Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to report to the House that sanity has finally prevailed for country students today, including those in my electorate of Farrer, with the federal government forced to admit that its application of the independent youth allowance for inner regional areas is blatantly unfair. I would like to say that this obvious fact dawned on the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations all by himself, but sadly, this was not the case. Instead, as with so many of this government's policy areas, it took an outside body, an independent review, to tell the Labor Party the obvious, which was that they had left thousands of country students worse off under their changes where the only crime being committed was that a mum and dad with a young son or daughter lived on the wrong side of an arbitrary line on a map. In my electorate the Gillard government's expanded inner regional zone penalised parents and students across Albury, Greater Hume, Corowa, Berrigan, Lockhart and Deniliquin.

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

Order! It being 2 pm, the time for members' statements has concluded.