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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

It is a pity that the debate about student income reform has come to this. May I remind the House of how we reached the point where I am introducing a bill for student income reform that is comparable to a bill that I introduced earlier this year. I think it would weigh on the minds of those on the Liberal and National parties’ side of the parliament to reflect on how we got here.

When the government was elected in 2007, the circumstances were that the participation rate of country kids at our universities was going down; the participation rate of students from poorer backgrounds, from low-SES households, was going down. While this was happening it was an open secret that our student income support system was not working effectively and, in particular, that a significant number of students from upper-income families, families earning more than $200,000 or $300,000 a year, were living at home and getting full youth allowance. These facts were known.

The then Howard government—and obviously many members of today’s opposition were members of the Howard government either as frontbench ministers or backbenchers—took no steps to address this matter. There was no talk then, under the Howard government, of additional steps to assist rural and regional students. There was no talk then, as Peter Costello delivered more than 10 budgets, of allocating an additional $1 billion to student income support. Even though these problems were known, the Howard government had no plan to act, and it is my recollection that at the 2007 election the then Howard government had announced no plan to act.

Consequently, when we were elected in 2007 we recognised that there were significant problems for Australia’s universities, which were underfunded; significant problems with lack of reform in the system, which was ossified; and significant problems with equity and participation in higher education. It was because of these significant problems that the government commissioned the Bradley review, led by a very eminent Australian, Denise Bradley, to advise government on a profound set of reforms to our higher education system. After what was effectively a year-long review, Denise Bradley delivered to government a report that had enough information in it to cause anybody who cared about future productivity, prosperity and equity in this country to be concerned.

In response to that Denise Bradley report, in the May budget this year the government embarked on a landmark set of reforms for higher education. It is correct to say that these are the most transformative reforms, the biggest reforms, to happen to higher education since the Dawkins reforms of the 1980s, when John Dawkins was the Labor government’s Minister for Employment, Education and Training. The scale and magnitude of our reforms cause anything that the Howard government did to pale into insignificance. This is a reform path for our universities for this century. It comes with significant new resources; indeed, more than $5 billion of new investment in our higher education and innovation systems was delivered by this government in the May budget.

Significantly, this puts Australian universities on a growth path. We have set very high aspirational targets for participation in higher education and the attainment of an undergraduate qualification by young Australians. These are 2020 targets that will be difficult for this nation to reach, but we believe they are important if this nation is to have a competitive future in what is a cutthroat world.

These landmark reforms also deliver on a new system of equity for higher education. On this side of the House, we believe it is an offence against decency, against equity, against the Australian ethos of fairness, that if you come from an upper-income household you are many times more likely to go on to university than if you come from a poor family. That is wrong, and we aim to correct it.

We aim to correct it through an integrated set of reforms. That is what our education revolution is about: reforms in early childhood, reforms in schools, reforms in vocational education and training. But we also aim to correct it through these powerful new reforms to Australia’s universities. That is why we have set a target of, by 2020, 20 per cent of the enrolments at our universities being students from low SES backgrounds. It is not because we intend to compromise on quality. We most certainly do not. All of the research tells us that, properly supported, low SES students can achieve at university at the same rate as their counterparts from more moneyed and advantaged backgrounds. We believe they should get that opportunity.

We have consequently not only built growth into the system; we have built growth with equity into the system, including new funding streams to encourage universities to seek the participation of Australians from lower socioeconomic households and to partner with schools in the delivery of systems to support those Australians from school into university.

As we delivered this transformative set of changes to higher education, we announced a better targeted and fairer student income support system. Let us go through the key features of that student income support system. Those key features are contained in this bill, as they were contained in the bill that I introduced before the House earlier this year. Those key features are as follows. The bill enables 150,000 students to receive start-up scholarships, which will, when the system is in full operation, be worth $2,254 a year. This contrasts with the strictly limited scholarship system now, where 21,000 students receive Commonwealth Scholarships.

This bill delivers changes to the family means test rates for the receipt of youth allowance. Those changes are important to enable almost 25,000 families with incomes between just $32,800 and $44,165 to get the maximum rate of youth allowance and a further 78,000 students to receive a higher payment than they otherwise would have received.

This bill enables the delivery of Relocation Scholarships, with an eligibility for $4,000 in the first year. This bill also brings down the age of independence of students progressively over time from 25 years of age to 22 years of age. This will see an estimated 7,600 new recipients of the independent rate of youth allowance. These changes also enable students to keep more of the money they earn without it affecting youth allowance.

It is a better targeted system, a system where we have unashamedly stopped the circumstance where students in metropolitan areas living at home in families earning $200,000 and $300,000 a year got full youth allowance. We have redirected that money to better supporting students who need it the most.

Clearly, as members of the parliament would recall, there was an issue about the transition from the current system to the new system. I acknowledge that that transition issue caused stress and anxiety for a number of students who were on a gap year this year—that is, they had made arrangements to take a year off, seeking to qualify for youth allowance under the old rules, before they could have known about the May budget changes. The government responded to that issue by amending the bill after my consultations with students.

The bill is therefore one that, through the government’s initial own amending, dealt with the transition issue most raised by Liberal and National party members with me—that is, the transition issue that was associated with students on a gap year this year who had made arrangements to take a gap year before the May budget and who needed to move in order to undertake university education. The government had already responded to that.

With that change already in place, the bill went from this place to the Senate. Amendments at that stage were moved by the coalition but were unacceptable to the government on the basis of fiscal prudence and on the basis of equity. On the basis of fiscal prudence, combined these changes would have cost the Commonwealth budget more than $1 billion. This was in circumstances where, I remind people, members who were advocating these changes had actually had the power, when they were in government, to allocate government money to student financing and they had never sought to increase student financing with a new allocation of $1 billion. It did not happen.

I think it would cause Australians—who tend to be wise enough to judge people by what they do rather than by what they say—to think: ‘Why is it that members of parliament who were on the government benches for almost 12 years should suddenly discover the need to invest a new $1 billion in student income support when, over 12 years, they never evidenced an intention of doing that?’ So, on a fiscal basis, these changes by the coalition were unacceptable, particularly when the coalition’s leading spokespeople—the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer, for example—frequently said that they were concerned about debt and deficit. In those circumstances, to seek to allocate over $1 billion of money without matching savings was obviously an imprudent thing to do.

Secondly, the propositions of the opposition were not right on equity grounds. To the extent there were matching savings offered—and they were not sufficient to cover the new expenditure—they were permanent cuts to scholarships; cuts that would have taken $700 million in the form of scholarships out of the hands of students, $162 million of it out of the hands of country kids. On an equity basis, we believed that was wrong and, on an equity basis, the amendments were unacceptable because they would have perpetuated the continuation of a system which has seen the participation rates of country kids in Australia’s universities go backwards.

As we know, when the bill was returned to the House of Representatives the government indicated that these amendments were unacceptable. The bill returned to the Senate last night. By the time the bill returned to the Senate the government had, in negotiations with the Greens and Senator Xenophon, further addressed concerns about transition issues. The bill before the parliament brings that agreement to legislative life. It contains the amendments that were agreed with the Greens Party and with Senator Xenophon.

