Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015. This bill will implement the government's 2015 budget measure that will provide more consistent and more generous support for families with dependent young people who qualify for certain youth income support payments. With a financial commitment from the government of $262.7 million over the forward estimates, this bill will bring extra support to families as their children move into young adulthood—particularly rural and regional families whose children continue to study beyond year 12.

From 1 January 2016, this will include removing the family assets test and the family actual means test from the youth allowance parental means test arrangements. This will result in a more consistent level of support for families, as young people move from family tax benefit part A to an individual income support payment. The parental income test exemptions for youth allowance will also be aligned with existing arrangements for family tax benefit part A.

Removing the family assets test for youth allowance will allow around 4,100 additional dependent youth allowance claimants to qualify for the first time, accessing average annual payments of more than $7,000 a year. Removing the family actual means test will see around 1,200 more people receiving youth allowance for the first time, as well as increasing payments for around 4,860 existing students by approximately $2,000 a year.

The changes will reduce the significant regulatory burden on around 30,000 families subject to the family actual means test and around 200,000 families subject to the family assets test. The changes mean farming families will not have farm assets counted toward the means test for their dependent children claiming youth allowance.

A further beneficial component of this budget measure will apply from 1 July 2016 to expand the 'family pool' for the youth parental income test to include a notional maximum rate of family tax benefit part A for all of the children for whom the parents have financial responsibility. This will apply to families that have dependent children receiving individual youth payments which are parental income tested and which also have younger dependent siblings, and will result in a lower rate of reduction to the dependent child's youth allowance than is currently the case.

These changes will be particularly important to the people of the Parkes electorate. I have had countless contacts and meetings with parents who are struggling to access tertiary education for their children. We have mentioned in here that farm assets will be exempt, which will be very important. But it is also important for a lot of people in regional Australia who are working in town and have a combined income—and I will use the example of a policeman married to a schoolteacher—which until now has made it very difficult to access funds and to send their children away to university. We have had the case in families with two or three children where a decision has been made by the parents about which of their children can go to university and receive a tertiary education and which cannot, which is completely unacceptable. So these changes will be very much welcomed.

Including all FTB children in the family pool for the youth parental income test will allow around 13,700 families with dependent children in both the family tax benefit part A and youth systems to become eligible for an average increase in payment of around $1,100 a year. Around 5,800 families who currently miss out on payments due to the combined higher taper rates will also become eligible for an average payment of around $1,300 a year. Additionally, in a two-stage process from 1 January 2016, maintenance income will be removed from the youth allowance parental income test assessment. From 1 January 2017, a separate maintenance income test for the treatment of child support will be applied, like the test that currently applies to family tax benefit part A.

This bill is boosting assistance for working families, smoothing the transition to individual payments for young people, and better supporting them to study to build their careers, develop economic opportunities and contribute to our community. I will conclude on this by saying that there is one thing that will rectify the multitude of problems across our society, and that is education. At the moment, a young person from regional Australia is 30 per cent less likely to access tertiary education than someone from a metropolitan area. As someone who prior to coming to this place, in my previous occupation as a farmer, has educated three children through university, I understand the financial burden that is placed upon families. So this is a very good step forward in allowing people from regional Australia to level that playing field and giving them an opportunity to receive an education that will not only benefit them but ultimately benefit those regional communities from whence they came, because anyone that has a qualification as a professional person is more likely to go and work in a regional area if they were actually born and raised there in the first place. So I have great pleasure in supporting this bill.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015. I must say that in fact this issue is one of the reasons, I think, that I am in this parliament. As I raised my children, I realised just difficult it was for those of us that live in regional Australia to get our children particularly through tertiary education but even through secondary education if there is a need to send them away for that period of their life, and it got me actively involved on a mission in politics, if you like. In fact, at one stage I managed to sponsor a motion through the Liberal Party Federal Council in support of a better outcome for regional students. I was a little frustrated that, of course, that did not make immediate changes to the political world, and I guess my eyes were opened somewhat. So I became more involved in the political process, and perhaps that is one of the triggers that led me to the position that I hold today.

I normally subscribe to the theory that as long as people are able they should shoulder some responsibility for their choices in life, and that includes where they live. So if we choose to live in my electorate, for instance, in the far west so we can access the great surfing beaches at places like Cactus, or if we choose to live at Oodnadatta because we like the peace and quiet, that is our choice, and if the groceries cost more in that shop they cost more in that shop. But, of course, children do not have a choice, because children are necessary baggage with their parents, and they go where their parents and guardians take them. So, if they cannot realise their dreams and find a path to tertiary education because their parents have made a choice, I do not think we should allow that decision to run against them. That is why I think governments should be in that place, making sure that we are presenting a more even playing field. I even produced a paper on this subject in 2009, and in fact the member for Gippsland, who is sitting in front of you at the moment, Mr Deputy Speaker, said to me only the other day, 'That paper is still relevant; those points that you make are still very real in this debate.'

In 2009—that is why I developed the paper—I hoped for a better outcome. There was a time when we were in opposition and I was hoping to improve the situation we had. But in fact the government of the day, the Labor government under Kevin Rudd, made changes in this area to youth allowance eligibility. Some, I would have to say, were good, inasmuch as that government limited the ability for people living at home in the city to substantially gain out of the system for independent living, but some were extremely deleterious to country students—in particular on the independence test for youth allowance. So instead of progressing country students, as I had hoped, we were ceding ground. There was a long ground war after these decisions by the previous government, and regional members Australia-wide—who, I must say, are nearly all coalition—were incensed. After a long campaign, in March 2010 then Prime Minister Rudd finally backed down on most of the changes relating to the independent youth allowance and, in particular, restored the previous arrangements for those in outer regional and remote Australia. By 2011, the government ceded yet more ground and gave the same conditions to inner regional Australia. So, apart from the stricter means test, we had almost turned full circle. But, of course, given that I was unhappy about that particular position in the first place, it stands to reason that I would still be lobbying, first in opposition and now in government, for a better deal for country students.

I quote from a speech that I gave to this place in October 2009, raising issues of rural disadvantage.

However, there is another form of disadvantage that governments have been less willing to accept responsibility for. Those who live in the country who have to leave the parental home to attend university have an inbuilt financial disadvantage. Where other students can live at home cheaply with the support of family, country students and their families face years of extra costs amounting to tens of thousands of dollars per student.

That statement is still relevant today, and country students and their families face years of extra costs amounting to tens of thousands of dollars per student.

