Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 and I foreshadow that I will be moving substantive amendments in the consideration in detail stage. It is my hope that the government will seriously consider these amendments as they will go a long way to fixing some very serious flaws in what could otherwise be a worthwhile set of reforms to our youth allowance system.

The coalition supports improvements to the way that youth allowance is targeted. As the Deputy Prime Minister has pointed out on more than one occasion, some of the reforms in this bill are ideas which I called for in March as shadow minister for education. But there are two fundamental flaws with this bill which cannot be allowed to stand if the opposition is to provide its support. It is to these issues that I will immediately draw the attention of the House before discussing some of the broader issues in the bill.

First, this legislation is retrospective in its application and effect. It is fundamental to our social contract that governments do not move the finishing line halfway through the race. In relation to this legislation, tens of thousands of students who finished year 12 last year spoke to a range of government employees—teachers, career advisers, Centrelink officials and the like—and were advised that by fulfilling the workforce participation criteria throughout 2009 they would be eligible to subsequently gain youth allowance as independents.

These students made significant decisions about their life and study plans on the basis of this advice stamped with the Australian government crest. Tens of thousands of students deferred their studies, as students have done every year, in order that they might fulfil the requirements to obtain youth allowance as independents and therefore fulfil their higher education dreams. The 2009-10 budget came as a rude shock to over 30,000 such students who were told that, having arranged their lives around the demands of the government, they would no longer be eligible to receive youth allowance after the end of this year.

The second critical problem with this legislation is that it fails to appreciate the barriers faced by students from rural and regional Australia in accessing higher education. Instead, the government’s changes exacerbate rural disadvantage. Today, on the very day that many year 12 students are beginning their exams, the Deputy Prime Minister is demanding that we pass legislation that will make it impossible for thousands of those same students living in rural and regional Australia to gain youth allowance and achieve their dreams of higher education. The Deputy Prime Minister’s cruel dismissal of the needs of rural students has been haunting year 12 students since the budget.

The abolition of the workforce participation route for youth allowance eligibility as an independent will make it harder for thousands of young people from rural and regional families to go to university. Young people in rural and regional Australia have to move to the city if they are to pursue further study and are not necessarily able to rely on financial support from their parents—even if their parents’ income or assets mean that they are ineligible for youth allowance under the parental means test. Students from farming and small business backgrounds in the country are often ineligible to receive youth allowance as dependants because the value of the average Australian family farm is significantly higher than the level of assets allowed under the test. However, the average Australian farming family cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars required to support their child’s move and their accommodation and living expenses while studying at university. Compare that child from the average Australian farming family to a child from an average Australian metropolitan family. The parents of the average student in the city will be likely to earn more than the average Australian farming family. However, as their parents will not own an asset such as a farm, the city student will be eligible to receive youth allowance, even though the student is able to live at home while attending university.

The minister’s claims that this legislation is all about access and equity are clearly absurd. Because this significant cohort of students from the country are ineligible to receive dependent youth allowance, thousands every year currently gain eligibility for independent youth allowance under the workforce participation criteria. This means that they have to earn $19,532 within an 18-month period, which most do during a gap year. This is the criterion that will be abolished by this legislation. These changes fly in the face of the government’s claims that they are interested in increasing higher education participation from all sections of the community. They will in fact be actively discouraging rural and regional students from attending university.

The minister is on the record accusing me of seeking to reduce student entitlements—she calls it the Pyne plan. The only side of this debate that is seeking to rip youth allowance away from students is in fact the government. This legislation represents the Gillard garrotte, tightening around the necks of tens of thousands of students whose only crime has been to have aspirations of achieving a higher education and a career in the field of their choosing.

Coalition members’ offices, particularly those in rural Australia, have been deluged with concerns from young people and their families, whose distress has been made worse by the Deputy Prime Minister’s indifference to their plight. Hundreds have written their personal stories on the coalition’s Education for Australia web site. I will read just two for members’ information, but all members are welcome to read more for themselves, as I am sure the member for Lindsay will do, at educationforaustralia.com.au. Mikaela Horne, in South Australia, is a prime example. She writes:

As a year 12 student living in Eyre Peninsula, I have been studying hard all year as I would like to obtain qualifications from university next year. I plan to then come back and work in a rural town. I’m extremely disappointed to hear that to receive independent status to qualify for the highest youth allowance I would have to work a staggering 30 hours a week or have to defer … university education or give up … future ambitions altogether. Realistically I couldn’t do this in Adelaide while studying a Uni course as they are a 40 hour a week commitment depending on course type. I feel a large amount of rural students would be in the same situation as myself and it’s not acceptable. Discrimination of any form was ‘supposedly’ abolished many years ago so why is it that rural students, who are already at a disadvantage when it comes to Uni education compared to city students are being penalised for yet again?

And she concludes:

Answer me that Ms Gillard!

From a parent’s point of view, Di Williams, of Dunsborough in Western Australia, spoke for thousands of mothers when she wrote:

Please reject the new Youth Allowance scheme for rural youth. Our daughter is year 12 now at Georgiana Molloy Anglican School, she is studying for her TEE and has her heart set on a gap year and entering University 2011. Working and earning the old youth allowance during the gap year. With this new Youth Allowance scheme there is no way she will be able to work 30 hrs per week within the 18 month time frame, unless she works 2 or 3 jobs per week which in our area Dunsborough is not easy to do. 3 hrs southwest of Perth, rural WA. If the government allows this for this change to happen there will be a lot of local students vying for jobs in a small area that will not be able to meet their needs. The students will not be able to move to Perth or another area for work as cost would be too high, not only financially but emotionally. It is bad enough they cannot stay at home and attend university without then having to leave earlier to gain the employment. With the 18 month clause - that is ridiculous - if they wish to attend university in 2011 after 1 year gap, then they should be working 30 hrs per week now … Only a few courses will let you defer 12 months, let alone 18 months. Accommodation on campus would be very be hard to find mid year. Please make the government be aware that they are penalizing the youth of rural areas when they should be trying to help rural youth become the future leaders, doctors, lawyers, business people our country needs without asking for overseas professionals to fill the gaps in our society.

It is worth noting that it has not just been coalition members who have been receiving this sort of response from their constituents and raising these concerns in the public domain. We have been joined by the Greens, Family First and Independents in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Deputy Prime Minister is isolated in her stubborn refusal to see that her legislation is retrospective and that it unfairly discriminates against students in rural and regional Australia. Even those on her own side of politics and in her own state—the Labor Party in the Victorian state parliament—have been scathing about these changes. The Victorian parliament’s Education and Training Committee is chaired by the Labor member for Ballarat East, which is in the federal member for Ballarat’s electorate. In that committee’s recent report into this issue, that same Labor member, Geoff Howard, wrote in his introduction that the committee:

… is concerned that the specific circumstances of rural and regional young people still have not been adequately addressed. Already, many such students defer their studies to meet eligibility criteria for income support and this route to financial independence is set to become even more difficult under the new system.

That is a Labor member of the Victorian state parliament writing this. It is not a coalition member writing this but a Labor member who is the chairman of the Education and Training Committee. This report—by a committee controlled by the Labor Party, let alone chaired by a Labor member—was supported by members from both sides of the Victorian Legislative Assembly including Liberals and Nationals. In a particularly scathing passage, the committee argued:

… the Committee believes that the removal of the main workforce participation route will have a disastrous effect on young people in rural and regional areas—

and that the changes:

will have a detrimental impact on many students who deferred their studies during 2009 in order to work and earn sufficient money to be eligible for Youth Allowance.