These amendments would have enabled more students to benefit from transition arrangements if they were on a gap year, including students living at home, but there would have been a means test at $150,000 for students living at home. We thought that was a sensible compromise to assist students who made arrangements before the government’s changes became known—a sensible compromise between dealing with equity considerations and having the means test on students living at home. I thank the Greens Party and I thank Senator Xenophon for showing the maturity to deal with this issue and showing the maturity to do it in a budget neutral context, with the change being paid for by a reduction in start-up scholarships in the first year but with start-up scholarships going to their full value of $2,254 in the year after.

When the bill came up in the Senate last night, the first thing that happened is that the Senate did not insist on the coalition’s amendments. It is important, I think, that participants in this debate—the Liberal Party and the National Party—realise that they do not have a majority in the Senate for their amendments. They might be unhappy about that; they probably are. But that is the truth. They cannot get their amendments up.

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

Mr Pyne interjecting

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

The churlishness of the opposition, which I was just about to go to, is being evidenced very clearly by the shadow minister, who views this as a matter of politics and not a matter of young people’s lives. In circumstances where the coalition’s amendments no longer had the support of the Senate, we then sought to deliver the beneficial changes that we had negotiated with the Greens Party and with Senator Xenophon.

These beneficial changes could not be included in the bill in the Senate because the Liberal and National parties voted against them—that is, in a churlish act, because their amendments had not been carried, they repudiated these beneficial amendments. Their view, not at all driven by the interests of students, was simply a tit for tat political round in which, if they were not able to get what they wanted, they were not going to give students the benefit of something else—nothing more, nothing less. Any view of the opposition’s rhetoric during the course of this debate would have led you to conclude that they would have voted for these beneficial new provisions negotiated with the Greens party and Senator Xenophon, but politics, rather than the interests of students, prevailed.

Then the bill in the Senate was effectively sidelined by the Senate. It has been adjourned, effectively, in committee. It has not been defeated by the Senate. It has gone into some form of limbo. What is the cost of that bill staying in some form of limbo? The cost of that bill staying in some form of limbo is that the government cannot deliver these beneficial changes for students—that is, 150,000 students will not get scholarships next year. Kids who, by anybody’s definition, live in low-income households will not get full youth allowance next year. Kids who are reliant on low- and middle-income households—possibly not living in them, but living away from home to study—whose parents have low and middle incomes, who could get an increased rate of youth allowance, will not get it next year.

This is not a matter of politics; this is a matter of fact. There are 150,000 kids who will not get start-up scholarships next year. Thousands of kids who need to move to study will not get relocation scholarships. Thousands of low- and middle-income kids who could have had the full rate of youth allowance, a higher rate of youth allowance, or eligibility for youth allowance for the first time, will not get that money.

The other reform features of the bill will also not come into operation: the independence age going down to 22 and the new arrangements to allow students to keep more of the money they earn before they lose youth allowance. Those beneficial changes cannot be delivered.

Understandably, the education system in this country has reacted with scorn and fury to this playing of politics by the Liberal and National parties. I refer people to the comments of those who care most about education. Last week, I conducted a press conference with people who care about education. They were vice-chancellors, speaking on behalf of all of the vice-chancellors in this country. At the press conference, Ian Chubb, the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, said:

Well we as a Group of 8—

that is, the Group of Eight universities—

support this Bill. We think that it’s particularly important that it pass, that it pass quickly so that we can give some information to and certainty to the students.

Ross Milbourne, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Technology, Sydney, spoke on behalf of our technology universities and said:

I speak really with my other fellow Vice Chancellors on behalf of the entire higher education sector who’s unanimous on supporting the legislation … from my perspective, failure to pass this legislation today is not only bad for the education system in Australia, but it’s bad social policy and is very bad long term economic policy.

Then Paul Johnson, the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, who represented innovative research universities, said:

These students and their parents are having a tough time at present, we all know of the problems in the economy of regional and rural Australia. The proposed legislation will make a fundamental difference to all these families, all these students and their mums and dads.

Then the representative of students, David Barrow, the President of the National Union of Students, said:

Let me … say that students unequivocally support these … scholarships.

Those were the voices of the education sector last week. Their voices were joined on Friday by the voices of all state and territory education and training ministers, who called on the federal opposition to pass the government’s youth allowance changes. Let us just reflect for a moment on that word ‘all’. Madam Deputy Speaker Moylan, I think you would particularly appreciate this: if all education and training ministers around the country called on the opposition to pass this bill then that would have included the Liberal government of Western Australia, which has departed from the opposition on this churlish strategy.

What we saw in the Senate last night from the opposition was: ‘Vice-chancellors? Don’t listen to them. Students? Don’t listen to them. Education ministers around the country? Don’t listen to them. Wreak great harm against students and their families next year.’ That does not seem to matter to the Liberal and National parties. They would rather play politics, and they did. They did so by not allowing passage of this bill. The reaction to that has been fast and furious, as it should be. David Barrow, the President of the National Union of Students, put it well when he said:

Last night so many good elements were blocked; a drop in the age of independence to 22—blocked, new personal income test thresholds—blocked, new scholarships—blocked, a system that gets the poorest students to university—blocked.

What remains is an inequitable relic of the Howard-era. It is easily rorted by the privileged. It means 30% of gap year students will not return to university. The current system disadvantages poor and regional students the most.

Then Ross Milbourne, from the Australian Technology Network of Universities, said:

Failure by the Coalition and Family First Senator, Steve Fielding to support this amended legislation is not only bad for the education system in Australia, but it’s bad social policy and is very bad long term economic policy.

The amended Bill would have delivered a level of financial security for those students most in need.

He went on to say:

These scholarships help very poor students give more time and attention to their studies by reducing stress and worry, reducing their paid work hours, and increasing their sense of belonging. As a result, these students have attrition rates about 40% lower than other students—the benefit of this scholarship is tangible.

These are the words of the education sector on what happened last night. I understand that the Liberal and National parties have campaigned on these issues. They have raised these issues. I believe that there are some members of the Liberal and National parties who have been genuine in their pursuit of these issues. They have come and spoken to me. Some of them have sought briefings. They have wanted to understand the details of the legislation and to really get to grips with it. Some of them have been very genuine about being concerned about transition issues. But it is time for the Liberal-National Party members to acknowledge that those transition issues have effectively been resolved by the amendments to the bill that the government volunteered and by the additional amendments that we have agreed to with the Greens party and Senator Xenophon.

There may be opposition members who say, ‘We are still sceptical.’ I think I am entitled to ask: ‘Where were their voices over 12 long years of government?’ If we move on from that point and say, ‘We have agreed to a review of these provisions; we were always going to have a review,’ I am very confident that the review will show that these arrangements are better for regional and rural students. We have also agreed—and this has been something pressed by some members of the opposition—to an averaging arrangement in relation to the 30 hours a week for the new independence criteria. That has been sought. We believe we can manage it within a budget-neutral envelope, and it is contained in this bill.