During this whole period there has been a united group within the coalition that have continued to lobby for change, and that has included the member for Gippsland. A reoccurring theme for regional MPs has been this situation where we have families that are asset rich and income poor. It particularly pertains to the farming industry but not only the farming industry. You might have a farmer or a motel owner that is struggling for reasons due to drought and the economic downturn in regional communities and not getting a great income from their asset and is often worse off than a straight wage earner, and their children have been ineligible for assistance because the family is deemed to control assets. It is not a fair and proper arrangement to then turn on the people that control these assets and say, 'You must mortgage them up to get your children an education.' In fact, if it is a poorly performing asset in the first place, imparting greater debt on them so they can finance their children's way through education is only undermining the very model that supports them in the first place.

Students are not stupid; otherwise they would not be seeking a higher education, perhaps. They know when a family can or cannot afford to send them away, in this case, to university. We have the HECS and HELP schemes, but it is this issue of supporting that person in situ that rests most heavily on the family. They know when their families can or cannot afford this outcome. So rather than say to their family, 'I really want to go to university, but I understand that we cannot afford it so I will go off and get a job locally, sweeping the floor at the local garage,' instead they say to their family: 'I don't really want to go to university. I would rather have that job down at the local garage.' The kids are sending an open message to the family that reduces the guilt that particular family might have about not being able to support them on their dreams. So I think the level of unmet need or unmet desire to go to higher levels of education within rural and regional communities is understated for this fact.

This legislation, amongst other things, removes the family actual assets test. It is estimated that that will enable an extra 4,100 students to qualify for assistance. It removes the family means test. It is estimated that that will assist another 1,200 students to access appropriate assistance. It places the means test in sync with the family tax benefit part A, as of course it should. There is no logical reason why you would not line up these criteria together. This is a huge move for the thousands of isolated families in Australia. As I said, 4,100 in the first instance from just the family actual assets test, to an outcome that will probably produce about $7,000 a year extra for them to meet, primarily, accommodation expenses. It is a big step and it is a great win for those of us within the coalition that have continued to lobby for change in this area.

There are a raft of other changes, of course: altering arrangements where parents receive income support payments, to iron out some of the cliff faces where students are transitioning from family tax benefit A to individual support, removing a number of superfluous exemptions and bringing ABSTUDY into line. These are basically housekeeping measures, but, in total, the commitment from the government will cost an extra $262 million over the forward estimates. From my point of view, the big move is the removal of the family actual assets test and the family means test for youth allowance, and I say hooray.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure I join this debate on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015, but also it is a great pleasure to follow my good friend and colleague the member for Grey, who spoke very eloquently and made the case about the unique barriers which confront regional families when it comes to helping their children go on to achieve their full potential. And like the member for Grey, one of my great motivations in even running for parliament was to make sure that I could do my bit to help young people achieve their full potential in Gippsland, or in other parts of regional Australia. It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate on some positive news, but I hasten to add I still regard the area of student income support, and youth allowance more generally, as a policy area of unfinished business, where there is more work to be done.

But the bill before the House does provide more generous means-testing arrangements for youth payments, and the changes will help regional and rural families to better support the transition of their children from school through to further study, including those children who continue to study beyond year 12. As the member for Grey indicated, around 1,200 families from regional and remote areas will be eligible for an increase in payment from the removal of the family actual means test, and there are also expected benefits from the removal of the family assets test. This change, in particular for farming families, will mean that their farm assets will not be counted toward the test for their children accessing youth allowance.

All families currently subject to the family assets test and the family actual means test will benefit by reduced regulatory burden. So this is a great win for many regional MPs who have lobbied for change in this area. In addition, some children from regional and remote areas who often face higher study costs associated with living away from home will benefit from an increase in their rate of youth allowance and we will see others qualify for youth allowance for the first time, with some of them able to access payments of more than $7,000 a year.

The bill follows a great deal of hard work by the member for Grey and many others. But I would like to acknowledge the Victorian senator Bridget McKenzie, who was part of the interdepartmental committee on access to higher education for regional and remote students and was one of the driving forces behind the changes we see before the House today.

Removing complex and unnecessary means testing and improving the operation of parental income test is a good first step in responding to the concerns that have been raised by parents in relation to means testing, and will also assist with the level of participation of young regional people in tertiary studies. While the changes are great news, they will certainly boost the numbers of families that the government will assist, and that level of assistance will encourage more young people into study to help build their careers, which will make an important economic contribution and a major boost to the skills base of regional communities.

Looking at the speaking list for today's bill, I note that, of the 20 MPs listed to speak, every one of them is regionally based. It is an important point to make, because this is an issue which tends to divide this House on the basis of city versus country. As I said in my opening remarks, I regard this very much as unfinished business: there is still work to be done. The reason so many regional MPs are speaking on this bill is that they recognise that there is still a great deal of work to be done. I encourage my city based colleagues in this place on both sides of the House to take the time to try and understand this issue, because it is complex.

As the member for Grey indicated in his comments, this is not an issue of children making the choice to live in rural and regional communities; it is a decision that their parents have made, and the children find themselves at a significant disadvantage when it comes to furthering their career options. This is about helping young regional people achieve their dreams. This is making sure that young people in our regional communities do not have barriers placed in front of them which we can reasonably address in this place.

The system of student income support, as it stands today, is still broken, and the changes before the House today are a very important step; however, they do not change the fundamental concerns I have with the issue of access for young people in regional communities who are forced to move away from home to attend university. It is a totemic issue for regional MPs across the pay divide. What we are seeing right now is a direct transfer of wealth from the pockets of regional families into the city based landlords or city based universities.

We are still failing to grapple with the fundamental concerns that many regional MPs have about this issue. There are two points at the heart of underperformance or underinvolvement of regional students in universities: one is the aspirational barrier—we need to get better as leaders in our regional communities at encouraging young people in regional towns to aspire to achieve great things in their lives. It is a challenge for us to address in our communities. The second is an economic barrier, and we can do something about that in this place. We can help regional families overcome some of the cost barriers that are placed in their way when their children are forced to move away from home to attend a course and improve their skills.

The economic barriers faced by regional students are the costs on top of the costs that every other student faces. The member for Grey mentioned the HECS system, and every student has the opportunity to defer the payment of their course costs through the HECS system. But a young person moving from Gippsland to attend university in Melbourne faces additional costs: rent, living in a residence or travelling back and forth from home—sometimes three or four hours, if they want to return and still be part of their family back in their community. The magnitude of those costs is somewhere in the vicinity of $15,000 to $20,000 per year—that is $15,000 to $20,000 of after-tax income which is being directly transferred from a regional family into the city. I think it is something that this House can do more to address into the future.