I will be fascinated to see what the Labor members of parliament who intend to speak on this bill have to say in answer to a clear and direct criticism from one of the members of their own tribe in relation to these changes.

This report confirms the point that the coalition has been making since the budget: the Deputy Prime Minister’s changes will suffocate many students’ dreams of a higher education. There is not a political party in the land that has not expressed severe concerns about the way that the government is seeking to abolish the workforce participation criteria for gaining Youth Allowance without providing any sort of alternative route for those students from rural areas who are now unable to access Youth Allowance. Actually there is one route the minister is leaving open to these students: the ridiculous 30 hours per week for 18 months option. As many members have identified, this is not a serious option at all. It is sheer nonsense to think that students who have just graduated from year 12 and have been accepted into university will then be able to defer their studies for 18 months and find a full-time job in communities where much of the work is seasonal.

The Deputy Prime Minister is aware of these two problems. Indeed, in August, having maintained for three months that these student concerns were just some hysterical reaction to an alleged fear campaign, she held a press conference in this building and, in a rare moment of self-awareness, admitted that she got it wrong. Having admitted her mistake, the Deputy Prime Minister should have fixed it and then we could have moved on. That could have been the end of the matter, and the remainder of these Youth Allowance reforms, which the coalition supports, could have passed easily with bipartisan support. Instead the government announced half-baked amendments which will only provide a stay of execution to a small fraction of the students facing the Gillard garrotte, and it is only for those students who are beginning university in semester 1 next year.

I ask the House to think about the logic of this for a second. The Deputy Prime Minister admitted there was a problem with rural disadvantage in her legislation that needed fixing and so she extended the date for remote students to gain access to the gap year provision by six months. This will help 4,700 students who are currently in their gap year, but the government’s half-baked backdown does nothing for rural students into the future. It does nothing to help rural students sitting their year 12 examinations today, let alone the rural students today in years 8, 9, 10 and all students in the future. It does nothing for these people. Similarly, the Deputy Prime Minister admitted there was a problem with retrospectivity, that it was unfair to change the rules for students who had already made their plans and commenced their gap years. However, her changes will help fewer than 5,000 out of the 30,000 students who find themselves in the position in their gap year of facing retrospective changes that move the goalposts midway through the game. If the minister were serious about addressing rural disadvantage, she would be fixing the problem for all rural and remote students into the future, such as those starting their year 12 exams today. If the minister were serious about removing the outrageous retrospectivity of her legislation, she would be fixing the problem for all students, not just those living more than 90 minutes from their campus.

The coalition will be moving and supporting amendments to remove the retrospective aspect of the legislation. We have already announced our policy to provide scholarships to students from rural and regional areas who are ineligible for Youth Allowance but whose financial circumstances are preventing them from accessing higher education. We encourage the government to take on board these sensible and fair policies.

I note that the member for Bendigo has entered the House of Representatives chamber, a member who does represent regional Australia, a member who must have heard from constituents in his own electorate about the unfairness of the government’s Youth Allowance changes, a member who has probably found that the Gillard backdown has probably not helped anybody in his electorate of Bendigo because they do not live more than 90 minutes from a university campus. He is a member who is facing the exact scenario that I have outlined for rural students whose dreams of higher education have been dashed by the Deputy Prime Minister’s changes to Youth Allowance.

Unlike the member for Lindsay, who represents a metropolitan electorate and can in a very blase fashion dismiss the concerns of rural and regional youth, the member for Bendigo does not find himself in that luxurious position of being able to do that. I will be fascinated to see whether the member for Bendigo, the member for Ballarat, the member for Flynn, the member for Capricornia or the members for all the rural and regional seats who mistakenly voted for the Labor Party at the last election are prepared to stand up for their constituents.

I would point out to the House that the opposition moved a motion in the parliament in the last sitting fortnight calling on the government to recognise its mistake and its error in respect to the reforms to youth allowance that disadvantage rural people. I am sad to say the member for Bendigo, the member for Ballarat, the members for Flynn, Dawson, Capricornia and other rural seats, the member for Hunter and many others voted that motion down rather than allow it to be debated. They voted against the interests of their own constituents and voted against the interests of the people who put them here in parliament to represent them. I say that more out of sorrow than anger because, in fact, I would appreciate it if they would stand up for their electorates, for their constituents and for their families who had dreams of their children achieving higher education that have now been dashed by the Gillard garrotte.

I might even stay in the House to hear the member for Bendigo’s speech if I can stomach it. But, of course, I anticipate that he will not vote for the opposition’s amendments because he will do exactly as he is told by the factional bosses of the Labor Party, as will the member for Lindsay, who is a factional boss himself. I see the member for Newcastle has also entered the House. It is becoming a veritable welter of rural and regional members from the Labor Party coming in. I call on the member for Newcastle to stand up for her constituents, families and young people, who will be garrotted by the Gillard garrotte in these youth allowance reforms.

To maintain budget neutrality, the coalition has suggested a reduction in the rate of the new start-up scholarship. This is a new scholarship that no students are currently receiving and is paid in a lump sum at the beginning of each semester. This change will not affect the proposed fortnightly payments to students by even one dollar, despite the spin and falsehood in the minister’s press releases. Under the coalition’s amendments, all students on youth allowance will be better off, receiving for the first time ever a $1,000 start-up scholarship. No student currently on their gap year, preparing to enter university next year and claim youth allowance, will have the rug pulled out from under their feet. Rural and regional students need to be provided with a clear route to university, and the savings measures we have suggested will provide ample funds to assist all these students.

Other aspects of this bill meet with support from the coalition. One reform that will not catch too many headlines, but which will be particularly appreciated by many in the higher education sector, is the exemption of merit based scholarships from the income test under social security and veterans’ entitlements legislation. We commend the government for this measure. We also support the increase in the personal income test threshold, the extension of youth allowance to students enrolled in masters by coursework programs and the relaxation of the parental income thresholds. But in improving some aspects of the youth allowance framework, the government has created barriers to thousands of other students from rural Australia. It is bad policy to fix one perceived inequity by replacing it with a new gross injustice.

This legislation is currently under consideration by a Senate committee. When that committee reports at the end of the month, I urge the Deputy Prime Minister to take the opportunity to reconsider her position on the two flaws within this legislation. If she does not like the opposition’s suggested savings measure, we are open to the idea of supporting alternative savings measures. But in order to receive coalition support for this legislation, two things need to happen. Firstly, the government must remove the retrospective elements of the bill. Secondly, they must address the issue of rural and regional disadvantage in a serious manner.

I would point out to the House that because of the government’s legislative agenda and because the bill abolishing Commonwealth scholarships that were already in place has already been passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, the minister has put herself in a russian roulette position where, if this bill fails to pass the Senate at the end of this year because of the opposition and Greens opposition to the retrospective elements in the bill and the entire new scholarships program fails to be passed, she will be responsible. She will be responsible for denying Commonwealth scholarships—the start-up scholarships—of at least $1,000 a year to every single student who would have received youth allowance from 1 January. We are playing for high stakes. The opposition is absolutely clear-eyed about its opposition to the retrospective elements of this legislation.