So what is pressing members on to keep blocking this bill? I am not advised of any changes that the opposition seeks that are budget neutral. Last night the Senate spokesperson, the then shadow parliamentary secretary dealing with the matter in the Senate—I believe that he may have resigned his parliamentary secretaryship today; it is not entirely clear to me—seemed to indicate that one thing that the opposition wanted was all of this stopped and to have the old Commonwealth scholarships back. Madam Deputy Speaker, what would make you think 21,000 scholarships were better than 150,000 scholarships, plus relocation scholarships? So what is it that the opposition is continuing to press for that is achievable and attainable beyond the playing of politics? If the opposition has a budget-neutral amendment that is equitable, I have not seen it yet. If members opposite are going to continue this politics then let it not be done in the name of regional and rural students, because this package is good for regional and rural students and the people who care genuinely about their interests have said so. The vice-chancellors that run the universities the students study in, the student organisation that speaks on their behalf and the state ministers who represent them in state parliaments have all said so.

Do not do it in their name. If you are going to press on with this destructive course then do it in the name of what it is: the cheapest, most destructive form of politics I have seen played out in this parliament in a good while. Next year, have the guts to go and sit with the students you have ripped off and explain to them that the rip-offs were just about politics, that they were just about a desperate hope that you could continue a campaign in some electorates. That must be the only thing now driving this, because there is no credible, budget-neutral amendment being proffered by the opposition. There is not one. There is not one here, not one in the Senate, not one anywhere. I would say to those opposition members—and some of them have caught me on the way in and out of question time; some of them have come around to my office; some of them have talked to my staff—who are genuinely concerned about this issue: do not now vote as a matter of reflex. Actually think about it. Think about what it is that you are asking this government to do. Is it budget neutral and equitable? If you are unable to answer that question then it is time to vote for this bill.

The government is happy to make arrangements for the second reading debate on this bill to continue straightaway, if the opposition are ready to do that. If they are not ready to do that then we will be happy to have the debate adjourned.

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

We agree.

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

If the opposition is ready to do it then we will seek to bring the second reading debate to an end expeditiously, to get this bill into the Senate in the hope that we can next year give kids who need money the money they are entitled to. I commend the bill to the House.

Leave granted for second reading debate to continue immediately.

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

To outline for the Deputy Prime Minister: we on the opposition side intend—as we have already done in granting leave—to continue the second reading debate. We intend to move a second reading amendment and we intend to then have a debate in the committee stage as well. We are facilitating this debate by allowing it to go through to a vote tonight so that you will be able to move it through into the Senate and try your luck in the Senate with getting it through. The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 [No. 2] is still fatally flawed, in the view of us on this side of the House.

The Senate last night voted down the Labor Party’s youth allowance legislation, which would have retrospectively impacted upon thousands of Australian students currently in their gap year and crushed the higher education dreams of thousands of rural and regional students into the future. The youth allowance bill contained a number of worthwhile measures that the coalition would have been happy to support. However, we will not allow the government to increase funding to one group of students only by ripping away the higher education dreams of country students. The Labor government has also placed in jeopardy the scholarships of thousands by abolishing the old Commonwealth scholarships system in a previous bill and replacing them with those in this bill, despite warnings from the coalition and Family First at the time that to abolish the scholarships without concurrently legislating their replacements was pure folly. They refused to heed the warnings of the coalition that abolishing Commonwealth scholarships without an acceptable alternative in place meant that there would be no scholarships next year. This is entirely the government’s fault, as they alone control the legislative program.

The coalition has told the government that, if they wish to introduce a separate bill to reintroduce the scholarships for 2010, we will give that bill priority this week so that students will be able to receive scholarships next year. The coalition would also be happy to pass the government’s bill so long as they amended it to deal with the threshold issues that we have raised. We have made it clear that the coalition will hold firm on our two primary concerns with this bill. Firstly, the coalition cannot support legislation that cuts out the gap year pathway to independent youth allowance for students who must leave home to attend university unless a realistic alternative provision is put in place—which it has not been. Secondly, the coalition cannot on principle support legislation that is retrospective in its effect. We note that the government have moved towards addressing this issue with their new amendments. They have come a long way towards addressing many of the coalition’s concerns with respect to retrospectivity, but we still cannot support the legislation while they are seeking to change the goalposts for any students who made a good-faith decision to take a year off in order to earn independent youth allowance based on the advice of Centrelink officials, their school careers advisers or others.

Let me take the House through a history of this bill and the sorry situation the government finds itself in. I speak to the House tonight more in sadness than in anger, because the opposition warned the government on many occasions following the May budget about the real concerns that we had about the changes to youth allowance. Can I say that we do believe that there needs to be reform of the youth allowance. We endorse many of the Bradley review’s recommendations, and we were moving to reform youth allowance in government. There is no doubt that reform should be brought to youth allowance, but in bringing reform to youth allowance we on this side of the House cannot support measures that we cannot support in principle—like retrospectivity—or that damage the pathways to university of young people from rural and regional Australia.

We on this side of the House know—and I am sure some of my colleagues will point this out—that once a rural youth who would otherwise have gone to university gives up that dream the prospects of them going back to university at some stage in the future are virtually nil. The disadvantage that rural and regional students face in accessing university will be compounded by the government’s changes because of the reforms they are bringing about, which as we have pointed out will essentially mean that young people in rural areas will have to find 30 hours of work a week over an 18-month period to be able to qualify for the new independent rate.

I am not surprised that the government side of the House does not understand that rural students will not be able to find 30 hours a week paid work in country areas for an 18-month period. It does not surprise me that they do not know that, because they are not the party that represents a large part of rural and regional Australia. That is represented by the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Independent members. So it comes as no surprise to me that they have missed the boat on this particular reform. There are members on the Labor side of the House, people like the member for Braddon, the member for Capricornia, the member for Dawson and others, who should know better about supporting a change that will so impact on rural and regional students, who will not be able to get work for 30 hours a week to be able to access the independent rate.

But in taking you through the history of this bill, I should point out that the opposition has in May, in June, in October and again in November said time and time again that the Commonwealth scholarships, having been abolished in the budget measures bill from 1 January 2010, face the prospect of being abolished entirely without a replacement because of this minister’s historic mismanagement of the reform of youth allowance. There has been no policy ever taken through this parliament that has been so mismanaged by a minister of the Crown than the current reform of youth allowance.

One of the reasons I believe is because the minister is a part-time education minister. She is also the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and she is also the Minister for Social Inclusion. Unfortunately, in so many parts of her portfolio, we see again and again that she makes a botch-up of the implementation of policy. We saw it on trade training centres and on computers in schools with the $800 million blow-out rising to $1.2 billion. We have seen it most particularly and most recently with the school’s stimulus debacle, which has the twin elements of a $1.7 billion blow-out with unwanted, in many cases, and unneeded infrastructure being foisted on schools throughout the country and the massive inflation and skimming that has occurred in that program. There were so many other priorities in education which should have been funded, but that goes to her general management of the education portfolio.

In terms of youth allowance, the government ploughed on with this bill, maintaining that the Commonwealth scholarships for 2010 must be in it in the vain and futile belief that that would cause the opposition to buckle, that we would respond to political blackmail, that if they held a gun to the head of the opposition that we would fold. But the minister has miscalculated very badly, and I would implore her to recognise that her pride is much less important than the lives of students and their capacity to go to university next year. The minister must recognise that separating this bill from the Commonwealth scholarships for 2010 is the only way forward.