I have a very different view to some members on this issue of student income support, because I do not regard it as a welfare or a social security issue; I regard this fundamentally as an issue about fairness and access. If we do not have the capacity in Australia to establish regional universities and university courses within close proximity to all the young people in our community, then we have to make sure that we are prepared to assist all regional students who are forced to move away from home to attend the course of their choice. We need to improve access to our nation's universities for regional students who often have no other option than to travel many hundreds of kilometres away from their home and support networks to pursue the course of their choice. This is a social issue in the sense that it makes good sense, because these young people are more likely to return to their regional communities with the skills they have developed at university, whether it be in law, engineering, health, teaching or other sought-after professions. The bill is a good start but it is really only a down payment on the complete reform, which is still required.

I am on the public record many times in support of a policy position which the Nationals have developed at the grassroots level—and it has been through state conferences and federal conferences of the National Party. That position is one of a tertiary access allowance, which means that any student within reasonable income test considerations forced to travel in excess of 90 minutes to attend a university will receive some level of support for those living-away-from-home costs which other members have spoken about. It is a simple recognition of the additional costs which regional families face when forced to send their loved ones, their children, away from home to attend university.

We need to do more to ease the burden on not only the families but the students themselves and the younger remaining siblings, which the member for Grey and the member for Parkes also spoke about. We have situations where families have more than one child at university, or one child at university, and children still at home and the wealth being taken out of that family has a genuine deleterious impact on the children remaining at home. I have heard stories from parents who have had to make a choice about which child they send to university. I would suggest that in 2015 we can do a little better than that.

I mentioned the impact that this economic barrier has on students. I fear that our high drop-out rate and high deferment rates for regional students have a lot to do with the pressure we place on these students when they move away from home to attend university. In many ways, my fear is that we are actually setting these children up to fail, because they are under more pressure than perhaps their city counterparts. For one, these are 17- to 18-year-olds leaving home for the first time. They are setting up a home for the first time a long way from their support networks. Because mum and dad do not necessarily have all the resources to support them, they are going to have to work part time. They are going to have to learn to live in a new city. They are going to have to safely navigate and negotiate their way round that city but also return home, if that is their choice, on weekends.

These are the issues many constituents raise with me on a weekly basis. In fact, when the former Gillard-Rudd government made changes to youth allowance—I think it was around 2009—I had literally thousands of people sign petitions in protest of the changes that were made. As the member for Grey indicated, it led to quite a significant campaign amongst regional MPs. Eventually, we did force some changes in the original proposal put forward by the then education minister, Julia Gillard—and I thank her for being prepared to make some concessions. But we still have not solved the problem, and I fear that we are still a long way from pulling together the political will in this place when I refer to the speaking list today and I see the 20 members who are speaking on this issue are all regionally based. Again, I encourage my city based colleagues to look at this issue with fresh eyes and gain, perhaps, a better understanding of the additional costs and barriers that regional families face when helping their young people achieve their full potential.

The point I want to make in closing is in relation to the skills shortage we face in many regional communities. We have had other speakers comment today that, undoubtedly, the people most likely to set up careers, to open an office, to set up a practice and to use their skills in a regional setting are probably young people who have had experience in that regional community in the first place.

We export a lot of great things from our regional communities. In my own electorate of Gippsland, we export dairy products, timber products, seafood and horticultural products. Beef, lamb, wool—you name it, we export it. But our most precious export is, undoubtedly, the children we send to university, and we want to bring them back. We want to have the opportunity to bring those children back in the future and bring their skills back to our regional communities. But if we do not invest in them at that young age—at 17, 18 and 19 through to 21, when they are at university—if we do not help them address that economic barrier, I fear that we will not give them their full opportunity to achieve their absolute best.

I am not one who suggests that going to university is the be-all and end-all. I certainly support as much investment as the government can afford in trades and other forms of training. But I do agree with the member for Grey, who indicated that we have the situation in regional communities where young people place limits on themselves on the basis of knowing what their family can afford. That is a barrier that no young person growing up in Gippsland or other parts of regional Australia should have to place on themselves.

I believe we have the capacity in this place in the coming months and years to, from at least an economic perspective, address this one barrier for young people who are moving away from home to attend university. We actually have the capacity in this place, in the decisions we make, to make a very real difference in young people's lives. I believe we can do better. I am very heartened by the fact that members opposite from regional communities have spoken in favour of this change and other changes in the past. I am also heartened by the fact that, on this side of the House, amongst my Liberal colleagues and National Party colleagues, there is a unanimous view, a considered and determined view, to continue to pursue this issue within the government. I believe we have great capacity to do better in relation to the level of support we can provide for young people who move away from home to attend university and, just as importantly, I believe we can support their families and the regional communities that they have come from.

I believe the legislation before the House today is an important first step, but I will continue to work with members of good faith who share my passion for helping regional students achieve their full potential. I will continue to work with them in the months and years ahead to ensure we are doing everything we can to allow young people in regional communities the same opportunities—I am not after anything more—that their city based cousins and friends can enjoy. I commend the bill to the House.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe that supporting our younger generations to access higher education is one of the great investments we can make in our future. At a very personal level, this is an issue I care about deeply. I was a country kid who was lucky enough to go away to university and do three degrees. As for so many other country kids, that was an opportunity that was life changing, and I want to see that passed on to the next generation of children growing up in the bush.

I have also been involved with one of the residential colleges at the University of Sydney that, in recent years, has given out millions of dollars in scholarships to kids wanting to go to university to give them every opportunity to participate in education at one of the world's leading universities.

The benefits of education to country communities cannot be overstated. Not only is access to good education life changing, it can be absolutely transformative for the communities themselves. It fosters leadership, it encourages enterprise and innovation, it brings new skills to a region and, importantly, it helps keep our country towns vibrant and viable. It is true that many of these people who go off to study outside their home town may not come back, but many do come back. Whilst it might not happen immediately, it certainly happens over time. For too long, though, rural students, including many from my own electorate of Hume, have been disadvantaged when it comes to accessing government support while they are studying. That is why I am so supportive of this bill.

