Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Lyne on such a good speech; it is good to hear his local community responding so well to the challenges of getting more people into higher education. I also want to talk about higher education—in particular the fact that the opposition is currently blocking a very fair package of income support and scholarships for students. The Leader of the Opposition is very good at shooting his mouth off and going too far; the Abbott habit, generally, is shooting the mouth off, going a step too far and not backing anything up with detail or evidence. So it is with youth allowance. We have a fellow out there talking it up, talking big, but in reality he is jeopardising the income and the scholarships of 150,000 students. If they continue to block these measures, 25,000 students will miss out on an increase in support and a further 75,000 will miss out on a higher part payment or receiving youth allowance as a dependent.

We have 150,000 students who will miss out on start-up scholarships unless the bill is passed. There will be no relocation scholarships, no start-up scholarships, no help for the bush, no help for poor families and no help for low-income students. I remember going to university from a country town—Kapunda. I remember travelling every day to get to my campus in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. I know how difficult it is for students at that time. You do not have much money. You do not have many resources, and you need everything that you can get. What we find here is the opposition blocking support for the sons and daughters of shop assistants and council workers in places like Clare, Whyalla, Port Pirie, Mount Gambier and Port Augusta. We see them blocking the support of sons and daughters in places like Gawler, Elizabeth and Port Noarlunga. We see the sons and daughters of people on very modest incomes who need the support of the government. We see all of that good work being blocked by the opposition and by the Leader of the Opposition.

The Leader of the Opposition is playing the macho man, the big man on campus, to satisfy this rabble opposite, the do nothing opposition. These people have not proposed any amendments to this package—they have not proposed anything constructive. They cannot add up and they do not offer costed policies. All they do is block genuine assistance for 150,000 students across the country, delaying it at a very important time, the start of their university studies. The memory in 150,000 students’ minds and in their families’ minds will be that this Liberal opposition blocked support for them at a critical time in their lives.

This is an opposition that cannot listen—or do not listen—to 39 vice-chancellors or to Professor Denise Bradley who said that the previous system was desperately unfair. They do not listen to the Greens or to Senator Xenophon who is always a good judge of what is fair. They do not listen to 150,000 students and they do not even listen to their own frontbench. The Leader of the Opposition does not even listen to the former shadow education minister, Tony Smith, who said about the old system, the system under the Howard government:

… it has become too easy for students from affluent backgrounds to qualify and too difficult for students from modest backgrounds …

Then he went on to say:

It particularly disadvantages many students—particularly those from the country—who have to leave home to study …

That was the first response from the opposition, the true response. Now they are just playing politics, engaging in a bit of malarky, opposition for opposition’s sake, do nothing opposition. They are pretending to be a government-in-exile. They are trying to talk themselves up and 150,000 students are paying the price because of it.