The opposition has said—and I said it again today and I have said it over and over again—that if the government separates the Commonwealth scholarships for 2010 from this bill we will pass and will give priority in both this place and the Senate to a bill that re-institutes the Commonwealth scholarships in 2010 so that students will not go without. Then we will deal with the youth allowance reforms, which should have always been in a separate bill. If the minister agrees to do that today then the coalition will support it and students will not be worse off.

But she has chosen not to, and the reasons for that are really a matter for her. She has of course had absolutely no consultation with me and no consultation with my office. At 2.56 pm today a staffer from her office rang my office and arrogantly asserted that we would be forced to vote for this bill. That is a matter for them and how they wish to manage their affairs in the Deputy Prime Minister’s office. But what most ministers would have done and what has been the tradition in this House, is that when there is an impasse of this nature they would contact the shadow minister and they would speak to the shadow minister about what the coalition would be prepared to do. The shadow minister would respond, hopefully in good faith and fairly.

So we realise the pickle you have got yourself into. We realise that by linking these two measures together you have mismanaged it. We would try as much as we could to help the minister out of the pickle for the good of the students. But this minister has not picked up the phone, has not contacted me. She has engaged in the usual megaphone diplomacy in the mistaken belief that the opposition would fold and that we would pass this bill through. In the Senate last night we did not do so, with the support of Senator Fielding. Through a number of measures she has been able to convince the Greens and Senator Xenophon to support this legislation, but not Senator Fielding and certainly not the opposition.

If the government comes to the opposition and says that they will separate these bills between now and the time they get to the Senate, the opposition will give that due consideration. There is no point in this House today moving the same amendments that we moved at the previous time this bill was debated, because we know that the minister has already indicated that she will give it absolutely no consideration. It might surprise some people to find out in this place that the opposition does not have the numbers and we would not get our amendments carried. Therefore in this place there will be no point.

In the Senate, on the other hand, we will, because we have the capacity to bring about reform to this bill and to change it. We will consider moving our amendments and seeing them supported by, hopefully, the government. The most important of those is putting rural and regional students back in the position where they will be able to access the independent rate of youth allowance without having to fulfil a criterion which, in almost every case and in almost every town across Australia they will not be able to fulfil, which is a 30-hour work test for 18 months. So I flag that the opposition will vote against this bill in the House of Representatives. If it remains unamended in the Senate, we will vote against it in the Senate. I move tonight a second reading amendment upon which we will also vote, which reads:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“the House:

(1)

registers its dismay that this legislation cuts out the ‘gap year’ pathway to Independent Youth Allowance for students who must leave home to attend University, requiring that students instead find 30 hours employment per week for 18 months in order to gain Independent Youth Allowance;

(2)

registers its concern that this legislation will lead to the retrospective removal of access to Youth Allowance for a number of students who undertook a ‘gap year’ in 2009 on the basis of advice from Government officials, including teachers, careers advisers and Centrelink officials; and

(3)

urges the Government to:

(a)

offer further amendments that will remove all of the negative retrospective effects of this legislation; and

(b)

provide a reasonable pathway to gaining Independent Youth Allowance for those students who must leave home in order to participate in Higher Education.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to second the amendment. The amendment proposed by the shadow minister brings sense and balance to this debate, and I would like to compliment the shadow minister for the patience that he has shown in dealing with this issue when the government is not prepared to take what are perfectly reasonable steps to help to resolve this issue. We all want a fair go for students, but what we object to very strongly on this side of the House is the retrospective nature of this legislation. Many students around this country, 25,000 or more, took the advice of their student counsellors, of Centrelink, of their teachers to undertake a gap year so that they could become eligible for an independent youth allowance so they could commence university studies. This is particularly important for people who live outside the capital cities, who have the extra costs associated with having to make a new home in the city, find some accommodation, travel to and from their place of residence, to make a new life a long way away from their friends and family supports. Those are the sorts of people in particular who have needed some income to enable them to undertake their tertiary education.

The minister has said on a number of occasions, sometimes with seeming feeling, that she is concerned about the lower proportion of regional students who actually go to university. In fact, the further you get away from a regional town, the further you get away from the city, the lower the proportion of people who achieve tertiary education becomes. That is simply not acceptable. The minister is the Minister for Social Inclusion. If she believes in social inclusion then the fact that a significant proportion of our society is disadvantaged in obtaining tertiary education is clearly a matter that ought to be a priority item for her on her agenda. So here she is coming into the House demanding that legislation be passed that will make it more difficult for regional students, and particularly poor regional students, to be able to obtain a tertiary education.

What this legislation boils down to is that it really shows up the lack of sincerity in Labor’s so-called Education Revolution. It all boils down to this: is the Rudd Labor government prepared to arrogantly stand by its retrospective rule changes on youth allowance and consign tens of thousands of students to the education scrapheap? Is the government prepared to say for those students, a very large number of them from regional areas, that education is critically important but just not for them? Or will the government live up to the promise of its so far overblown rhetoric on education and accept some very reasonable and responsible amendments proposed by the coalition and fix the problem? It is the government’s call. This is the government’s problem to fix and not to pathetically try to fob it off on the coalition because it cannot make compromises to assist 25,000 very deserving students.

Deep within the amendment and this legislation is a question of entitlement the government has endeavoured to fix. The coalition has never argued against the general proposition of ensuring the proper use of taxpayers’ money when it comes to entitlement to the youth allowance. We acknowledge that there does need to be reform. What we are upset about is the unleashing of a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. Instead of nuancing this legislation, the Rudd government has reverted to its usual partisan political agenda that defaults to an attack on the regions, in this case regional students. The government has also used the basest form of politics to claim it will be our fault that students will not be entitled to Commonwealth scholarships, even though it was the government that earlier this year abolished these scholarships. They acted unilaterally to abolish the scholarships. They have also acted to remove the rural and regional scholarships that were so important to people in regional areas. The government was warned early in the piece that this would end up in tears but they did not listen.

Last night the coalition again stood its ground in the Senate and defeated the government’s youth allowance legislation with its retrospective penalty on gap year students. I congratulate all of the coalition senators and Senator Fielding for doing so. Labor trained all their guns on them and they did not blink. In particular can I acknowledge the work of the Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Fiona Nash, because of her work as chairman of the committee that has been looking at this legislation. They put a lot of time and effort into trying to find a reasonable solution and the best way forward to give regional students a chance of getting equal educational outcomes with those who live in the cities. They are working on longer term strategies as well as the importance of making sure that there is appropriate support available for students next year and that the grossest parts of this legislation can in fact be effectively reformed.

This is an issue that has prompted a massive response of anger and frustration and concern from young Australians. Many of my colleagues, particularly those who represent regional electorates, have had thousands of people complain about what the government is doing in relation to independent youth allowance. There have been rallies, there have been meetings, there have been calls all around the country to try and get this situation fixed, but the minister has not been willing to listen—hard-hearted and not willing to listen to the people who are going to miss out on an education as a result of the deliberate actions of this government. So naturally members of parliament have been annoyed and they have responded. Students have long prepared for the rite of passage known as the gap year and it has become very important to many young people. Firstly, it gives them on many occasions an opportunity to grow up a little as they move home for the first time and have to live in the cities to undertake a university education. Some may get a breadth of experience which helps them choose the kind of tertiary education they may want.