If the minister will sit down with us and talk about how to remove those retrospective elements and talk about how to make sure it is revenue neutral with whatever measures she proposes or if she wishes to adopt the measure that we have proposed, we are prepared to sit down in good faith—there is a lot of good faith going around at the moment—and negotiate with the government. On the other hand, if she insists that the opposition’s amendments not be agreed to or not even discussed then it will be on her head if, on 1 January, every person who is receiving youth allowance is denied a scholarship under the government’s new legislation. The opposition makes that absolutely clear.

I warn the government today, as I have since the budget, that the opposition are absolutely determined to stand up for rural and regional students and we are absolutely determined to stand up for students who are in their gap year and have seen the finishing line changed on them halfway through the race. It is offensive and we will not support it. I would recommend that, when the consideration in detail stage occurs, the government take very seriously the amendments that we have put to the House.

Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to follow the shadow minister. Like all his contributions, this one was fact free and full of distortion and, dare I say, verballing. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate because the proposed changes to student income support in the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 have generated considerable discussion in my electorate. Indeed, some weeks ago I attended a public meeting in Bendigo where it was clear that there are strongly-held views on this issue.

To understand the reason for these changes, I think it is important to remember the purpose of providing income support to students. The benefits of education to the individual and the community at large have become better understood in recent decades. Economists like the University of Chicago’s James Heckman, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2000, have been telling us for almost two decades that public spending on education and skills leads to higher rates of return on investment. Analysis of human capital by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests there are significant correlations between higher levels of educational attainment and both economic growth and improved physical and mental wellbeing. As the OECD said in 2006:

Evidence of the public and private benefits of education is growing. Application of knowledge and skills are at the heart of economic growth, with the OECD attributing half of GDP per capita growth from 1994 to 2004 to rising labour productivity.

Policymakers around the world now accept that investing in knowledge, skills and innovation is one of the best means available to ensure long-term economic prosperity and better work opportunities. Governments around the world have been increasing their focus on all areas of education, but particularly higher education. We see our universities as the engine rooms of innovation and economic and social progress. That is why we want to make it possible for every young Australian to access higher education or skills training. One of the legacies of the previous government was a confusing array of student financing arrangements, where each change added another layer on top of past mistakes, none of which advanced the important goal of educational equity.

In addition to being morally right, equity matters to national productivity. If rising educational attainment is going to make a major contribution to our future prosperity, it is no good limiting access to tertiary education to an elite who can afford it. This is now even more important as the global financial crisis brings new urgency to the debate. When the economic turnaround does come we will need to ensure that we are able to fill the increasing opportunities presented by an expanding economy. In past periods of economic growth we have done far too little to deliver the opportunities of growth to all Australians. We have left our own young people behind while at the same time complaining about shortages of labour and shortages of skills. We would rather take the expedient short-term route of enticing doctors and dentists, engineers and accountants from developing countries to come here than train our own. A developed society like Australia raiding less well-off countries for their scarce professional talent cannot be justified.

This time we must not repeat the mistakes of the past. We must lift our game on education and, in particular, on educational equity, and the Rudd government is determined to do so. Equity was at the core of the findings of the Bradley review of higher education. This is an important moral issue. Equality of opportunity always has been, and always must be, a central value of the Australian Labor Party and of the Australian nation. But it is also an economic issue. Without greater equity in our higher education system, Australia will not have the high-level knowledge and skills we need to compete with the most successful countries of the world.

Consider the situation in some comparable nations. In Australia, about 32 per cent of young adults have been to university. In contrast, Sweden has a national target of 50 per cent of people up to the age of 25 participating in higher education—a target they have almost achieved. The target in the United Kingdom is 50 per cent of those up to the age of 30 participating in higher education by 2010—and they are currently at 43 per cent. In Ireland, they aim to have 72 per cent of people with a tertiary qualification by 2015—and they are already at 55 per cent. Participation rates amongst disadvantaged groups in these countries have also increased significantly as a result of determined effort and the implementation of innovative programs.

Australia’s participation rates, however, have remained stubbornly static in recent years because we have not made the required effort. For the past decade, equity has not been a priority. The most seriously under-represented groups in higher education are those from remote parts of Australia, Indigenous students, those from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and those from regional areas. Today, a secondary student from a low-socioeconomic background is only about one-third as likely to attend university as a student from a high-socioeconomic background. And Indigenous people are still vastly under-represented. This is simply wrong. It should have been addressed a year ago and it now falls to the Australian Labor Party to do so.

The Rudd government is determined to rectify this appalling neglect and start the process of positioning our education system to be a major national asset for the 21st century. Part of this process is to simplify and improve our system of student income support. The reforms contained in this bill will mean that some 68,000 more students, including many from rural and regional Australia, will for the first time qualify for income support. A further 35,000 existing recipients of income support will now receive higher payments.

These changes will benefit many students in my electorate because many families in central Victoria earn lower incomes. Bendigo is ranked 132nd out of 150 electorates by taxable income and the average income is about $42,000 a year. Any student who receives at least a part payment of youth allowance can also receive a range of other support. This is of particular benefit to regional students and their families. These include: student start-up scholarships of $2,254 each year, relocation scholarships of $4,000 in the first year and $1,000 each year thereafter, and rent allowance. More students will now also qualify for youth allowance because the age at which they are considered to be independent from their parents will be reduced progressively from the current 25 years of age to 22 years of age.

Most of the concerns raised with me about the proposed changes have been about the changes to the independence test for the Youth Allowance, and I have duly conveyed those to the Deputy Prime Minister. But it is because the parental income test has been so low for so long that some students and their parents have come to think the independence test as the primary way to qualify for support. This was never intended to be the case. The independence test was targeted at students who had left home and were genuinely living independently from their parents. What has happened is that many students from more affluent families, encouraged by educators and in some cases government agencies, in private and other independent schools, have exploited the independence test to sidestep the parental income test. It has been said that they have been rorting that system. I do not agree with that. A lot of the advice families got was from Centrelink and tertiary and other agencies. You cannot blame them for that, but they were certainly exploiting it—there is no doubt about that. While they met the income criterion under the old rules, often by working in a gap year before taking up a university place, many were not really living independently from their parents. The Bradley review found that more than one-third of students who qualified for Youth Allowance in this way came from families earning more than $100,000 a year, almost one in five came from families earning more than $150,000 and one in every 10 came from families earning more than $200,000. The Youth Allowance was originally designed to help less well-off families give their kids a decent education. There is no way a family earning $150,000 or $200,000 a year can be described as less well-off.

The changes to the independence test rules are designed to stop this exploitation and direct more income support to those who need it most. There has been a considerable amount of misinformation and distortion from members of the federal opposition and the Victorian National and Liberal parties about these changes. Their scare campaign about one element, the workforce participation criterion for independence, did nothing to help parents and students understand how the changes would actually affect them. The proposed changes to the independence criterion would have meant some students would no longer qualify for Youth Allowance in this way. However, many will now qualify for a benefit through the increased parental income test. In working this out parents need to take into account all of the changes to student income support, and I encourage them to consult the many fact sheets that are available on the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations website. There is also an online student assistance estimator to help work out the impact of the changes. Parents whose student children are not be eligible for Youth Allowance should also check if they qualify to receive family tax benefit part A, which has higher cut-out thresholds than student income support.

However, this government is not inflexible and has listened carefully to concerns about those students currently taking a gap year and who did so on the basis of the previous rules and the advice they were given at the time. It is clear that some—not all—of these students would have been disadvantaged during the transition from the old rules to the new rules. That is why, as the Deputy Prime Minister announced in August, students who are taking a gap year now and must move to attend university will now be entitled claim independent status for Youth Allowance until 30 June 2010. This change will mean students who left school in 2008 will still be able to apply for independent status under the current rules.

