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

I would like to indicate to the House that the government proposes that amendments (1) and (2) be agreed to and that amendments (3) to (9) be disagreed to. I suggest, therefore, that it may suit the convenience of the House first to consider amendments (1) and (2) and, when those amendments have been disposed of, to consider amendments (3) to (9). I move:

That Senate amendments Nos 1 and 2 be agreed to.

These are two amendments that originated from the Australian Greens in the Senate last night. The government has had an opportunity to consider these two amendments and is disposed to agree to them. The first amendment is a call for a review. The government has in fact already agreed to implement a triennial review of student income support legislation as part of its Transforming Australia’s Higher Education System budget response. Accordingly, whilst we think the amendment from the Australian Greens that puts this requirement in legislation is redundant, we are happy to accept the amendment. Indeed, we are very much going to welcome a review because we expect that it will tell us the same thing as the analysis that has driven these changes—that is, they will be good for students from poorer households, from low-SES households, and good for students from rural and regional Australia.

Amendment (2) is also an amendment from the Australian Greens. It is a move to have the government administer the new workforce participation criteria by averaging the 30-hour requirement rather than requiring that students work at least 30 hours per week. It had been the intention of the government, through administrative arrangements, to permit some averaging. Consequently, we believe that this amendment can be accepted and managed through the administrative arrangements we had already determined upon in a budget-neutral way. This will be done by averaging over periods of up to 13 weeks. This will accommodate situations where young people do not work 30 hours consistently every week, provided that their employment can be genuinely characterised as full time in nature. This approach will ensure that young people with a history of sustained full-time employment should be recognised as self-supporting for youth allowance purposes. It is on that basis that we can accept the amendment. So those two amendments as moved by the Australian Greens in the Senate and numbered (1) and (2) on the document before the House will be accepted by the government.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That amendments (3) to (9) be disagreed to.

These amendments, predominantly sponsored by the Liberal and National parties, mean that the Liberal and National parties stood shoulder to shoulder together in the Senate last night to rip off 150,000 students and to rip scholarships out of their hands. The government will oppose these amendments on two grounds: (1) they would be bad for country students and bad for equity in the higher education system; they are rip-offs of country kids; and (2) they are fiscally ridiculous, causing an additional cost to the budget in the vicinity of $1 billion, with no matching savings.

I will start with the second of those points. There are times when the Leader of the Opposition wanders around seeking to make political hay out of questions associated with debt and deficit. At the senior leadership level of the Liberal Party, at the level of the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer, one would frequently hear them talk about questions of debt and deficit. You cannot be a political party that pretends to be concerned about questions of debt and deficit and blow a black hole in the budget of around a billion dollars, with no matching savings.

Let us be very clear: at the 2007 election the Liberal and National parties had no plans, no intentions, no projects and no policies to invest an additional billion dollars in student income support. This is a result of a shambolic set of amendments in the Senate, with no matching savings. They cannot be accepted by a fiscally prudent government. They will not be accepted by a fiscally prudent government. The only way the Liberal Party will not be characterised by rank hypocrisy on questions of debt and deficit is for them to not insist on these amendments. If they insist on these amendments, then each and every day between now and the 2010 election, when the Leader of the Opposition utters the words ‘debt and deficit’, we will make the very telling point about what a hypocrite he is in uttering those words.

The only way the opposition can get itself out of that position is to identify matching savings. The savings that are not part of the package of amendments before the House, which the opposition had previously identified, were savings to rip off students, and they would in no way have filled this black hole. They were simply not enough to do so. The opposition would have to identify the billion dollar cut to health, the billion dollar cut to other parts of education, the billion dollar cut to defence and the billion dollar cut to family payments that they say would fill this black hole, unless they want to be a laughing stock for all time on the questions of debt and deficit.

We will not accept these amendments, because these amendments are bad for students from poorer households and, most particularly, they are bad for country kids. These amendments would see a continuation of the system that has failed kids from rural and regional Australia. That is a system that has seen the participation rates of country kids in universities go backwards. Why would you do that? Why would you continue that failed system that has let country kids down?

Whilst the opposition has justified its new transition arrangements on the basis that they are about regional students, I say to the members in the chamber: ‘Read the fine print.’ These transition amendments are not about regional students. They are about ensuring that kids who live at home get the benefit of full youth allowance—that is, they are about ensuring in the transition that, if you live in a household of incomes of more than $300,000 a year, you can still get youth allowance. So people need to be very clear about what these amendments are about. This is, of course, part of the Liberal Party’s failed strategy to rip 150,000 scholarships out of the hands of kids next year, to prevent full youth allowance being paid to kids who are in households of very modest means and to deny other kids an increase in their youth allowance rate, a prejudice to around 100,000 students. That is why they will not be accepted.