What is the problem we are trying to solve here? As a country, we know that education is central to prosperity and to innovation, but we need to confront the relatively low tertiary education levels in rural areas. My colleague Senator Bridget McKenzie has been a very strong advocate of these changes in her own quest to ensure that regional students get fairer access to education. She showed me some ABS figures from 2011 showing how regional and remote areas account for just 21 per cent of domestic undergraduate higher education enrolments. These students also tend to have lower year 12 completion rates than city students, which often affects aspirations. Not only are enrolments lower, as I said, but completions are lower. We saw this in a Joining the Dots briefing released this year from the Australian Council for Educational Research which found that 74 per cent of all students who commenced university in 2005 had completed but for regional students the completion rate was only 69 per cent and for remote students it was 60 per cent. It was even lower for Indigenous students. So we can see a strong correlation between completion rates and where students come from. At the same time, we know that youth unemployment and underemployment is unacceptably high in parts of regional Australia and in parts of my electorate. We know that with younger people the problem is not just unemployment, which is sitting at 14 per cent and higher, but also underemployment, which is not always as clear from the figures.

Why do we have this problem in rural areas? In a national tertiary access research survey conducted by the Isolated Children's Parents' Association in 2013, 93 per cent of members found the cost of tertiary education for their children was a huge challenge. The cost is a huge challenge. More than half of the families surveyed were living 500 to 2,000 kilometres from the nearest university offering the required course. The expense of tertiary study is not the study itself and this is a mistake that is often made. People think the real issue is the cost of the university tuition. It is not; it is the living expenses, which most kids or their families struggle to afford.

The Deferring a University Offer in Victoria report last year concluded that financial stresses and travel-related costs are the biggest barriers for rural and regional students. University of Melbourne researcher Professor John Polesel says, 'Factors such as money, university location, travelling long distances and a desire to stay at home are more likely to affect non-metropolitan students.' Hear, hear to that! We know that is absolutely right. Under existing legislation for accessing youth allowance, students from the bush often need to work a few jobs to make ends meet, leaving little time to study. They also find it harder to secure part time work after re-locating.

The pressure of the work-study overload is often too much for some students who withdraw from study and move home to work or find a full-time job before completing their tertiary qualifications. That accounts for the lower completion rates which I talked about earlier. Until now, students from rural and regional areas have endured a significant handicap as their city-based contemporaries often have the benefit of completing their tertiary studies while living at home with their parents.

So what are we doing about it? The government recognises the need to make it easier and fairer for country students to access youth income payments so they can complete their studies. As a government and as a nation we are committed to supporting productivity gains and innovation. This means removing those barriers to vocational and university study and supporting our young people to develop their skills. We know that there is a strong link between tertiary study and expansive employment opportunities and that it is much more pronounced in rural and regional areas.

This amendment bill provides more generous means testing for youth payments and will enable more generous and consistent support for families with dependent young people who qualify for certain youth income support payments. Among some of the very welcome changes is the removal of the family assets test and the family actual means test from the youth allowance parental means test arrangements. This will mean that farm assets are not counted towards the means test for their dependent children who are claiming youth allowance.

Removing the family assets test for youth allowance will allow around 4,100 additional dependent youth allowance claimants to qualify for the first time. They will access average annual payments of more than $7,000 a year. Removing the family actual means test will see around 1,200 more people receiving youth allowance for the first time and that will also mean increasing payments for around 4,860 existing students by approximately $2,000 a year. The bill is focused on boosting assistance for working families, particularly in rural and regional areas. With a financial commitment from the government of $263 million over the forward estimates, the bill will bring extra support to some 30,000 families as their children move into young adulthood.

To qualify for youth allowance, many rural students, especially those from farms, defer their study and work for a year or two to qualify for independence from their families. For farming families, part of the reason for this is that family farms were considered in the means test for dependent children. By removing that test, we can send a message to rural students that we want them to acquire new skills, expertise and training. From my own perspective, I hope those skills and expertise flow back to the bush.

I want to say a couple of things about the importance of creating jobs as part of this. We hear often that, with the burgeoning number of people going on to tertiary education, particularly to university, we are struggling to find work for all of them, particularly work that is relevant to the study they have done. Through complementary social services legislation, the government is introducing a series of measures to encourage job service providers and job seekers to comply with mutual service obligations and most importantly to help them to get into work quickly.

There is a very simple story as to what drives jobs growth. There is the demand side and the supply side and there is matching the two together. On the demand side, the key is to control government consumption and to strongly encourage investment. For instance, just outside my electorate tens of thousands of jobs will come from the construction phase of Badgerys Creek airport, the EIS for which was released a few weeks ago. Depending on how the redistribution unfolds, that may ultimately be part of the newly formed electorate of Hume. We understand the demand side of the economy does not need a jobs plan; what it needs is good, hard-headed economics and a very strong focus on investment and driving infrastructure investment from the public sector.

The supply side and the matching is all about getting potential employees into a position where they can find work and they have the skills to do that work. It is partly about industrial relations, but it is also about welfare and the job search system. That is exactly what we are focused on in much of the work the government is doing. Many of the researchers and experts in labour market economics tell us that the unemployment benefit system and job search system are absolutely crucial in influencing unemployment and getting people into work. This is particularly so for countries with a relatively generous level of benefit, like Australia.

We are investing $5 billion in employment services to better meet the needs of job seekers, employers and employment providers. Our real objective is to promote strong workforce participation by people of working age and to help more job seekers move from welfare to work. To do that we are providing much stronger incentives for employment providers to deliver high-quality services. Part of that is paying them for outcomes, which would seem like an eminently sensible thing to do but was not part of the previous setup. We are also seeking to take away a lot of the red tape from employment providers—they have been wrapped in red tape up until now. Much of the training we are looking to do through the employment service providers is much more targeted and we are not seeking to do training for training's sake.

Job seekers need to understand that our system requires mutual obligation—they have to do their bit—and we are simplifying and extending the mutual obligation framework to ensure job seekers remain actively engaged while looking for work. It is not about box ticking; it has to be far more fundamental than that.

The government's new jobactive program and related programs are providing real assistance to people looking for meaningful work. I was recently at Young meeting with a group of local people who had signed up for one of a number of local Work for the Dole projects. Work for the Dole is being run through jobactive providers. At Young, the jobactive providers include the Salvation Army, MBC, Max Employment and Employment Services Group. The Work for the Dole team at the Young showground has been doing a tremendous job fixing up showground buildings and grounds, preparing the grounds ahead of the recent show—which was a huge success. Much of the work on the grounds that led up to this most recent show was being done by this Work for the Dole group.