The government has always made it clear that its changes to student income support are intended to be revenue neutral. So to pay for this time extension of the current independence criterion, previously proposed changes to the amount a student can earn before affecting their youth allowance will be deferred by 18 months. Students are currently able to earn $236 a fortnight before their Youth Allowance payment is affected. This will now rise to $400 a fortnight from 1 July 2012.

The Rudd government is undertaking a thorough overhaul of the rules for student income support so that more students who need it most, including many from rural and regional Australia, will benefit. Labor has made the system we inherited from the Howard government much fairer to give some 68,000 more students from low-income families the opportunity of a university education. Of course, the opposition’s position on student income support has changed as often as their position on climate change—not to mention a whole range of other issues critical to this country’s future prosperity. We know that in 2003 the former Howard government opposed Labor’s proposals to reduce the age criteria for student independence to 23. But we also know that former Minister for Education, Science and Training Brendan Nelson supported means testing the Youth Allowance, saying:

The Final Report of the Youth Allowance Evaluation, released in May 2002, highlighted the broad community support that exists for parental means testing. It ensures that Youth Allowance payments are directed to those young people who are most in need of assistance.

Now we have an insight into the current opposition’s attitude towards young Australians from a speech in July by its deputy leader in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz. Addressing the Australian Liberal Students Federation conference in Hobart, Senator Abetz accused people born after 1980 of viewing government as the solution to all their problems. Generation Y has an ‘entitlement mentality’, according to the senator. It is clear that some members of the opposition would rather see young Australians working two or more jobs to pay their way through university, as most American students are forced to do.

We saw further evidence that the opposition are the enemies, not the friends, of Australian students when, in the Senate’s last sitting, with Senator Abetz leading the charge, they voted down the government’s legislation to restore student services. This would have restored essential facilities and amenities for students and, despite the mendacious claims of the opposition, would not allow for a return to compulsory student unionism. When they were in government the coalition ripped $170 million out of university funding, resulting in the loss of vital health, counselling, employment, childcare, sporting and fitness services. As a result, universities have been forced to redirect funding out of research and teaching budgets to preserve at least some support services and amenities.

In his Hobart speech Senator Abetz spoke of his pride at campaigning as long as 30 years ago to strip away these services from students. Indolent spongers off the state, not interested in their own or the country’s long-term future, who do not deserve support while studying at university—that seems to summarise the senator’s view of young Australians today. If he and other like-minded members opposite had their way our university car parks would be full of the BMWs of wealthy students whose parents can afford to pay for their tertiary education. Well, that is not the Labor Party’s view, and it is not the view of the Rudd government. We believe in equity in education. We believe education is vital for the futures of all our young Australians, whatever their parents might earn. And we believe it is vital for the future prosperity of the nation that as many young Australians as possible have the opportunity to obtain a tertiary qualification. That is why we have reintroduced the proposed student services legislation into the parliament. And that is why we have introduced this student income support legislation. I strongly commend the bill to the House.

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

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009. I thought the previous speaker, the member for Bendigo, started quite well. I agree with his sentiments that equity in education is indeed the one thing that underpins our society. Unfortunately, he only told half the story. He went on to say that more students would get benefits under the proposed changes, and that is correct, but the point of this is that they are not going to get very much. It is very expensive, particularly when you live in rural and regional areas, to attend university when you have to travel large distances and live away from home. I think the amount that some students are entitled to goes down to something like $6 a week, which is a pittance.

When the member for Bendigo was speaking about the previous government he mentioned health and bringing doctors in from other countries. Good government policy with regard to tertiary education and rural areas does deliver results—and I will speak of the Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas scheme. In my small home town of Warialda, with 1,300 people, at the moment there are seven students who are either studying medicine or have completed studies and are training in hospitals as doctors, through the RRMA scheme, a policy of the previous government. So, government policy does affect opportunities for education for rural students.

We have seen a large change, and I am relatively new to this place. The previous system was not perfect. I believe that having to do a gap year is in some ways discriminatory for rural students, but it was the only way that they could get an adequate level of support to attend university. Many students, particularly from my electorate, have chosen that route, because it is the only way that they can go to university.

It is not just the children of farmers; I do not come here as an agrarian socialist. Indeed, before I came to this place I did have some involvement in education as the chairman of the Gwydir Learning Region, one of the most successful and innovative learning organisations in Australia. It is recognised as such. It delivers education to a community of 6,000 people in an area of 10,000 square kilometres—with no tertiary education. It requires resourcefulness. We delivered training and we had relationships with the University of New England to enable those country kids to get a start. But, ultimately, if they wanted to go to university they had to leave the area. Indeed, in my electorate, Charles Sturt University, which is a wonderful institution, now has a campus in Dubbo, but it only offers about three or four courses. So, basically, if you want to do any course at all you have to travel, and not just for an hour or two; you have to travel for many hours.

What this change has meant is that country kids now do not have that opportunity. This is the biggest issue that has come through my door in the two years that I have been in this place. It is not just farmers who are coming in and talking about their kids; it is school principals, teachers, nurses, plumbers, electricians and council workers. All those people that rural Australia requires to make it grow and prosper are now going to struggle to educate their kids in tertiary education. The one aspiration that a parent has is to give their child an education and a start to equip them to undertake whatever life puts to them. Many, many parents have contacted me—and, despite what the previous speaker said, it was not a scare campaign—and the fact is that this new scheme does not stack up. The fact that there were considerable savings under the previous scheme would indicate that there is less money going out. And that is the case.

This change is not just affecting the education of young people; it is actually affecting rural communities in a broader sense. As the children of the people who are vital to our communities—the professionals who are required to drive and grow our rural communities—get a bit older they look to move to a place where there is tertiary education, because that has become the only alternative they have for educating their children. So not only does that community’s children suffer because they are not given the same opportunity as their city cousins but the whole community suffers because there is an outflow of people, who are leaving mainly to get an education for their children.

Statistically, at the moment, a child from rural and regional Australia has about half the chance of going to university as their city counterparts. It does not mean that they are less intelligent and it does not mean they are less motivated; it just means that it is very hard. If you are a rural student and you do not have a parent who is prepared to make sacrifices, even with government assistance you are not going to get to university.

The amendments that the coalition has proposed will make considerable differences to what has been proposed by Minister Gillard. The provision for getting independent youth allowance—and this is still the only way that they are going to get an adequate amount of money to undertake the course—is to study for 30 hours over an 18-month period. Also, the sorts of jobs that they require are not available. The jobs that these kids have been doing to earn $19,500 are seasonal—the sort of work that is available in the country.

One of the reasons country kids, when they get their education, are snapped up by employers all over the place is their resourcefulness. They go off and pick grapes, they work in shearing sheds, they shear sheep, they drive machinery at harvest time and they work in abattoirs. They do the sort of work that is extremely difficult. It is tedious, it is backbreaking and it is hard. That is what they are prepared to do to get their education, but in a way that actually forms part of their education. Doing that sort of work gives them another tool in their toolbox to equip them on their road to life.