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

Can I say at the outset that it appears to me that the Deputy Prime Minister is living in a parallel universe, or even in a fifth dimension quite removed from reality, if she thinks that she can continue to say that black is white and have us believe it. In that contribution the Deputy Prime Minister just gave to the House, she had the audacity to suggest that the coalition had proposed amendments that would cost money without identifying any matching savings. Perhaps she needs to get better staff, who will actually print off the Senate Hansard for her and show her that one of our amendments moved in the Senate, which the government voted down, was a $720 million saving in the budget which would have paid for the amendments that we were moving to remove retrospectivity and also give rural and regional students an opportunity to fulfil their higher education dreams. It is sad to me that she will stand up here and say things that are utterly untrue in the hope that it will be reported in the press.

The coalition has moved amendments in the Senate. I would note that the Greens, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding supported those amendments. Those amendments remove the retrospectivity from the legislation that would have seen the goalposts moved halfway through the game for at least 25,000 students who are currently in their gap year, who planned their futures, who planned their higher education dreams, around the rules as they were when they entered their gap year. Those rules have been changed on them halfway through the game. The coalition and, it appears, the Greens, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding will not support that retrospective change.

The second amendment came out of the Senate’s committee inquiry into the disadvantage that rural and regional students face. It was an amendment to put students who have to leave home in order to go to university back in the position they would have been in if the government had not introduced these changes to the Youth Allowance—in effect, removing the 30-hour work test that the government introduced and applying a gap year test for rural and regional students and others who have to leave home to go to university so they can access the independent rate of youth allowance. Both of those amendments were supported by the Senate, both now form part of the bill and the Deputy Prime Minister is now seeking to remove both.

The Deputy Prime Minister would also have people believe that the coalition is somehow responsible for the government’s legislative agenda. I know it will come as a surprise to some people in this House, but the opposition lost the election in November 2007 and we do not determine the government’s legislative agenda. I think many people wish the government would start behaving like a government and take the tough decisions that need to be taken, rather than behaving like a continual opposition. The government’s legislative agenda has been botched by the Deputy Prime Minister in yet another display of the slipshod manner in which she manages the education portfolio. It was the government’s choice to introduce the Youth Allowance changes so late in the legislative year that there is virtually no time to turn these bills around in the Senate before the end of the year and before the 1 January start-up for scholarships. It was the government’s choice to delay this legislation until the very last minute. Again, perhaps the minister is being poorly advised. But, really, she has to take responsibility for the decisions she has made about the government’s legislative agenda.

Secondly, we warned the government that, by putting the Commonwealth Scholarships abolition in the bill that we voted upon a few months ago—the Higher Education Support Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009—they were in danger of abolishing Commonwealth Scholarships without replacing them with the new Commonwealth Scholarships. The coalition supports the new Commonwealth Scholarships. We support them starting on 1 January, but it is not our fault that the Deputy Prime Minister has so mismanaged this bill and this process that she finds herself in the position where she may well, on 1 January, not have replacement scholarships for those that were abolished some months ago. The coalition tried to help the Deputy Prime Minister. We warned her in May, we warned her in June, we warned her in August and we warned her in October that by putting the Commonwealth Scholarships in the wrong bill she would abolish them and have nothing to replace them with. (Time expired)

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

Can I just introduce some notes of reality into this debate. I am glad that some members of the opposition have come into the House, because I actually believe—and I have had the opportunity to talk about Youth Allowance with some members of the opposition—that there are some members of the opposition who have sought to deal with this issue seriously and have really thought it through. I would really seriously say to those members of the opposition: get to grips with these amendments, because they are not as they have been represented to you.

What these amendments do is, No. 1, engage in a further transitional change. Members of the opposition would be aware that the government has already made a transitional change, having listened to the voices of students. I met directly with some members of the opposition to talk about the question. We have already made a transitional change for students who are in gap years now and who need to move away from home to study.

What members of the opposition are being asked to do, in the further transitional change that is within these amendments, is to make that transitional arrangement for students who will live at home to study. That is, they are being asked to make that transitional change for students who may live in households of $200,000 or $300,000 a year. When I look at the members opposite here, I can see members from rural Victoria, for example, in the House. I do not believe that their constituents are calling on them to make a transitional change to make sure that students living at home, in households of $150,000, $200,000 or $300,000 a year, in cities—maybe in Carlton, 10 steps from the university, in a household with an income of $300,000 a year—get full youth allowance. So seriously think about what you are being asked to vote for here. That is the additional transitional change that is being moved by the member for Sturt, or, effectively, supported by him now in these contributions. I know the member for Gilmore’s constituents would not be asking her to get full youth allowance for people living at home in the city in households with $300,000 a year incomes, and that is what is in these amendments.