The rules that are being imposed under the new arrangements for independent youth allowance are very difficult to fulfil if you live in a country community. It might be alright in the minister’s city where there are plenty of jobs—where there are opportunities to work 30 hours a week, regularly, as is required by the new arrangements—but, when you get into a country town, those jobs are not there. The people who qualified for the independent youth allowance often did so by doing seasonal work—by working at fruit picking, contract harvesting or in a mine for a brief period. They worked to collect enough money to qualify. The cannot do it by regular 30 hour a week jobs, because they are simply not there.

Frankly, nothing that the Minister for Social Inclusion is doing in relation to industrial relations reform and the state of the national economy is going to make more jobs available for the young people who need them. The Senate had no choice but to vote down the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 [No. 2]. The bill meant students would have to have worked a 30 hour week over 18 months in a two-year period to qualify for independent youth allowance. That is a prospect that is simply impossible in many regional areas. Jobs just do not grow on trees—something we are increasingly discovering under this job-destroying government.

The coalition is not going to support legislation that retrospectively disadvantages 25,000 students who want to start university at the beginning of next year. The ball is in the government’s court. Whether the scholarships go ahead in 2010 is completely in the hands of the government and the Australian Labor Party. You can fix it tonight. You could have fixed it before now, when you redrafted this legislation to bring it into the parliament. You could so easily have fixed it, but you were not prepared to do it. The government can split the bill and receive our support for the positive proponents that it puts before the chamber, or it can take this matter to an election and see what the people think about it.

The minister in her speech quoted a number of people who are allegedly supporting her proposals. They are the usual people you would expect to be supporting anything that the Labor Party proposes. I thought I would read to you an email that one of my colleagues received just a few days ago about this particular issue. He said:

I know that rural students will never recover from bad policy that limits their tertiary options. The current government policy is bad policy and I am delighted to see that you and your party continue to argue against it. Although I have never applied for or obtained Centrelink assistance for my tertiary studies, preferring to work my behind off in part-time employment, I know of many students who are here at James Cook University, from country towns, who would not be studying pharmacy, science, journalism and even medicine if not for the assistance that is provided through the youth allowance. I am delighted to see the National Party going in to bat for the bush on this very important issue.

He goes on in that vein. This is a practical example of a real student, not a union member or an academic. This is somebody who is working his way, hard, through university to obtain a qualification. Minister, I suggest you listen to the students. You should listen to the young people. You should listen to those who are affected by your legislation—and soften your heart. Remember the country students, the people who will miss out on the opportunity to break clear of the educational disadvantage that besets many in their community, and help them build a better career for themselves and their families. Minister, do the right thing. Do the right thing for Australian students and provide an education support system that will deliver an education for so many people who need it and want it.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have changed my position on this after a great deal of consideration, and I will bend the knee to no man. My children are the sixth generation to be living in country Australia. My father worked for 18 months to two years before he went away to university. I worked for 18 months to two years before I went away to university. My son worked for two years before he went away to university. If you want to go to university, you work to earn it.

A shortage of jobs has not been my experience in country areas. My experience is that in country areas we are desperately seeking people for poorly paid jobs, not the high-paying jobs. If kids are prepared to do those jobs, there is work there for them. That is one element of it. The sister of Tanya Pascoe, a member of my staff, was married to a cane farmer who had terrible times in the cane industry. I find the comments of the previous speaker, the Leader of the Nationals, quite amazing. He was the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia when the government fell. There were 40 per cent fewer people going on to complete secondary education—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand corrected. He was the second-ranking person in the National Party when the government fell. They were there for 13 years and at the end of 13 years 40 per cent fewer country people went on to complete secondary education. I would point out that the honourable member for Wide Bay is laughing.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is 11 years!

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Eleven years, whatever. I am sorry I said 13 when it was 11 years! After 11 years of you in government, 40 per cent fewer people went on to complete their secondary education and then a further 40 per cent fewer people went on to complete tertiary education. And you have the hide to come into this place and say, ‘Where is your heart?’ I will say ‘Where was your heart when you concluded your time in office as agriculture minister; every four days a farmer in Australia was committing suicide—where was your heart?’

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order as to relevance, but also the remark was offensive. To suggest that I was responsible for—

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

The member for Wide Bay will resume his seat. The member for Kennedy has the call. The member for Kennedy will withdraw, please.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Withdraw what, Madam Deputy Speaker?

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

The reference to suicide.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I just quoted a figure. I did not attribute it to him. I just quoted a figure.

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

If you are not attributing that is fine.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I most certainly say that I did not attribute it to him. I just said that at the conclusion of his time in office that was the figure.

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

Thank you.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If someone wants to say the figure is not correct, that is up to them.

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I, as much as anybody, am very patient with the member for Kennedy, but he did make it very clear that he was suggesting that when the member for Wide Bay was a minister he had something to do with suicides—

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

The member for Sturt and Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The member for Kennedy would assist by just saying he withdraws and then we can progress with this important debate.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the sake of getting on with this I withdraw whatever it is that offended these people.

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

Thank you.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tanya Pascoe simply rang me up and said, ‘Next year I will have two children going to university. My husband is an independent builder. We don’t make a lot of money. I work here to try to supplement that.’ Her five kids are tramping in and out of our office all the time and it gives me very great joy to have them tramping in and out of our office as we all love the Pascoe kids. She said, ‘I desperately need that $4,000 and the only way that I can get it is if this legislation is passed.’ I am not some big-time politician coming here knowing all about everything. Here is a woman, a very intelligent lady, who has gone into it and that is what she is saying. She is saying, ‘If you vote for this I get the $4,000. If you don’t I don’t. There have got to be thousands of people in your electorate in this situation.’ So it is about $4,000 plus $1,000 a year. I think there is merit and integrity in some of the arguments coming from the opposition on this, and I want to put that on record. I do think that there needs to be a little bit more liberalisation of the means test and the employment test, so I would add that to my remarks. All I can say is I have a person who assures me that there are thousands in my electorate in this situation. This is a very intelligent lady, and her daughter is doing medicine at the university, which I am not surprised by. She works like a dog and her husband works like a dog to try to help these kids to get a better way of life. She would not be making a mistake on this issue. That is a person speaking from the heart.

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

I rise because I feel very strongly about this situation and I am offended by the legislation proposed by the minister. But that is not important. What is most important is that my constituents and their children are offended by this legislation, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 [No. 2]. We have a minister who espouses ad nauseam that she is understanding of regional and remote Australia and the needs of its population, yet the very legislation that she proposes, to alter the status quo, will disadvantage children in my electorate. We have constantly agreed that one of the great problems in residing in rural and remote Australia is the lack of professional services, and we in the previous government certainly went to great lengths to access professionals from overseas, especially those in the field of medicine, to provide vital medical services, GP services, in rural and remote Australia. We went to great lengths to provide medical scholarships for those from the bush who would qualify for tertiary education and spend their time at university in the hope that, with their understanding of living in regional and remote Australia, they would be more likely to return so that we could ease the pressure we place on overseas countries in taking doctors from those countries where the ratio of doctors to population is often poorer than it is in our own nation.