That opportunity, tonight, is going to be denied them, because there is a very limited number of jobs that will give someone 30 hours a week of work over 18 months, particularly in this time of higher unemployment. Businesses are going to put on someone who is going to be there for the long term. Why are they going to put on a student—a part-timer—and train them up for the job knowing that in 18 months to two years time they are going to leave? There is also the fact that you can only defer a course for 12 months. If you defer for two years a couple of things are going to happen. Either you are either going to lose heart—the passion that drives you to university will diminish—or, if you do hang in there for the two years, you will have to reapply as a mature-age student. The position will not be held. It is a classic case of what looks good in theory not translating to rural Australia.

It is not only here that this government is letting the students of rural Australia down. Guess where the savings were made to cover the overspend that came to light in the so-called education revolution a few months ago? Were they taken out of large metropolitan schools? Were they taken out of the wealthy private schools? No. I can tell you where the savings were made in my electorate. They were made in the central schools: Collarenebri, Goodooga, Binowee, Mendooran—all those schools that are struggling. The school in Collarenebri, identified as one of the third most disadvantaged communities in New South Wales, with its science lab in a demountable, had its funding pulled because of the overspend. So for those kids now it is a question of whether they will get through their education in secondary school with second-rate facilities with no prospect of improvement.

Mungindi Central School, which had its funding pulled under the Building the Education Revolution Program, has one boy doing the HSC this year. Can anyone in this place imagine what it is like doing your Higher School Certificate when you are the only child in the class, where the nearest person who you could consider a peer is 120 kilometres away in Moree and where there are no fellow students who you can ask for help with your homework? I take my hat off to that student and to the teachers at that school. They have had their funding cut.

Many of these people spend an hour to an hour and a half, morning and night, on a bus to get to school. They get a UAI that gets them to university and their parent, like the parent who came and saw me in one of these towns, might be the manager of the local ag supply company. That parent I am talking about—who is not only the manager of that ag supply company but is also on the P&C, in the show society, in the local Rotary Club and helps run the music festival—is looking for a job in Toowoomba or Brisbane because that is the only way his children are going to get an education.

So this is much more than just students missing out on an opportunity to go to university. That is serious enough on its own. But the impact throughout rural Australia of entire families evacuating to educate their children is catastrophic. I urge the minister to reconsider. I actually think we need to go a bit further and look at how we are going to educate our young people from rural Australia, because they are the ones who understand rural Australia. They are the ones who are not frightened to go back as a doctor, a teacher or a plumber or after they have done ag science at university and implement what they have learned, combining the knowledge of their parents with the education they have gained.

Why do we need this to happen? We need it to happen because the world’s population in 2050 is going to be 9 billion. They are going to need food. They are going to need the people who grow the food, and those people are going to have to have an education especially in the tough economic environment that we work in now, the global environment for agriculture and, indeed, if we are have an effect of climate change. This is all going to get tougher. Farmers can adapt to these things. They have been doing it for some time. But they need everything at their disposal. One of those things is an education. We need not only the education of the farmer but also the education of the people who are going to come back and educate the farmer’s children, who are going to provide the services that are required in order to have some sort of standard of living in those places.

The people who live in those communities in my electorate love those places. That is why they are there. But that does not mean they should be taken advantage of and treated as second-class citizens, and that is exactly what this bill does. That may not have been the intention. It may have been out of ignorance. I notice that the members from the more rural areas of the Labor Party are not on the list of speakers, but they would have had the same number of people come through their doors as I have.

Two weeks ago I went to Dubbo Senior College to speak to the kids, as we all do as members. They were a great bunch of kids. I should not say ‘kids’—they were young adults. I expected that we would have a discussion about climate change, about Copenhagen, about the economy—things that may have worried them. The No. 1 issue was youth allowance. They wanted to know how they could go to university with the change in these rules. Their parents will probably make every effort to enable them to go to university, but these young people did not want on their conscience a deterioration in their parents’ lifestyle for the sake of their own education.

One of the kids said: ‘Mum and dad have cancelled the idea of a car next year. They’ll just patch up the old one because we’re going to need every cent we’ve got to get me to go to university.’ Parents do that willingly; that is what parents do. But I ask the minister to reconsider this legislation or to at least consider the coalition’s amendments. Personally I think we need to go right back and have a completely fresh look at educating kids from rural Australia, but the minister should at least look at the amendments the coalition has put up. They are economically viable and they will protect the kids who are now in their gap year. I think we should also have some consideration for the thousands of students who are undertaking their higher school certificate as we speak, this week. Where will they be? How can they be concentrating on their exams when they do not know whether they are going to have the financial wherewithal to get an education? Education is the key to everything we do. If we look at everything in our society, in our electorates, that needs fixing—whether it is social disadvantage, education, health, productivity or agriculture—education is the key.

I will mention another failure of this government which was one of their grand promises, and that was that every preschool child over the age of three or four would receive 20 hours a week of preschool. Well, not if you live in rural Australia. I brought a delegation down here to see the parliamentary secretary. They had a wonderful scheme to expand their mobile preschool, where they take facilities out to the children in isolated areas so that they get some sort of socialisation and will at least be on a par with their counterparts from town when they go to school. The delegation was told it was ‘a wonderful idea’—but there was not a cent for it. No-one would look at it.

What we have to do in this place is get past the rhetoric, get past the politics and start looking at what the real issues are. Education for the people in rural Australia is a real issue. I ask the government and I ask the minister to look at these amendments and at least give these kids half a chance of getting an education.

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

I will start by saying that I know the member for Parkes is a man who is very committed to his electorate and I know that he looks at things very much from the perspective of his electorate. I find myself often agreeing with him on issues, but unfortunately on this issue I do not agree with him. I actually grew up in rural Australia, so I am fully aware of the challenges young people face when they leave home to undertake further study and of the problems and disadvantages associated with education in rural areas. But I have to say that the Central Coast area of New South Wales, part of which falls within my electorate, has the lowest retention rate of schools anywhere in Australia and also has the lowest participation rate of students attending university.

I fully support the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 that we have before us today and I would like to congratulate the minister on the process she has undertaken so that we have got to this stage of having this legislation before us. She has undertaken widespread—and I emphasise widespread—consultations with the community and with people affected by this legislation. Coming out of those consultations there have been some changes to the bill and I believe what we have before us today is good strong legislation that will benefit a large number—again I emphasise, a large number—of students throughout Australia.

This bill will amend the Social Security Act 1991 to implement key recommendations of the Bradley review of higher education. That review made some very strong points and claimed there was a need for change because the current system was poorly targeted. It made 46 recommendations and from those recommendations the package of reforms for student income support has been introduced. The bill significantly liberalises personal and parental means-testing arrangements that have applied to payments for dependent students, apprentices and unemployed young people so that more low- to middle-income families can access youth allowance and Abstudy. It changes the criteria upon which a youth allowance recipient is considered to be independent. It provides for new entitlements for scholarships for university students receiving student income support payments: an annual student start-up scholarship and a relocation scholarship for eligible students. I would see that as being very beneficial to those students coming from rural areas. It also exempts merit and equity based scholarships from the social security income test, up to a threshold of $6,762 a year. Each recommendation for reforming student income support arising from the Bradley review has been adopted. The review was conducted and the recommendations were adopted.

Amendments to the Social Security Act to make significant changes to the personal and parental means test arrangements for payments to students and youth will have an enormous impact in my electorate. While the member for Parkes said he had had a considerable number of people visiting him in his electorate office with problems associated with this legislation, I have to say that over the time I have been a member of parliament I have had a large number of people visit me because their children are ineligible for youth allowance, and these are people who are on very low incomes. He talked about the plumbers and council workers in his area who are ineligible for youth allowance. Well, those are the very people in the Shortland electorate who have come to see me because their children have been ineligible to receive youth allowance, and this has been a longstanding problem.

