville and Kogarah High, and their feeder schools. So there is a range of good innovation out there to help the government achieve its objective.

In an article that I recently read, the vice-chancellor of a university—I think it was the University of Western Sydney—referred to this issue as a social problem. She said:

This is a social problem. It belongs to all of us and we will have to work collaboratively to fix it.

Once students from disadvantaged backgrounds gain entry to university they will often require higher levels of support to succeed, including financial assistance and greater mentoring and other forms of support. We have allocated funding in this budget to provide such incentives. I understand the loading for students from disadvantaged backgrounds will increase substantially to around $1,100 in 2012.

In conclusion, I commend the Minister for Education for her bold reform program in the higher education sector. I particularly want to commend her for her passionate commitment to ensuring that children from poor backgrounds are able to achieve the benefits that education provides to our community—not just to the individuals but the community generally. As a nation wanting to compete on the world stage, our investing in human capital and in becoming a knowledge economy is going to be increasingly important, and I am glad that this reform agenda at the heart of it ensures that the doors of higher education will open for a new generation of Australians who have previously often been in the position of missing out.

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

I have been listening to the debate on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 quite carefully and it certainly seems that those on the other side, quite properly, are interested in low-SES students and Indigenous students, but—funnily enough—there has been hardly a mention of rural people, of country students. That does not seem to be an issue for those on the other side.

This debate over the deregulation of the higher education sector, whilst meritorious in part, has recently become utterly meaningless for about 30,000 young Australians in rural areas. This is an estimate of the number of young Australians who have achieved outstanding year 12 results and who have just had their aspirations for university wiped out by the changes in the dependent youth allowance eligibility criteria announced by the Rudd government in the May budget. Most of these are rural and regional Australians. Many come from my electorate. They are high-achieving rural and regional students whose parents earn more than $40,000 but not enough to find the $15,000 to $20,000 per year that it costs to send a young person to university in the city hundreds of kilometres away.

Previously, students could receive the independent youth allowance if they had worked at least 15 hours a week for 18 months after leaving school or had earned $19,532 in an 18-month period. Many young people in my electorate are currently on their gap year, which they undertook in the expectation of working hard to reach the $19,532 level. The current criteria for youth allowance eligibility are critical and absolutely essential to many students in my electorate being able to access further education. The Rudd Labor government, in a clear slap in the face to rural students, has decided that from January next year young people will have to have worked 30 hours a week for 18 months in a two-year period to qualify for independent youth allowance so that they may undertake further education.

We cannot turn back the clock. That is an impossibility. It is unachievable; it is an impassable imposition on rural and remote Australians. Young people in rural and remote areas in my electorate will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to find 30 hours of work a week for at least 18 months in the midst of the economic downturn. Indeed, at any time that is more difficult in rural areas than it is in the city. Many young people in my electorate live in small communities with very few employment opportunities, particularly in low-skilled jobs. Some larger towns have a number of jobs available but young people do not have the skills to get them because they are fresh out of school. Young people have to compete for a small number of low-skilled jobs against many other job seekers with greater skills and experience. Rural and regional young people may be forced to stay at home to reduce the costs for their families. This could limit their study opportunities. The debate today about flexibility for institutions and responsiveness to student demand will fall on deaf ears with regard to those students, who will now be denied a university education because their only avenue to achieving essential income support has been taken away. It has been taken away by a bill which has not been introduced in the parliament. Further, their Commonwealth scholarships are being taken away. I am very concerned that the Commonwealth scholarships are being abolished when the bill introducing the replacements is yet to be introduced into the parliament.

Parts of my electorate are 450 kilometres away from the nearest university in Adelaide or Melbourne. This does not mean that rural and regional students do not aspire to university. Notwithstanding the tyranny of distance, unreliable broadband and fewer resources, rural and regional students achieve high TER rankings. In a very competitive environment they secure hard-to-get places in courses only available in the city. They and their families then face the significant costs of relocation to the city and ongoing accommodation and transport costs in order to take up these places.

The Commonwealth Learning Scholarships Program was introduced by the Howard government in 2004 and later renamed the Commonwealth Scholarships Program. That program, which is about to be withdrawn by this bill, incorporated the Commonwealth accommodation scholarships and the Commonwealth education costs scholarships; facilitated choice in higher education; and increased higher education participation by students from—amongst others—regional and remote areas.