One of the participants, Cassandra Gendle, who has been on the team since August, said she has 'learnt a lot and is getting a lot more confident working around other people'. That is a great endorsement. Team leader Mick Alexander said he is seeing a lot of positives from the project—including teamwork, mateship, self-pride and higher self-esteem for participants. Jobactive is all about delivering outcomes, not just ticking boxes, and I am really backing it.

Returning to the bill before the chamber, country families are all too familiar with the reality that a good education is often about leaving home, and personal family sacrifices are made to make that happen. My wife, Louise, and I have become strong supporters of the Country Education Foundation of Australia. It does invaluable work helping disadvantaged rural students access grants and scholarships. The work of the CEFA is an investment in the future of rural and regional Australia. It is a model of locally based grants, and it is proof of the sound return on investment when it comes to supporting rural students.

In 1993 a group of people from Boorowa got together to support and encourage their school leavers to pursue tertiary education. They started raising funds, and in the first year raised $5,000 and provided scholarships to five students. The idea soon spread to the nearby communities of Yass, Cowra and Harden, all towns in the Hume electorate. In 2003 the foundation went national and it has since grown to a network of more than 40 local education foundations across Australia.

This year CEFA has given out over 400 grants—nearly half a million dollars. CEFA is funded through private and corporate philanthropy and receives no government funding. Research by Social Ventures Australia indicates that, for every dollar invested, a social return of $3.10 is generated. That is an extraordinary return on investment. This bill, similarly, is a downpayment on our nation's future. It is about boosting assistance for working families, particularly in rural and regional areas. It is about better supporting young people into study, to build their careers, develop economic opportunities and contribute to our economy across Australia and particularly in regional areas. I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015. In fact, this is legislative change that I have advocated for for a very long time. We have had workshops; we have had demonstrations; we have had our young students signing petitions; we have had them meeting in the mall in the city of greater Shepparton—all arguing that it is not fair that rural and regional students—who have to pay so much more to live away from home for tertiary education—should be held back because the legislation did not properly reflect their family's circumstances. They have been denied the support that metropolitan students receive by virtue of their families living near the tram tracks or living a short distance away from the place they need to attend for their education.

This bill introduces one of the changes outlined in the 2015 budget and it is going to provide much better support for our young people. The aim is to align the parental means-testing arrangements for youth allowance with the arrangements for family tax benefit part A. The changes will in particular remove a family assets test and the family actual means test from the youth allowance means-testing arrangements starting from 1 January next year. They will align the parental income test exemptions for youth allowance with current arrangements for family tax benefit part A, and that will also occur from 1 January 2016.

The changes will not include maintenance income paid to parents in the youth allowance parental income test assessment from 1 January 2016. The changes will introduce a new maintenance income test as part of the youth allowance parental income test to assess child support paid to a parent from 1 January 2017. The changes will include all dependent children who qualify for family tax benefit in the family pool for youth allowance parental income test not just those children who are senior secondary schoolchildren aged 16 or more, and that will commence from 1 January 2016.

These changes to the family assets and income assessment are going to mean in particular that people in rural areas will have a better chance to access higher education in Australia. Removing the family assets test will allow around 4,100 additional dependent youth allowances for young people to qualify for the first time. Around 1,200 families from regional and remote areas will be eligible for an increase in payment by the removal of the family actual means test. They are also expected to benefit from the removal of the family assets test.

In addition, these measures will also increase the payments for around 4,860 existing students by approximately $2,000 extra per year. That is very important. We estimate it costs a rural student on average about $20,000 to live away from home. That is in addition of course to the fees and charges and equipment that other students will also pay. If you have more than one family member in tertiary study, you can imagine how that soon mounts up to a situation where students do not even apply for tertiary education entrance because they are aware of the distress, perhaps even embarrassment, that a parent will have when they literally cannot afford for that young student to go away and follow a career with a tertiary education.

Young people from rural and remote areas are, therefore, not surprisingly underrepresented in higher education enrolments. The 2011 ABS census found that 27 per cent of 15 to 64-year-olds live in rural and remote areas, but students from those areas only accounted for 21 per cent of the domestic undergraduate higher education enrolments. This is particularly concerning in my region, which is officially called Hume for the east of the electorate and Loddon Mallee to the west of the electorate. My area is suffering from drought, particularly in the west of the electorate—in fact, there are food parcels now supporting many families.

I met with the Salvation Army in Bendigo just last week. They are concerned that they have such a run on food distributions to farm families that they haven't the resources to continue and that their regional rural counsellor, who is dealing with the emotional distress of being so impoverished at the moment due to the seasonal conditions, will run out of money for his support in June next year. They are most concerned about what will happen when there is not even that locally based financial and emotional counsellor available to support the families.

You can imagine those families contemplating the cost of $20,000-plus for their student to live away from home to study. It is an extra distress and a real sense of loss and disappointment when a family in such straitened circumstances cannot afford to have their student realise their opportunities when they do have their results at the end of year 12, because they may be accepted into a course but the course is elsewhere.

There is the cost of relocation for a rural student plus the cost of accommodation, their travel to and from their home, communicating back home, mobile phone use, the possible need to own a car, textbooks, computers and other needs when they are studying. All of these pose a barrier for rural and regional people to undertake higher education. Young people from rural and regional Australia are more often faced with these higher costs than lower-income people in metropolitan areas, because there is often no local university they can access or, if there is a local university, they only offer the first year of a course in the local regional city or town. They are expected to travel in their second or subsequent years to a campus which again will require them to live away from home, so it is only deferring the cost for one year. When the student and their family look at that situation, they are still faced with the fact that they cannot even afford to apply for university in the first instance.

When there is a university course available locally, there are often no alternatives other than having private transport to the place. There is very little public transport in most regional areas. It is also very often the case that these students need additional assistance because they are the first member of a family who has had university education. In my city of Shepparton, the population who attends university for the first time often also needs English as a second language support—extra cost for the university and the student.

The rural and remote higher education students are more likely to be from a lower-middle-SES background compared to metropolitan students. In 2013, 35 per cent of regional students and 43 per cent of remote students were from a low-socioeconomic-status background, in comparison with only 13 per cent of metropolitan students. That is a very stark difference indeed. In the state of Victoria, the Greater Shepparton children report of 2014 found there were 24.6 per cent who were disengaged school leavers—meaning those not involved in work of study at all—compared to the Victorian average figure of 15.4 per cent. It was getting close to double the number of disengaged school leavers in the City of Greater Shepparton compared to the Victorian state average. You will not be surprised, then, that there is over 26 per cent youth unemployment in the City of Greater Shepparton. Many of those young people did not even apply for higher education options, knowing that their families simply could not find the funds to support those young people living away from home.