It is important to recognise that these changes to the income test liberalise the amount of money that parents can earn, and they also have a tapering effect. The core part of the reforms will be the relaxation of the parental income test, with the maximum rate of assistance for dependants under youth allowance and Abstudy, and that will take effect from January 2010. This will increase the parental income test threshold from $32,800 to $42,559. That is a significant increase. That is for the maximum payment. The reforms will also soften the current tapering rate—from 25 per cent per child to 20 per cent per family. This means a family with two children aged 17 and 19 who are living at home will receive income support up to a total family income of just over $100,000, compared to the previous cap of $60,000.

I think it is only fair that I share with the House tonight a letter I received from a young student. Her parents live in Shortland electorate but she has been required to go to Sydney to undertake her studies. She has struggled financially. Because her parents’ income just exceeds $60,000, she receives no income support. She was on the verge of withdrawing from her studies. When I told her about the changes that will be introduced in this legislation, she was quite delighted. These are the kinds of changes that she wanted to see come into effect. These are the kinds of changes that ensured she would be able to continue to study. In the time I have been a member of parliament, there have been number of young students who have withdrawn from their studies. That is a loss to Australia as a nation. These are young people who would have completed their education and developed the skills and gained knowledge to work at a high level in our society. I agree with the member for Parkes on one thing, and that is that education is vitally important to young people. Education is the key that unlocks the door to allow young people to be financially secure. It is the key that unlocks the door that will give them the skills and knowledge they need to undertake jobs that will provide them with a very comfortable lifestyle.

Going back to income support, a family with two children aged between 19 and 23 who have had to move to study at university will now be able to receive some support with a parental income of up to $140,000. That is quite significant. I was reading through some information prior to making this speech. I saw that, over the period of the previous government, there were a number of changes to the youth allowance which disadvantaged people who live in electorates like Shortland. This legislation moves the base so that it provides significant and secure income support to the majority of students who want to attend university. Four students who are relocating, the maximum family income will be $168,000. That is quite a significant income. These changes will allow 68,000 more young people to access youth allowance. That is 68,000 students who, prior to the introduction of this legislation, would have been ineligible. So, far from making it difficult for students, this legislation will benefit so many young Australians. And, as I have previously stated, this legislation will benefit Australia as a whole.

The government will progressively lower the age of independence from 25 years to 22 years, which will enable more students to access income support over time. Currently a student is considered to be dependent on their parents up until they are 25 years of age. This legislation will change that to 22 years of age. That has also been a bone of contention with many people who have come to visit me when they have had problems supporting their young adults whilst they are attending university. They cannot understand why their 25-year-old is considered to be dependent upon them. There will also be an increase in the personal income test threshold from the current $236 per fortnight to $400 per fortnight, and that will commence on 1 July 2012.

There will also be the introduction of a new annual start-up scholarship of $2,254 each year for all university students receiving income support. That will be so beneficial to those 68,000 new students who will be eligible for youth allowance. University students on youth allowance will receive the full value of the scholarship, even if they are only receiving $1 of student income support. The scholarship is equivalent to a $43 per week rise in youth allowance. An estimated 146,000 of these scholarships will be used next year compared with the 12,900 allocated for commencing students under the old system. Once again: 146,000 students are set to benefit; previously 12,900 benefited. I can only see this as being good, I can only see this as benefiting students and I can only see this as a very positive change to youth allowance.

The introduction of the relocation scholarship of $4,000 in the first year and $1,000 in later years will provide assistance with the cost of relocating to study for dependent university students who have had to move away from the family home—that is, for students disadvantaged by personal circumstances. There will be 14,200 of these scholarships assessed in 2010, rising to 28,700 in 2013. This compares with 8,100 Commonwealth accommodation scholarships allocated to commencing students under the current system. Once again, this is an enormous increase in the number of students who will be able to benefit from assistance from the government. Once again I would argue that far from disadvantaging students, this is providing an enormous opportunity to students who have missed out. This is providing so many more students with the opportunity to benefit from assistance.

My good friend, the member for Parkes, is worried that people in his electorate will be disadvantaged and will not be able to get assistance. What I would say to the member for Parkes is: ‘Look at the figures and you will see that more young people from your area will benefit from the relocation scholarship, benefit from the start-up scholarship and, in all probability, benefit from the liberalisation of the current youth allowance income test.’

In the short time I have remaining I would like to address the issue of a gap year. First and foremost, any student who has already established their independence and is receiving youth allowance in the period up to 1 January 2010 will not be affected in any way by the changes. Further, until 30 June 2010, young people who completed secondary studies in 2008, took a gap year in 2009, commence university prior to 30 June next year and are required to live away from home to study will continue to be able to attain independence under the second and third elements of the workforce participation criteria. That means they will not be disadvantaged and that the decisions that they made prior to the introduction of this legislation will not be affected at all by this legislation.

I would argue very strongly that the changes that this legislation brings into force will benefit an enormous number of students. These are changes that students living and studying in my electorate and other electorates throughout Australia will be able to benefit from. These are changes that students living in rural areas will also be able to benefit from. I emphasise that the electorate that I represent in this parliament is an outer metropolitan area with the lowest retention rate and the lowest participation rate in university studies in Australia. When I studied, I went to school in a rural area, so I do understand the issues associated with students living in rural areas. Given all these facts, I see that this legislation has been developed in a very thoughtful way. There has been considerable consultation. It introduces all the recommendations of the Bradley review into Australia’s higher education system. I believe that the legislation should be supported by the other side of the parliament. I do not believe that this legislation should be used as a political football to promote members on the other side of the parliament. Rather, I think it should be supported and that the benefits that this legislation provides should be noted by both sides of the parliament.

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

I rise this evening to speak to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009. It gives me great pleasure to do so because it happens to be a topic that I am particularly passionate about.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Kalgoorlie, I do not think the clock has been set.

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

Maybe we need to stop the clock so that I get to speak for a longer time, Mr Deputy Speaker!

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kalgoorlie may continue.

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

That simply means that I will get a few more moments to express my anger at the legislation that is being proposed by the Minister for Education, who through every deed appears to be totally out of touch with students in rural and remote areas of Australia. There is no way that any minister for education could be serious about the welfare of rural and remote students—students from your own electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker—with this absolutely impossible legislation. When you tell an aspiring university student that, in future, they will have to work for an average of 30 hours a week for a minimum of 18 months in a two-year period to qualify for the independent Youth Allowance so as to allow them to compete with their city cousins, it is an indication that you know nothing about rural students.

When the particular minister whom we are speaking of said that she was going to open the door to a new generation of Australians, I am sure that she meant ‘Australians unless those Australian live in the bush’. Anyone who resides in rural or remote areas—Broome, Carnarvon, Port Hedland, Karratha or Kununurra; any of those centres—which do not have fine tertiary education facilities will not have a hope in hell of achieving the dictates laid down by the minister and be able to catch up with their peers in the city who are attending university the year after they leave secondary school. It is impossible.

I wonder if listeners to this debate tonight will understand for a moment the lot of a truly rural and remote student who aspires to a tertiary education. Families in the centres that I have referred to and in others like them are not going to be impressed with a change in the income threshold from $32,800 to $44,000 plus per family per year to be eligible for the allowance. It is a nonsense. If the people who work in my electorate are not earning well in excess of $100,000 a year, they cannot afford to stay there, let alone afford to raise kids.