Yet we have a minister who proposes in this place that we accept legislation that will cut off one of the main sources of potential professionals in the bush by preventing their access to tertiary education. I say ‘preventing’ because there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in this proposition and the minister makes much of the fact that she is providing an opportunity for many more Australians to access youth allowance and go to university. That may be so and I believe that a particular report tabled and made available to her indicated that there was a degree of unfortunate rorting by those families or individuals that lived in the city, lived within reasonable daily access of university and yet qualified for the independent youth allowance by the student working for about 18 months at about 15 hours a week. So they qualified and then they continued to live at home whilst accessing the independent youth allowance and catching public transport to attend the university of their choice. That is an undesirable situation for any government to provide support for. But there was no need for this minister to throw the baby out with the bathwater. All she needed to do was put in place checks and balances that would apply to those that lived at home, were not truly living an independent lifestyle and were getting all the luxuries of living within easy access of a tertiary institution. She could have separated those out of the mix very easily but chose not to do so.

I am left with no choice but to decide that, while this was not an act of retribution against the bush, either it was simply ignorance or incompetence or it was simply a city slicker’s fuzzy-headed lack of understanding. I do not know where this minister gets off in her lack of understanding of the reality. The reality is that if you are a city kid and you live at home and you qualify to attend a tertiary institution, and your parents are earning an income greater than that which would allow you to get the full youth allowance, you have two choices. You can get a small part-time job, stay with your peer group that you have attended secondary school with, go on to university and live a fairly reasonable life. You are with your peer group; it makes uni a lot easier. You are within cooee and public transport access of the institution of your choice. It makes it very easy. You live at home, off mum and dad very typically, and life is very easy. You work a few hours a week and you pick up some spending money.

Compare that situation to that of a child living in rural and remote Australia, where there is not the 30 hours work a week, there is not 30 hours work available to those students, so they cannot qualify for the independent youth allowance. This minister would have us believe that mum and dad will not have to provide now because she has extended the cap for obtaining youth allowance out to $44,000. I would love you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to show me a family living and surviving in rural and remote Australia, especially in my patch, where their family income is less than $44,000 per annum. Go to Karratha and a three-by-one accommodation will cost you between $1,600 and $2,000 a week. So to suggest that these incomes have been pushed out to a cap of $44,000 and that that will allow so many more people to get youth allowance is an absolute nonsense. It is irrelevant. It just proves the ignorance.

So we have to fall back on independent youth allowance, and for all of those students who in the last 12 or 18 months have taken a gap year from university and look forward to attending in the first semester of this coming year, the legislation proposed by this member will simply destroy their hopes. And if they have to take a second gap year between secondary college and tertiary education, those country kids will simply never attend tertiary education. The supply of ready graduates to come back and reside in rural and remote Australia with a profession, that opportunity, that conduit, has been trashed. It has been trashed either by the fuzzy, city slicker attitude of this minister or by total ignorance. And there I rest my case.

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

The title of this bill is the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 [No. 2]. What the opposition is doing is in actual fact denying income support for thousands and thousands more students who would be eligible for income support under the new arrangements. That is at the heart of what is going on here. I have heard those opposite go on about retrospectivity. I know that the member for Kalgoorlie and others spoke about this earlier in this debate, and I was also one of those who had issues with retrospectivity. The minister knows that and I have spoken to the minister, as have many of my colleagues. The retrospectivity aspect has been fixed, so I do not know what the issue is about that matter. It has been fixed at $150,000, and it has been transitioned for 12 months. And for the benefit of the member for Kalgoorlie—I want him to hear this—those people with incomes above $150,000 living at home and accessing education in their direct district are not eligible in the transition period. This is to support those who were going to be affected by the retrospectivity and at the same time make it fair and equitable. I do not know why those on the other side have been banging on about this, but it is incorrect. It is not fair, so at least deal with the facts of the matter.

The other thing that we should be aware of is, yes, you can cite people who were very pleased with the old system because they have benefited from it greatly, particularly those living at home and those living in the metropolitan areas, and also those living in rural and regional areas with parents on very high incomes. I join the member for Kalgoorlie, if he said that was unfair, because that is unfair.

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

And should have been fixed.

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

And indeed should have been fixed up in the past by those on that side when they were in government, and I commend the member for Kalgoorlie on that. We are trying to bring equity to this.

But I want to tell you I also have information from families who would have benefited under our system, these amended changes, and who are absolutely distraught that those opposite are not supporting it. So I want you to know—these are direct facts; I did not make this up—they have made decisions now and they are going to have to continue on their path. They have to take accommodation in Hobart, where they have to move to for their university. They have to sign those bonds now and they are lost in limbo because of what those opposite are doing, so I want those opposite to take that on board as well.

The minister has pointed out some of the figures which those opposite cannot deny in relation to those who are going to be seriously affected by the fact that the opposition will not support this legislation, along with Senator Fielding in the other house. If passed, the changes in the government’s amendments would have seen more than 100,000 students, and their families, better off. That is 100,000 students better off with either more youth allowance or youth allowance to some degree. One hundred and fifty thousand students would have received a $1,434 start-up scholarship in 2010, rising to $2,254 in 2011, but now they will miss out. So these are the facts that are being affected by the opposition and Senator Fielding’s opposition in the other house.

The government had agreed to a total of three sensible amendments, following negotiations in good faith with the Greens and supported by Senator Nick Xenophon, which would have dealt with any remaining concerns about current gap year students which I have just mentioned. I think that was only fair and I thank the minister for listening to those concerns raised by many members, on both this side and the other side of the House. But what have we got? We have them playing politics and, in the process, they are going to punish students and families such as the one that communicated with me today, including those students on a gap year who will not receive the scholarships. So that is a double whammy.

Those opposite had the opportunity to agree to a historic change to youth allowance. The member for Kalgoorlie pointed out that the previous allowance system which allowed so many more people to rort the system desperately needed change. That is all it was—a good old rort—and we know it. It should have been dealt with. The member for Sturt—he has more front than Myer, frankly—comes in here talking about how he can do us a favour if we separate these bills and the Commonwealth scholarships, which, by the way, the member for Sturt and all those opposite voted for earlier in the year in the budget measures. That is how much of a grasp he has of his portfolio. All he really wants to do is score a few points against an excellent minister whom he cannot match in any way or form either in this place or outside of it. That is his problem.

Let me just go over in the short time available to me—there are colleagues who want to contribute to this debate—the seven major negatives visited upon us and upon those families in Alveston in my electorate by the opposition in the other house along with Senator Fielding and led by the member for Sturt. I do not know what he is leading and how many there are to lead on this, but let me have a look at them. More than 150,000 students across Australia will not receive the start-up scholarship. That is fact. There were 21,000 existing Commonwealth scholarships voted out of existence earlier in the year which the opposition supported—the member for Sturt should remember that, as he supported this—meaning no scholarships are being paid by the Commonwealth in 2010. More than 100,000 students across Australia will get less or no youth allowance in 2010—a mere 100,000. Students who choose to move to study will not be eligible for a $4,000 relocation scholarship in 2010. Many students from my electorate who would have benefited from the new parental income threshold will not now be able to go and access these scholarships. Students with very high parental incomes will continue to receive youth allowance. So the member for Sturt has got what he wanted.