The Howard government recognised that the cost of accommodation was a significant burden for students from regional and remote areas who needed to move away from home to commence higher education. Commonwealth accommodation scholarships provided students from low socioeconomic backgrounds from regional and remote areas with $4,324 per year, indexed annually, for up to four years to assist them with accommodation costs when they moved to undertake higher education.

This bill abolishes these Commonwealth scholarships which have helped tens of thousands of students realise their university dreams. While there are measures in the budget to replace the scholarships, they are contained in a bill that has not even been introduced yet and they are contingent on qualification for youth allowance, which just got harder to achieve for thousands of young Australians. It would have made more sense to consider the two bills together. Perhaps the government are still reeling from the amount of opposition coming from rural and remote Australia to their changes to youth allowance eligibility. I sincerely hope that, before the bill is presented, they will remove the offending changes, which unfairly target rural and regional students, or at least make exception for those who have to travel long distances.

As a representative of a large rural electorate where parents are faced with huge costs to fund their children’s university studies hundreds of kilometres away, I remain extremely concerned by the government’s arrogant dismissal of the very sincere problems that will be created by the changes to the support arrangements for rural and regional students. As I have said many times in this place, rural students do not have the option of catching an 80c bus to university and back. They do not have the option of staying at home and eating meals with their parents, because they have to move away from home. I have always believed that, if we are going to have equity for rural university students, we should at least look at the extra costs they have over and above what city students have. The fact is that we already have a very low participation rate of 17 per cent for rural students, which is much lower than the rate for city students. That is not because they are dumber; it is because of the extra costs which families cannot afford. And now they have had the independent youth allowance taken away from them halfway through their gap year—but you cannot turn back the clock.

I put on record my very grave reservations about abolishing scholarships without first putting in place their replacement. The government will have the opportunity to correct that before this bill goes to the Senate. I certainly encourage them to do so. These amendments go some way towards delivering on the recommendations of the Bradley review, although many of the Bradley recommendations have been ignored. This amounts to a minor deregulation of the tertiary sector—a Clayton’s deregulation.

The coalition supports these changes, minor though they are. But we are very concerned that the Commonwealth scholarships are being abolished when the bill introducing the replacements is yet to be introduced into parliament. The Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 is the legislative instrument that delivers most of the measures included in the government’s response to the Bradley review. This bill does not include most of the changes to eligibility for youth allowance and, as I said earlier, that will remove eligibility from more than 30,000 students, mostly from rural areas.

The Bradley review contained 42 recommendations covering a wide range of issues, including funding arrangements, allocation of places, quality frameworks, student support mechanisms, support for increased participation from disadvantaged and low-SES groups, increased encouragement of philanthropy, extension of certain forms of government support to private institutions and other matters. The Bradley review also set a target for increased participation in the higher education sector: 40 per cent of all 25- to 34-year-olds to hold a qualification of at least the bachelor level by 2020. The problem is that the participation rate for rural and regional students is only 17 per cent, and the changes will certainly make it worse. Targets were also set for participation amongst low-SES Australians and other disadvantaged groups.

The Bradley review did not recommend a reduction in participation in the higher education sector by rural and regional students, yet this is what the Rudd Labor government is doing. Imbalances in higher education participation remain a problem in Australia. The participation rate for rural and regional students is already less than half that of metropolitan students. As I said, that is not because they are dumber; it is because it is harder for them to attend university because of the distance and the extra accommodation costs. Abolishing Commonwealth scholarships, as this bill does, does nothing to redress that imbalance, nor does linking the scholarships to eligibility for youth allowance—a double-edged sword for rural and regional students.

The cost of sending a student to Adelaide or Melbourne, with accommodation or residential college and fees and transport, is in the vicinity of $12, 000 to $15,000 a year, which is a considerable financial burden on many families. By comparison, a metropolitan student can live at home free and use public transport. The Rudd government’s changes to youth allowance, together with the added burden of poor public transport, high fuel costs and reduced family income due to drought, will mean fewer students from regional and rural Australia will attend university. There will be a flow-on effect in professional occupations in rural and regional Australia. The number of rural health workers, rural teachers and other professionals will be significantly diminished because rural students are being denied tertiary education. The disadvantage will be compounded as fewer role models will be around to inspire students.

In ordinary circumstances potential university students and their families might have taken notice of this bill. In my electorate they no longer have the desire to do so. It is a moot point for rural and regional students, given that their ability to attend university has been taken away. I do not oppose this bill but I put the government on notice that they will have a major fight on their hands when it comes to implementing their proposed changes to income support to students.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.