For remotely located people, ICPA, the Isolated Children’s Parents Association, fought for and won an allowance so that their primary and secondary students could leave home to attend to their education elsewhere. Because of that allowance, a number of students are able to attend schools in metropolitan and major regional centres, and they do very well. Their parents appreciate the payment they get each year from the government that allows them to send their students away for their education.

Students who do well in their primary and secondary education can aspire to attend university. Once they achieve the TE score that they need to get into university, they are on their own. The government writes them off, except that there is the Youth Allowance program. Students who attend university can get the youth allowance as long as their parents are living in poverty in the major towns in my electorate, because their parents are now allowed to earn $44,000 plus per annum and still qualify for the allowance. That would see them on the breadline in my electorate. It proves once again that the federal Minister for Education is focused on metropolitan areas. There are other students, parents and families elsewhere in the country than just those who reside in metropolitan areas.

We need a federal policy for students attending tertiary education that makes allowances for students who happen to be born to families who live and work in rural and remote Australia. This policy is simply gutting the small opportunities that these families had in the past. Once upon a time, a student could leave their peer group behind and go to work for an average of 15 hours a week for an 18-month period. They could cram the work in between the last semester of one year and the first semester some 18 months later and qualify for the independent Youth Allowance. They cannot do that anymore. My students are not going to be able to find 30 hours a week employment for a minimum of 18 months in any two-year period. They are going to be left high and dry. They are going to be totally reliant upon the income—that is, the disposable income—of their parents. Sure, these parents are on high wages, but they are enduring exorbitant costs of living. Think of paying $1,600 a week for a three bedroom, one bathroom house in Karratha and you will understand how irrelevant an increase to $44,000 plus per annum is for these families. It is a nonsense. This minister ought to be ashamed of bringing this proposition to the parliament for us to inflict upon our constituents. It is a disgrace.

We have already shamed this minister into extending the introduction period from 1 January to 1 July next year. That is some small sop for the students who are presently engaged in their gap year. But the students of the future will have to go cap in hand with their tertiary entrance mark to a tertiary institution and beg for two years off. My understanding of the present situation is that institutions will not hold a place for two years and that many of the students concerned will have to come back as mature age students and qualify again. The whole thing is a nonsense.

I do concede that the independent Youth Allowance was never intended to fill this financial shortfall for families. The independent Youth Allowance was truly intended for those individuals who were not living at home and who were no longer dependent upon their parents. But it was the only thread of survival for aspiring students in rural and remote areas; it was the only place they could turn to because they knew that they would not qualify for the Youth Allowance.

Now we have had this federal minister determine that the independent Youth Allowance is also out of reach. I say again: it is a disgrace. It shows a shortage of commitment from the minister, it is a lack of understanding and it is an indication of being out of touch. She, of course, will say that it is a lack of resources. Quite recently, resources were found to the tune of $3.8 million to appoint an assistant director of signage and recognition, strategic communications. This position was specifically designed to enhance the reputation of the minister by the erection of plaques outside the many schools which she is supposedly pouring borrowed taxpayers’ dollars into to erect multiple monuments to her existence. I know that the families in my electorate could have done a great deal with $3.8 million to assist their children to attend tertiary institutions.

Resources seem to be able to be found when it is something for the promotion of Labor government spin, but it is difficult to find those resources when it means endeavouring to create a level playing field between children aspiring to a tertiary education in rural and remote Australia compared with those who reside in city or metropolitan areas.

Consider for a moment another difference. For children living in suburban Perth whose family have an income in excess of $44,000 per annum, the student may not qualify for Youth Allowance, so what are their options? They simply continue to live at home, catch public transport to the institution of their choice and go on with their course among their peers. The rural or remote student is confronted with the necessity to leave their home, to leave their peer group, to find accommodation within cooee of their institution of choice, to become accustomed to city metropolitan life and then to compete with the students attending that metropolitan institution to gain their grades, their education and their degree. That is a huge difference. It may be fobbed off as being simply a choice to live in rural and remote Australia, as opposed to living in cities. But without the people living in rural and remote Australia the powerhouses which support this nation financially do not exist. To suggest that we should have only people who are non-child bearing living in these remote areas is an absolute nonsense, but it is in league with the proposition put up by this federal minister.

Maybe we should have only barren people living in remote Australia. Maybe we should do such a thing to prevent the federal minister ever being confronted with this enormous problem of how to level the playing field for regional and remote students equivalent to those of metropolitan and city students. I suggest it is about time this government got serious about recognising students wherever they may be in Australia and, for those who do not have the luxury of living in cities and metropolitan areas, created special funding. And I am not talking about the paltry couple of thousand dollars start-up bonus to get them to the city. I am sure that the bureaucrats who developed this policy have no understanding of the costs of moving from the country to the city. I know when I moved my own son to the city it was a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. You need to either purchase accommodation or pay board. It is not an easy task. It is certainly not a task that is rewarded satisfactorily with the paltry sums being paid in a bonus to these students under this new legislation.

My students deserve a fair go. Their parents deserve a fair go. I have so many families choosing to leave regional and remote Australian towns and move to the city simply so that they can provide accommodation for their students to attend tertiary education. Yet we collectively understand that one of the great problems in regional and remote Australia is to get professionals. We lack the doctors; we lack the accountants; we lack financial advisers; we lack health professionals of every description. These days they are being obtained from agencies and they fly in and fly out because we cannot get them to reside. Yet the very people who are brought up in regional Australia, who are accustomed to the lifestyle of regional Australia and love it, are the ones who are financially prevented from attending tertiary institutions, getting professional qualifications and returning to their town, to their family and to the area they are familiar with and where they so desperately want to provide the professional services that we go through all manner of hurdles to achieve through other means.

We bring in overseas doctors ad nauseam under modified regulations, often depriving countries which have a lower ratio of medical doctors to population than we do, but we do it with a clear conscience because we say that it is the one way we are going to solve the lack of doctors in our remote areas. Why does this government not understand? If we want to have professionals back in the bush, including GPs, why is there not some creation of financial assistance to level the playing field between the city and the bush?

It is a constant complaint that is brought to me by constituents. It is a very real issue and it is an issue that this minister is telling us all she has addressed. She has come up with this wonderful box of tricks that is perfect for a metropolitan-residing student but that totally ignores the reality of rural Australia. It totally ignores the plight of regional parents who have to leave important, well-paid positions to move to the city so as to create that level playing field themselves. There is no justice in that.

This government spins constantly about creating a more just Australia. It is spin, and nothing but spin. It was glorious to see this minister dragged some way, albeit kicking and screaming, towards conceding that the introduction of this legislation from 1 January next year would have been diabolical. Even she had the consciousness to realise that. So, she gave us a paltry six-month extension, and with that wave of her discretion she has decided that she has created a level playing field. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This government must consider a tertiary access allowance. It must consider a fund that will recognise the difficulty that country students endure in attending tertiary institutions; a fund that will provide support—such as that for primary and secondary students who leave home to attend education—for families to allow their sons and daughters to get a tertiary education, to get qualifications, and to go back and happily live in proximity to their family and friends. They can then provide the vital professional services to those areas that we now spend so much additional money on providing from other sources. I take no pleasure in taking medical doctors from overseas nations that enjoy a smaller ratio of doctors per head of population than we have in remote Australia. But it is the only way because we penalise our country students so severely that few go back to their grassroots to provide those acquired professional skills.