The continuation of the rort includes 18 per cent of students receiving youth allowance from families with incomes of more than $150,000, 10 per cent of students receiving youth allowance from families with incomes above $200,000 and three per cent from families with incomes above $300,000. For heaven’s sake, what are we doing here? This is immoral, but you continue with your recalcitrance in the Senate and you let this immorality, this rort, to continue—all for the sake of your petty vanity.

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

Did you write that one down?

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

Indeed, and you can copy it too. I really look forward to the member for Riverina having some substance in her argument instead of rhetoric I have listened to for the last few years. I really look forward to it. Go ahead and explain to us how you are going to continue the rort system. The parental income test will remain at $32,800, so students with parents earning more than this will continue to lose youth allowance. We were raising it from $32,800 to $44,165. It will include many more low-income families in Braddon. I know such families exist for many members here, particularly in regional and rural Australia. The age of independence will remain at 25 years rather than be lowered to 22 years by 2012, which would have seen an estimated 7,600 new recipients of the independent rate of allowance across Australia.

I ask those opposite to really consider the hundreds of thousands of students who will be negatively impacted if they do not support these amendments, which have been agreed to by the Greens and Senator Xenophon. At the same time, I ask those opposite to take on board the comments made particularly on the issue of retrospectivity. I ask you to consider what you are doing for hundreds of thousands of families.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) 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 [No. 2] with sadness at the way in which politics has been significantly played on this issue and the way in which insults and disgraceful comments have been made in this chamber about people. It is terribly distressing when there is a true intent on this issue by me and those who represent the students who will not qualify for the start-up scholarship, who will not qualify for the relocation scholarship of $4,000 and who will not qualify for the $1,000 each year following. These students are not able to get two years full-time work to be able to qualify for what is on offer here. I have never said and never put a position that many of these measures are not good measures. That has never been stated by me. I can stand in this House and honestly say, with my hand on my heart, that I have not had any contact with anybody who has indicated they are distraught because of my feelings or because of what the opposition is doing. Nobody has contacted me and said, ‘Please don’t do this,’ or, ‘Please see our side,’ or, ‘I am distraught because I’m not going to get this scholarship’. It is the biggest issue I have ever had through my electorate office. Not only is it the biggest issue I have ever had but it is the biggest issue that I continue to have—it is an ongoing issue.

The students are not stupid. We have some comments and political jargon exchanged across the House—you understand that, you accept that and that is what you are here for. Sometimes it is good-natured and sometimes it is just banter, and there will be disagreements. But it is sad to think that all of those kids who came and explained their position before the Senate committee are being categorised in this bundle of so-called ‘idiots’ on this side of the House who do not understand. These kids out there and their families who are contacting us do understand. They have everything in front of them to understand. They have nothing hidden.

This is a public place. Everything that the minister says at the dispatch box and everything that the minister has set out in the legislation is available for all to see. This is not a conspiracy that has happened on the opposition side where we are keeping everyone in the dark and only feeding them certain amounts of information. In fact, until the last week or two, I have provided no information. I have just made representations on behalf of these people. But now I keep the people who have contacted me on a database and I keep them apprised of every single thing that happens. On the minister’s side, I keep them apprised and say, ‘This is what the minister has offered, this is what she has discussed and this is the state of play.’ I keep them apprised of what is happening in the Senate. But they come back and they are still of the same mind. They are not stupid. You can call us stupid; you can call me stupid; you can make out that we have no idea what we are doing and we have it all wrong. But these people have all of the information that the minister has made available and they are still there. They are still coming back and it has not satisfied them.

One of the young girls who appeared before the inquiry sent a letter to members of parliament. I will not mention the young girl’s name, but I will read the letter.

Dear Members of Parliament,

I am extremely disappointed with the decision of the Parliament to refuse to adopt the Senate Amendments to the Government’s Youth Allowance legislation. I and my friends appeared before the Senate Review Committee and were very hopeful that the concerns we had were adopted in the amendments. It has been difficult to get our message across as we have been studying and doing exams at this time.

As an HSC Student I appreciate the Government’s efforts in altering the criteria and extending the allowance to more people but believe this has also disadvantaged students such as myself who have to leave home to study and are ineligible for the full youth allowance because my parents earn more than $32,800 per annum.

I strongly believe that working 30 hours a week in a two year period to become an independent student is detrimental to regional and remote students being able to attend university.

As a student from a regional area I will have to move to a larger centre at least three hours away to attend university. I intend to study as an early childhood or primary school teacher.

I have a job for nine months next year as a governess in the Northern Territory. Under the proposed legislation I would not qualify as an independent student, although for nine months, I will be 3,000 Kilometers from home and working more than 30 hours a week.

Unfortunately there is no employment for 30 hours a week in my small home town, I will have to move to a larger centre and will find it difficult to get a position with the few qualifications and skills that I have. I have been working casually, waitressing, teaching swimming and babysitting but this would not qualify as 30 hours a week employment.

My parents have supported me during my schooling and will continue to support me with car fuel, registration and maintenance as well as help with my accommodation fees as they have with my two older sisters. I will continue to work casually as well. Living away from home to study is expensive and many of my rural friends struggle to do this, it will be even harder for us all without the support of Youth Allowance.

I repeat: it is fantastic that there are start-up scholarships. It is great to see changes made to youth allowance—and, yes, criteria needed to be tightened. There is no doubt about that, but what we are asking for is as simple as this: to give another option to those students who cannot find 30 hours a week of full-time work for 18 months in their town. For example, they may do three harvests if they are from a rural community with no shops or businesses in the town that they can find employment at, which applies to many students in my electorate. They may do three different harvests, but that is not counted as full-time work. That may have been what they were doing before that enabled them to earn that amount of money, but they were still able to live at home in order to do this or they could travel and perhaps stay with friends or something.

This is not the time for name-calling and accusations across the House. It is the time for sensible understanding of what we are saying. I do not dispute that what other people are suggesting in this House are good measures. For the people who currently qualify for the youth allowance, it is great—they have a grand future—but, for the people who do not qualify and cannot qualify because of the restrictions that the bill places on them, I have major concerns. I should not have to be blackmailed in this place and I should not have to be exposed to ridiculous propaganda poked into my electorate—which of course gives me no pain because the editors do not even run it. I should not have to be subjected to that when all I am asking for is a reality check. All I am asking for is that, in the interests of the kids I represent, I have their voices heard. It should not come down to the ridiculous measure that is being undertaken at this moment. There should be a way in which we can work our way through it, so that we can be heard and there can be some understanding.

When I looked the comments that the so-called amendments that were put up by the coalition and which were supported in the Senate would blow a billion-dollar hole in the budget, I felt revoltingly sick. We have got a billion-dollar blow-out—hello—in the budget as a result of a whole host of measures that I could stand here and fire across, which seems to be pointless for me to do. We are investing in our children’s future. We are asking for an investment in the future of all children, not just some. We are asking for you to pick up the forgotten students in rural and regional Australia who also have an entitlement to an education. We are asking about an investment. If it did cost $1 billion, I believe that investment would be a sensational investment in the future youth of Australia.

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

Ms Gillard interjecting

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

Minister, you carp enough, thanks. It is my chance. You stood at that dispatch box—

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

Order! The member for Riverina and the deputy leader need to understand that we adjourn at 7.30.