While deferral of studies by students ranged from 5.8 per cent in the western metropolitan Melbourne region to 9.3 per cent in the southern metropolitan region, deferrals in non-metropolitan areas—for example, in the Loddon-Mallee region—were 12.6 per cent, again substantially higher than metropolitan. The deferral rates were 17.2 per cent in the Hume region, which includes the City of Greater Shepparton. That 17.2 per cent of deferrals compares with just 5.8 in the western metropolitan region of Melbourne. So you can see that even the deferral rates are substantially higher. This is very often students seeking to do a gap year in the hope that after a year of working they might gain independent status, which was important under the old system, or be able to save enough to support themselves at least in their first year of away-from-home studies.

Among young people from non-metropolitan regions of Victoria, 43.6 per cent said they were waiting to qualify for youth allowance to finance their studies. That is just under half. That is substantially higher than deferrers in Barwon and south-western regions. Those saying they were trying to do a gap year to be able to finance their studies in the future in the Hume region rose to 57 per cent. One of the concerns when you take a gap year, of course, is that you do not return to your studies. There is a very significant proportion of those students, even with the very best of intentions for pursuing the career of their dreams, who will find they are not able to pick up those studies after that one year of deferment. There are a number of reasons, chief amongst those lack of financial capacity.

As I said, it can cost up to $20,000 to live away from home. If you are depending on food parcels literally to put food on the table on your dried-off dairy farm in the Dingee area, you are not going to be able even to contemplate your student applying for university.

This bill introduced by the coalition should give young people in rural and remote Australia a far better chance to achieve their career goals and aspirations, and that is only fair. It is un-Australian to do anything else. Given the huge difficulties now being faced by families in drought throughout eastern Australia and the man-made water insecurity and price hikes in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales, we are now seeing farm family distress like never before. With farm career futures less likely for the sons and daughters of many farm families, it is essential that they can afford to live away from home to study an alternative career in an alternative life. Unfortunately, if there are cost barriers in the way, there are few unskilled or semiskilled jobs that they can look to if they cannot move from the region to gain some real career qualifications. With those qualifications they can return to that area as professionals. Ironically, studying agricultural science is one of the surest ways to be employed after graduation from your university course. There are said to be two or three jobs for every agricultural science graduate in Australia. But given the general reputation of agriculture at the moment as an occupation that is too high risk, with incomes being too low for the investment required even to commence becoming an independent, self-sufficient farm, too many students out of rural areas are not choosing to pursue agricultural science as a career, even though the job prospects after study are so enticing.

One of the issues there is that better career counselling is needed in rural and regional secondary schools. I am most concerned that in a very recent survey undertaken in the City of Greater Shepparton area, many of the students, even with career counsellors in their schools, were unaware that such support was available to them. Numbers of students had no idea of what prospects there were in the region in terms of employment or what higher education or training or, indeed, tertiary studies could lead to. In addition to this legislation making it more possible for rural and regional students to attend university, I am hoping that the innovations that our Minister for Education is only too aware are necessary for our rural and regional students include better, professional career counselling. This would not be from a teacher who has been in the local system for very many years—many decades often—and who has no knowledge about what is available beyond her own classroom or the confines of the school grounds.

We have a situation in inland Australia of a real hollowing out of opportunity and income. Our rural communities too often look with envy at the metropolitan life experience in those places that cling to the sea shores—the fertile crescents around Australia—particularly, in eastern Australia. We have got to make sure that the great value in Australia of equality for all in fact plays out for rural and regional students when it comes to their access to higher education. We know that a tertiary education can lead to much better job prospects. It can lead to much greater mobility—both socially and occupationally—across the country for a lifetime. I commend this bill to the House. It has been a long time coming and a lot of work has been done by so many from this side of the House. I commend all of those who have worked so long and hard and have been around the regions. It is an excellent bill and it is time for it to become the law.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Murray for her contribution, which I think hit the nub of the feelings of regional and rural representatives in this house of parliament. It has been a long time coming and it is a very worthy piece of legislation, indeed, as I stand to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015. The coalition is committed to young Australians. We are committed to delivering better outcomes for them and we remain committed to giving them a hand-up, not just a handout. Whilst we are significantly tightening accountability within the Social Services portfolio, we are also delivering more realistic and more generous means testing for youth payments, and I know that will come as tremendous news for so many Australian families. This bill seeks to remedy some of the ways in which means testing has fallen short of the mark in delivering youth allowance to those who should be receiving it. This bill is consistent with that commitment and is a consequence of the sound fiscal management of this government because, when you manage the nation's finances in an effective and efficient manner, the taxpayer can then afford to give those of our young people that are in need a hand-up when they need it.

It is through providing more jobs and increased growth that this government is ensuring our generous social welfare system remains sustainable into the future. That is why the ALP's reckless political games around the blocking of the China free trade agreement was so fundamentally reckless. Those opposite care more about appeasing the militant CFMEU than they do about ensuring our economy can continue to provide a sustainable and cohesive social welfare system. When in government, they wrote blank cheques that they could not afford in this social services space and drove the country to the brink through their erratic and inefficient fiscal management. Conversely, this government has delivered free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and now China. We have positioned this great country's economy to take advantage of these emerging and populist markets. It is such prudent and responsible fiscal management which has ensured that this government can deliver a more generous means test for calculating youth allowance. It is only a coalition government that can provide a guarantee to the Australian people on social security sustainability.

This government remains absolutely conscious of the obligation we have to the taxpayer. That is why this more generous means test for youth allowance is characterised by nuance. This bill's nuanced approach to means testing is indicative of the understanding this government has of the needs of our young Australians and the demands of fiscal responsibility, because, whilst we of the government side want to provide even greater opportunity to our young Australians, we have taken an obligation to the taxpayer very seriously indeed. This government is committed to an affordable and sustainable social welfare system that is fundamentally rooted in sound economic management of the taxpayer's wallet. This government is not in the business of pursuing populist economic policy. We want to make the right decisions, and sometimes we have to make the hard decisions to deliver better economic results for this nation.