What else is in these amendments is a continuation of the system that has failed country kids. The maths do not lie, and the maths tell us that, in the last five years of the current student financing arrangement, the participation of country kids in universities has gone down. It is a shame. It is a national disgrace. It is something that we should fix. You are being asked to continue the system that has failed country kids, day in, day out.

At whose cost are you being asked to do that? I think that is a very important question to ask. The cost is to the 150,000 students in your electorate that could have had student start-up scholarships. The cost is to the kids in your electorate who need a relocation scholarship to move next year but who will not get that $4,000 if this bill does not pass. The cost is to the kids from households on modest incomes like $40,000 a year, who will not get the full rate of youth allowance if this bill does not pass, when they could have. The cost is to those 78,000 who would get an increase in their part youth allowance or get youth allowance for the first time if this bill passed. The cost is: the independence age not coming down progressively from 25 to 22. And the cost of these amendments before the House now to the budget is around $1 billion, with no matching savings. Those are the facts.

The matching savings put up by the opposition were nowhere near the order of $1 billion and they were about ripping scholarships—including $160 million in scholarships for country kids—out of the hands of students. This is the opposition in its worst possible mode. What I will do is appeal again to the senior leadership of the opposition to make sure that members of the opposition are not implicated in a $1 billion black hole in the budget or in ripping money out of the hands of kids next year, including the ones in your electorates. (Time expired)

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

I do not want to delay the House for too much longer but there are a couple more points that I need to make about the issue before the House. The Deputy Prime Minister thinks that she can blackmail the opposition into voting for these shameful bills by locking in the Commonwealth Scholarships to start on 1 January with the Youth Allowance changes. The minister, I think, has lost sight of the limits of her power. She does not actually control the opposition and she does not control the Greens. It is very rare for members of the coalition to quote senators from the Greens, but Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens senator for South Australia, put it quite succinctly last night when she said:

… the Deputy Prime Minister, in her cruel and twisted way, decided to punish those students because she did not want to fess up that she had stuffed up the policy in the first place …

These are not my words; they are the words of Senator Hanson-Young, from the Greens. She has summed up—in language that I would not have used—the fact that this has all become about the Deputy Prime Minister’s vanity, her pride, her inability to recognise that when she makes a mistake she should fess up to it and work with the opposition, as we have offered, to fix the problem. All through the year—in May, June, August and October—we offered to work with the government to bring about savings measures that would meet our concerns about rural and regional Australians and students in their gap year. In fact, the government voted against the savings measure that we put up in the Senate. So how on earth the Deputy Prime Minister can blame the coalition for failing to come up with a savings measure is beyond me. Clearly, it would have been better if she had supported that savings measure or come up with an alternative and sat down and talked with the opposition about how to make this work so that students who would have been expecting Commonwealth Scholarships on 1 January would have been able to access them. Unfortunately, those students—and there are at least 100,000 of them—will hang around the Deputy Prime Minister’s neck throughout next year as they go without Commonwealth Scholarships because of the Deputy Prime Minister’s vanity and pride.

I understand that the Deputy Prime Minister has had a bad year—she has had a bad couple of years. Computers in Schools blew out by $800 million. There was supposed to be a trade training centre in every secondary school, but it turns out there is one in every 10 secondary schools. The schools stimulus debacle blew out by $1.7 million. The Deputy Prime Minister elevated advertising and praise for the government above spending on special schools and other priorities in her desire to praise both herself and the Prime Minister for the schools stimulus debacle. And now, finally, at the end of this year, there is the Youth Allowance shambles.

The Deputy Prime Minister has shown time and time again, with her slipshod management of the education portfolio, that a part-time education minister does not cut the mustard in a country of 22 million people, which happens to be the 15th-largest economy in the world. It is time for the Deputy Prime Minister to work with the opposition to bring about the kinds of reforms in Youth Allowance that we all support—reforms that are not retrospective, that do not unnecessarily punish rural and regional students and that do not deny students scholarships from 1 January, which is the current position she has adopted.

Question put:

That the motion (Ms Gillard’s) be agreed to.

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

I present the reasons for the House disagreeing to Senate amendments (3) to (9) and I move:

That the reasons be adopted.

Question agreed to.