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

The minister stood at the dispatch box. She has her say on this all of the time, and I am comfortable with that, but I am entitled to have a say for the people I represent as well. I intend to have that say. I am asking for some sensibility in this. I am asking that the young people who do not qualify for youth allowance, do not qualify for the relocation scholarship, do not qualify for the start-up scholarship et cetera be given thought and consideration because they are the ones who will be relegated to no-man’s land through this. We should sincerely understand how this has impacted.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 [No. 2]. I wish to begin by making a few observations in relation to the speech given by the member for Riverina. I certainly do not doubt the member for Riverina’s passion in trying to represent the interests of residents in her electorate, but even with the particular example that she brought forward we see an incorrect statement—an incorrect assumption of fact. That incorrect assumption of fact was the cut-out for the youth allowance. The figure of $32,000 was used. In the same way as I recognise the great work that members in this place do in communicating with their electorate, in the way that the member for Riverina has suggested, I would hope that the member for Riverina would take seriously her obligation to ensure that her constituents are properly informed about the matters that are being debated in this place. If she took that obligation seriously, which I am sure she would not fail to do deliberately, then she would point out to her constituent that, as a consequence of the changes proposed in this bill, that threshold will be increased. The significance of that is not lost on me in a community where there are many families who will benefit greatly from these measures. I represent an electorate where the median household income is $62,000. There is no doubt in my mind that there are many families in my electorate who will be positively affected by these changes.

What we are seeing here is a measure, along with a whole raft of other measures, that actually provides people with opportunities to get a tertiary education and relieves some of the financial burden of tertiary study. No-one is choosing to defend the regime that those opposite left us—the legacy. I think it was the President of the NUS who called it an ‘iniquitous legacy’—I think those were his words. They choose to not defend that, but they also choose to not put forward budget-neutral proposals. The member for Riverina says, ‘Let’s spend $1 billion. Those on the other side want to quibble about a couple of dollars here and a couple of dollars there.’ We are the government that are taking this country into great debt, so they tell us—the lowest net debt of any advanced economy in the world. They have a preoccupation with debt—they want to run fear and smear campaigns on debt—but, when it comes to throwing another $1 billion at the problem, then people suggest that is the responsible course. It is not the responsible course. Those on the other side have not come forward and defended what they left behind. It was a system where there were many rorts. It was a system that meant that many working families could not access assistance as their children were often not able to avail themselves of opportunities for higher education. That is why I am standing up in support of this bill. It will positively impact on many of those constituents in my electorate.

I wonder if the member for Riverina also effectively communicated the benefits of the relocation scholarship and what that would mean for constituents within her electorate, because that will provide a benefit—

Mrs Hull interjecting—

Well, if they do not qualify it does not cut out at the full amount. You do not lose your youth allowance at $40,000. It is graduated. In fact, the taper rate has been softened under these proposals, which expands access to youth allowance to a greater number of people.

There are many good reasons why this bill needs to be passed—there are the relocation scholarships, there is the fairer parental income test and there are the changes to the age test—but I will finish by making this observation: those on the other side come forward, particularly some regional and rural members, and say, ‘It’s terrible. Look at the state of access to education for people in rural and regional areas.’ And that is a shameful legacy. But at least now they have the good sense to come forward and acknowledge this, and I think the member for Kennedy pointed that out very robustly.

My predecessor, the former member for Lindsay, once famously said that no-one in her electorate goes to university and no-one in her electorate wants to go to university. She was out of touch when she said that, but views like that no doubt inform the sort of policy that led to many people from working families being excluded—or maybe not being excluded, but having their job of going to university made even more difficult. That, in part, is why participation rates in higher education have not improved in the way in which people in the region I represent want to see. So I am very proud to support this bill and I say to those on the other side: do what students all around this country need you to do this week to ensure that they will be able to begin the university year next year on a solid footing to go on, get an education and make a great contribution to our community.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my view the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 [No. 2] must be passed. We are at a time right now when we have two options in the raw politics of it: this either flies or dies. If it dies, that is at the expense of many students around Australia who do not deserve to be the victims of a poor first lesson in civics from this place and from the other place. My message in raw politics tonight is not necessarily to other members of this chamber; it is to someone who is just sitting up there and watching: it is to Senator Fielding in the other place. He has a critical role to play in the future payments for students wanting to go to university next year. I ask him to look deep into his soul and think very deeply about what decisions he makes on this legislation when it is next presented.

This is not perfect legislation. There are still issues around the ability of regional students to get access to university in Australia, but the targets are good. The broad target from this government—about 20 per cent of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds accessing university in the future—is a good, noble target that I hope has the support of everyone. The target of 40 per cent of students aged between 25 and 34 years having a bachelor’s degree or higher by the year 2025 is a good, noble target. The spin that this legislation is somehow putting a knife through the want for education and the aspiration for education in this country is wrong. This is a reform package that, on merit and on balance, we should support as a parliament. It is not perfect. There are still issues around retrospectivity with regard to current university students who chose to go to university in 2009 and are still trying to apply for youth allowance. They are collateral damage in this. No-one can say there has been a 100 per cent end to issues around retrospectivity. There is still the issue of people who are being left behind.

But, like the member for Braddon, many members in this place fought the good fight. To the Deputy Prime Minister’s credit, she listened to concerns about the 150,000 students who took a gap year and were potentially going to be collateral damage in this as well. To everyone’s credit, and as a good first lesson in civics, it was a successful exercise for some very engaging 18- and 19-year-olds who came down to this place, presented their message, had the minister listen and saw changes made. That affects 150,000 students around this country for the better. So the majority of the retrospectivity issues are resolved. There still is that issue of those who did go to university this year and are applying for youth allowance now. I hope that can be considered moving forward.

Having gone through this place a couple of times now, this legislation has added benefits for those who are still opposing it to consider. There is the review that was picked up in the Senate. That was a good review and a good initiative, and I hope everyone engages in it and tries to get better reforms in the future. Also, the averaging out of the 30 hours, rather than there being a blanket cut-off at 30 hours, is a small win for regional areas—it is not the whole win. I do pick up the comments from the member for Riverina. It is an issue that is a burner and I hope the minister keeps an eye on it and, if it is creating problems, that she can address those problems. But on balance this is good reform. It is not an exercise of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. For regional areas such as mine—predominantly lower socioeconomic regions—this overall package is one that deserves support. I ask the coalition to consider their position on that and, in particular, I ask Senator Fielding to reconsider his position.

Yes, we can do better. No, it is not perfect. But it is an improvement on where we have been. Representing an area where one in six school leavers go on to university, I think we can do a lot better than we have been doing. From my perspective, in my region we have got absolutely nothing to lose in a reform program. I want it to be better. It looks as if it can be better. I hope it can be better. I hope the minister and the government stay engaged if issues do emerge once this reform package is on the ground. But I say to all the members in this place who are taking a position of opposition on this: it is now down to the raw politics of the next 48 hours. There are two choices: you support this and we get it through this place and we get people getting paid and going to university next year, or we do not. I do not want to be part of a parliament that makes many people change their decisions for next year about going to university. I hope everyone thinks about that when they vote; and if they are going to oppose this then it is on their head.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr Pyne’s amendment) stand part of the question.