The financial impacts of this bill have been scrutinised and weighed against the benefits they will deliver for our young Australians. Due to measures enacted in this bill, our young people will be better off, and the taxpayer will get a return on the investment we are making in our young men and our young women. This bill introduces measures announced in the 2015 budget. It provides more generous and consistent support for some of our younger Australians. The coalition believes in investing in our young people and in unlocking their potential regardless of the circumstances in which they have been raised.

This bill is utterly consistent with the coalition's values. In our federal party platform it states that we believe in equality of opportunity, with all Australians having the opportunity to reach their full potential in a tolerant national community. Ours is a guarantee of equality of opportunity for all rather than the perverse pursuit of equality of outcome. We know that through giving the individual space to achieve, and opportunity to succeed, Australians are imbued with such initiative that they will prosper. This bill is consistent with that endeavour and it is targeted specifically at unlocking the potential of our young Australians who are pursuing a hand up, not a hand out. This bill will benefit young people in my electorate of Braddon especially as it provides more generous and consistent support for families with dependent young people who qualify for certain youth income support payments. This bill is a generous broadening of income support for socially disadvantaged people in our society and will particularly assist young people in rural and regional Australia.

The coalition government is entirely committed to unlocking the potential of all Australians. From Alice Springs to Broome or from Cairns to Burnie, this government is delivering better outcomes and more opportunity for our young Australians. This bill is evidence of our commitment to hope, reward and opportunity. We understand that income support helps to deliver better outcomes for socially disadvantaged Australians and aids in unlocking opportunities for them. This bill will particularly affect our younger rural and regional Australians wishing to continue to study after graduating from year 12. This bill will enable some young Australians to fulfil their potential as they move from school into the workforce. This is a great win for my electorate as many of my young constituents seek to further themselves through tertiary study. It is my hope and the hope of many of my colleagues that this bill will encourage many, who simply could not afford to do so, to now pursue further study be it in a university or in a trade.

This bill will deliver better outcomes for young people through several changes to the manner in which youth allowance is calculated—and thank goodness for that. This bill removes the family assets test and the family actual means test from the Youth Allowance parental means test. Removing the family assets test for Youth Allowance will allow some 4,100 additional dependent Youth Allowance claimants to qualify for the first time. This will on average allow those individuals to access some $7,000 a year in youth allowance. This is a great outcome for some of our younger Australians and will give them a greater chance to invest in their own future. This is evidence of this government's commitment to greater opportunity for our young Australians. Removing the family actual means test will result in some 1,200 more young Australians receiving Youth Allowance for the first time. It will also deliver an increase in payments for around 4,860 existing students by approximately $2,000 each and every year.

The removal of these means tests will deliver a more reasonable assessment of our young Australians, deliver better application of Youth Allowance giving them a hand up and increasing their opportunity. Through these measures, the coalition will deliver better outcomes for our young Australians especially, as I said, in rural and regional Australia. These changes mean that farming families will not have farm assets counted towards the means test for their dependent children claiming Youth Allowance. This will directly assist many young Australians across regional Australia and deliver them the capacity to further invest in themselves through further study. This measure will particularly deliver some much needed nuance to the social services space with regard to our farming families. As some of our farmers contend, with the unforgiving Australian climate as the member for Murray so eloquently described earlier, their assets do not necessarily translate into cash at hand.

I am proud to say that this government has shown much understanding of the agricultural sector in this bill, which will deliver better outcomes for our rural Australians. It is a measure I welcome and know it will deliver better outcomes for the constituents of Braddon. I am glad that this government is extending the same opportunities that exist for many young people living in the city. The perception that all farmers have huge on-hand wealth is simply not true. This bill will deliver a more accurate assessment for Youth Allowance of farming families and it is a measure of which I am particularly proud.

This government remains resolved to delivering effective outcomes in the social services space and this bill is part of that undertaking. This government believes in sound and responsible measures that deliver the best possible outcomes for those who need it most whilst maintaining our obligation to the taxpayer for frugal fiscal management. This government believes very much in opportunity for all. It is my belief that this bill achieves both these requirements. This bill is one of a multitude that this government has delivered in the social services space since our election and is evidence to this government's success in social services.

Through applying more generous means testing for youth payments, this government is fulfilling its promise to unlock the potential of each and every Australian. Importantly, however, there is a cost to the taxpayer in this bill. It should be noted that this government cares about every single tax dollar we spend. We understand the government does not have any money; it only has the hard-earned tax money of ordinary Australians. This government is delivering sound and effective economic management of this nation's finances. It is only through the sound fiscal stewardship of the coalition that we are able to enact a bill such as this.

This government is as frugal as it is generous, and I am satisfied by the due diligence this bill pays to the taxpayer and the generosity it shows to our young Australians. Those opposite have a very well recorded track record of delivering poor economic policy alongside inaccurate and inefficient social security legislation. This witch's brew of fiscal ineptitude left the coalition with a real mess to clean up in this legislative space and the work is an ongoing task. It is a testament to the resolve and hard work of this government that we have taken a verity of measures to increase accountability, decrease waste and increase the benefits of a targeted and nuanced social welfare. There is much more to do in this space, but I am glad this government is delivering better outcomes for our young Australians.

It is my belief that broadening the means test is a very big step in the right direction when it comes to giving young regional and rural Australians a helping hand in their development. There has always been a disparity in the provision of services to these young members of our society. It is the coalition that continues to rectify this inequality of opportunity to our young regional citizens. We must do more, but it is absolutely true that this bill will deliver better outcomes for younger people and this government will continue to work toward a more efficient and effective social welfare system. This is an endeavour of which I am proud to participate in and I commend this bill to the house.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I come from a farming family and I am the first person in my family to finish high school—I have two older brothers—let alone go on to further tertiary study. I am actually still technically completing my tertiary study. It is a very proud moment for me to be able to stand in this House and see the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015 come before this parliament. There has been a very long journey to this moment. Senator McKenzie, in the other place; the member for Murray and many of our rural and regional MPs on this side have done an enormous amount of work and a lot of advocacy in the face of significant adversity to see this bill come before the House. This bill levels the playing field. It says, 'Despite where you come from—whether you come from a rural or regional community, or you come from the inner city—your access to tertiary education, higher education, should be exactly the same.' It is a truly egalitarian moment for our country to say that regardless of your background and regardless of where you come from, you should have equal access to educational opportunities.