We have heard a number of speakers. A number of points have been put that highlight on one hand the sycophantic adherence to the policies that are promoted in this bill and on the other, such as in the illuminations of the member for Parkes, all of the difficulties experienced by rural students. Listeners to this debate will understand that a huge gulf exists between the theory and the practice. I say again, it is time that this minister, who tells us she is opening the doors to a new generation of Australians, actually went out into regional and remote Australia, heard about the difficulties being endured by those remote students, developed a policy such as a tertiary access allowance, and went back to her cabinet and fought for the funds necessary to level the tertiary education playing field. It is about time.

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

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 introduces a number of landmark reforms to the provision of social security for current and future tertiary education students and their families. These reforms relate to issues I have been campaigning on for almost a decade now. I will come back to those shortly. I will deal with the actual content of the legislation as opposed to the inaccurate rhetoric of previous speakers in turn, including the member for Kalgoorlie just prior to me, on the other side.

The legislation will, firstly, significantly ease the personal and parental means testing arrangements that apply to payments for dependent students, apprentices and unemployed young people, to allow more families to access youth allowance and ABSTUDY. Secondly, it will change the criteria upon which a youth allowance recipient is considered independent. Thirdly, it will provide for new entitlement-based scholarships for university students receiving student income support payments. These will take the form of an annual student start-up scholarship and a relocation scholarship for eligible students. Fourthly, it will exempt merit- and equity-based scholarships from the social security income test up to a threshold of $6,762 a year.

I will spend some time going through each of these amendments because they include things I have been raising in this House for almost a decade. I invite members to refer to the Hansard from a number of occasions since 2000. They will see that I have been arguing for an overhaul of the social security system for our university students to make it fairer for regional students and their families to afford the costs associated with getting to university and, more importantly, to enable them to stick around at university and complete their studies. It was often a lonely journey, with few parliamentary supporters—among whom I do not include the member for Kalgoorlie. This was especially so among those on the other side who, when in government, had the opportunity and the resources but failed to do anything substantial about it; so, enough of the hypocritical rhetoric that I just heard from the member for Kalgoorlie. Many of those who did and said nothing on this matter are now lining up to criticise this government’s attempts to provide financial assistance to many more additional families and individuals who will be able to better access the benefits of tertiary education.

I will begin by giving just a small snapshot of how many students in my electorate of Braddon stay at school until the end of year 12 and how many residents in my electorate have completed a university degree. According to the 2006 census data, of the 4,858 20- to 24-year-olds surveyed 2,048 had completed year 12 as their highest level of education, 881 had completed year 11, 1,522 had completed year 10 and 115 had completed year 9. So you can see from these statistics that getting our kids to stay at school is no easy feat in regional Tasmania. When we look at the same census data for university education in my electorate, we see that of the 33,265 people surveyed 4,464 had a bachelor’s degree as their highest level of education, 553 had a graduate diploma and/or a graduate certificate and 478 had a postgraduate degree. So that puts it into a fair bit of perspective for you. Getting yourself to uni is not easy when you live on the north-west or west coasts of Tassie. There are many barriers: financial barriers in terms of the current set-up for youth allowance and social and cultural ones in terms of instilling in the minds of our next generation that gaining university and tertiary qualifications will be worthwhile for their future

Before speaking about the specifics of this legislation I would like to share with you a small section of a speech that I gave in this parliament, way back in 2002, on the topic of funding for higher education. I said:

Let us look at the benchmarks for youth allowance, Austudy and rental assistance. Also, let us look at this whole area of independence. Until 1997 the age of independence was effectively 22. The decision to take it to the age of 25 has had a significant impact on families in Australia … Many families receive no assistance at all to assist their young people to study and further their education. And those people in regional Australia who cannot access further education and must live away from home to do so have a double whammy.

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It is an anecdotal fact that there are many students not eligible for any financial assistance who are worse off than people who are receiving support. There are students at higher education institutions who are required to not only work part time but to also work long hours. That affects their study so many of them drop their studies because they have to work. That just compounds the issue.

As I have mentioned earlier, and again I invite anyone listening to this debate to consult the Hansard for the last decade, the plight of regional families in accessing and affording tertiary education was largely ignored by the former Howard government. In the first term of this Labor government we have set out to better target and assist families and individuals to access and afford tertiary studies, to be able to move away from home to study and to financially afford to bridge what I have referred to as the ‘geographic differential’ between those living at home in the locale of the tertiary institution—usually urban municipalities—and those who are unable to do so, usually being from regional communities. For too many regional families and individuals there has been a discriminatory factor based on geography. This legislation seeks to help more people overcome this differential. It may not be perfect but it is, on balance, a much more equitable support package—and note the word ‘package’—than the current arrangements.

I would now like to spend a minute or so talking about the changes to the provisions for claiming independence. As you heard earlier, these concern an anomaly that I have been opposed to for many years. I recall that in 1997 the former government ramped the age up to 25 years. I might add that when the Howard government increased the independence age it did make a commitment—non-core—to progressively scale it back over time. Ten years later it had still not been scaled back. Under the Rudd government the age at which a person is deemed automatically independent will change. It will be phased down from 25 in 2009 to 22 by 2012, at a rate of a one-year phase-down per year. The implications of this will of course be significant in the next few years. I have not heard one member on the other side discuss this.

What about parental income thresholds? Again, let us go to the detail of the legislation rather than to the sheer rhetoric that has been hurled at us from the other side. Under the former government, the annual parental income test threshold for dependent youth allowance recipients to get the maximum rate of youth allowance was just $32,800. So, according to those opposite, if, as parents, you earned 500-odd dollars combined each week you were classed as financially sufficient enough to fully bankroll your non-independent child’s tertiary studies. From 1 January 2010 the annual parental income test threshold for dependent youth allowance recipients to get the maximum rate of youth allowance will be increased from $32,800 to the new threshold of $44,165. Importantly, in addition to this increase there is a much more generous sliding or tapering scale as parental income increases. You do not hear about this from the other side. The parental income reduction for youth allowance will change from a taper rate of 25 per cent per person to a family taper rate of 20 per cent. This will reduce the effect of parental income on a youth allowance recipient, particularly where the same parental income applies to multiple kids in a family. For example, for a family with two children living away from home and attending university—as the member for Kalgoorlie said was his situation—the parental income cut-off point will be raised to almost $141,000 per year. This cut-off point used to be $79,000. Let us be clear about this: there is a significant increase in the cut-off point by some $62,000 in the example that I have just cited.

To put this into perspective as to how these significant changes in the income threshold will potentially affect families and individuals in my electorate of Braddon, it is worth discussing the median family incomes of families on the north-west coast. According to the 2006 census data, the median income of Braddon families is about $45,000. That is $45,000 per family per year. So you can see that these changes will see many more north-west coast and west coast families being able to access youth allowance.

Something else I am very pleased about—and we hear little about this from the other side, so it is not a debate about the legislation; it is a debate in which they are trying to score points—is the introduction of two new scholarships for students receiving youth allowance. All students receiving youth allowance or Austudy while completing an approved higher education course will receive a Student Start-Up Scholarship. In 2010 the scholarship will be $2,254 for the year and will be paid in two instalments. The Student Start-Up Scholarship will assist as to the cost of things like textbooks, specialised equipment and any of the other lump-sum expenses that always crop up. The second scholarship is particularly important to folk who must move and live away from home to study.

Debate interrupted.