We know, as a country, that when our young people access educational opportunities, particularly higher education, that is the most enabling thing that a government really can do for the next generation of Australians. To say that you can go on and better yourself, upskill yourself, really provides a significant personal boost to our young Australians. Beyond that, this bill boosts the assistance for working families and it better supports young people into study to build their careers, which ultimately develops our whole nation's economic opportunities through their contribution to the Australian economy.

This bill will implement a range of measures that will make a very big difference. From 1 January 2016, this will include removing the family assets test and the family actual means test from the Youth allowance parental means test arrangements. This will result in a more consistent level of support for families as young people move from family tax benefit part A to an individual income support payment. The parental income test exemption for youth allowance will also be aligned with existing arrangements for family tax benefit part A. The bill has a range of other measures, but it does say that young people, regardless of their background, have a right to access the high level of education that will fundamentally change their lives.

In my own electorate, I have a campus of QUT in Caboolture. My electorate, unfortunately, ranks one of the lowest in the country when it comes to tertiary education. I sat down with the director of the QUT Caboolture campus and I said to him: 'What is it that is stopping young people from accessing this further education? What is it stopping them from accessing this opportunity?' Many of us will think that it is their background, the income of their parents or the need to move. But he had a very insightful comment. He said, 'The thing that is most stopping young people from accessing education here is simply the belief that they can.'

When we step back and we look at the educational opportunities for the next generation of Australians, it is easy to forget that it is often a very big thing for a young person to take hold of those opportunities—for people like me and my own family where no-one before me has gone on to access those opportunities, where no-one has even finished high school let alone gone on to further education, where no-one has walked through the front doors of a university campus anywhere in the country. It is a very big psychological step for them to say: 'Yes, I can actually do this. Yes, I can work to better myself and to open up new opportunities in my life.'

Any barrier that stops a young person from accessing those opportunities, any barrier gets in the way and says that somebody from a rural or regional community does not have the same opportunity, has enormous impact on their approach to further education. This bill goes a very long way to addressing those challenges and overcoming what might be not just a financial barrier but also a very significant psychological barrier from a young person accessing an opportunity that will fundamentally change their life and that will change the opportunities they have and, ultimately, collectively will contribute to Australian society and the Australian economy.

For those reasons, I strongly commend these bills to the House.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are all familiar with the phrase, 'the tyranny of distance'. I think Donald Horne raised that term in one of his many dissertations talking about the tyranny of distance. Well, in the educational sense, I and seven million other Australians live in regional Australia. Access to education and successful tertiary education, in whatever field, will increase the potential of many individual regional and rural students. When you come from the regions, one of the barriers to achieving your educational dream and going off to university is not the HECS fee but the cost of relocating.

In my region, there are several universities that have a physical presence. We have Charles Sturt University in Port Macquarie that will, hopefully, have a 5,000-student campus. The University of New South Wales has a medical school there. We have the Armidale university with a teaching campus, and we have the University of Newcastle with a teaching campus, both in Taree. We have opportunities, but unfortunately not every degree is covered in those regional opportunities, and that is the issue for many students in my region.

I know a couple of students who are at university in Adelaide, all the way from the east coast of Australia. They had to move to Adelaide to get the opportunity to do the course they need to do to follow their academic career. We have a few that go to Melbourne, many to Sydney, an awful lot down to Newcastle and a few up to Brisbane—north and south and west. But for many the opportunities to do a course are limited because of the financial barrier of relocating. If you want to go to university in Armidale, which has a much better cost of living than, say, Melbourne or Sydney, there is still a huge financial impost on your family, or you have to have incredible perspicacity, application and ability and a bit of luck to get multiple part-time jobs to build up a financial war chest to relocate yourself up to the Armidale university, if the course that you want to do is up there.

That is what I am trying to point out. It is not just the academic barriers. If you work and study hard you will get a good mark and you will get into just about whatever you want most of the time. But, if that opportunity comes up in a town far from you and you are not blessed to be living in a metropolitan centre where you can catch the 327 into UTS or down Parramatta Road to Sydney uni and live at home, cost wise, for the student and the family that is supporting the student, it is $25,000 a head. That is basically what it costs to set up as a student in Sydney when you factor in your relocation costs and your transport costs. Rents are absolutely ridiculous in Sydney. For some of the student accommodation there you have to pay $250 to get a little tiny room that would be used for luggage in the place that you come from. It is crazy. That is the actual barrier. People are worried about the HECS debt. You do not have to pay that back until you are earning money, and the government is paying for most of your tuition, even with the HECS component.

So I really welcome this legislation, which is going part way to addressing that problem. Youth allowance has been an issue since I put my toe in the water of the political conversation back in 2010. We had workshops trying to get policy changes with Senator Fiona Nash and subsequently Senator Bridget McKenzie, from Victoria. So many of my rural and regional colleagues have argued the case up and down the trail of committees that you go to and with various ministers.

I am so pleased that this legislation is here now, because it is going part way to address that financial barrier for many of the sorts of people who really should be trying to get some assistance, through changing the qualifications to get youth allowance. It is removing the family assets test and the family actual means test from the youth allowance parental means test arrangements. That sounds like quite a mouthful. It will come into force in July 2016. Also, from January 2016, maintenance income will be removed from the youth allowance parental income test. It is changing around the edges so that more people can qualify.

What does that mean in dollars and cents? It means that $262 million of federal taxpayers' money will be rediverted through these income tested arrangements. How many will benefit from this change? Potentially the changes in the family assets test will lead 4,100 additional dependent youth allowance claimants to qualify for the very first time. That will not solve every rural and regional person's dilemma, but it will certainly help a significant number of them. They estimate that the amount will be up to $7,000. If you are setting up in Sydney in shared houses, quarters, a college, student hostels or wherever you can get a room, that is a significant help. It means that it is much more achievable.

Removing the family actual means test will mean that another 1,200 people will get some assistance, but it is only estimated at $2,000 a year. But, again, any up-front payment will help you make that jump into living in a metropolitan centre—or for some of the students who I hope will come from the metropolitan suburbs, who want to move up to Charles Sturt University's new campus in Port Macquarie. They are hoping to have international students as well as metropolitan students who come up because they can get a really good education there. To relocate out of Sydney, out of Newcastle or out of anywhere to another town and to set up another domestic accommodation and support mechanism when you are dislocated from your family are the big issue.

Including all the FTB children in the family pool will also benefit about 13,700 families. It is a small amount, but, again, it is not be sniffed at: $1,100.

I commend this bill to the House. It is a good initiative. It is part way addressing the problem and the cost involved in the tyranny of distance in accessing education.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being close to 1.30, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.