Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on behalf of the Labor Party in relation to the Student Assistance Legislation Amendment Bill 2005. On the face of it, the major reason for the bill before the Senate today is to enable the government to legislatively close a student loans scheme that it had earlier shut by administrative means. But, in moving to strip from legislation this student income support measure, the Howard government lays bare the absence of any suitable alternatives. This bill is a testament to the bankruptcy of this government’s policies in relation to student income support.

Before I traverse the details of this government’s sad and sorry record in the area of student financial assistance, it would be good for the chamber to consider the circumstances that have led to the Senate considering this bill today. Back in October 2003, the Howard government attempted to shut the Student Financial Supplement Scheme by legislation and it failed—it failed to muster sufficient support from non-government senators. Seeing the writing on the wall, the government chose not to proceed with the bill. However, the saga did not end there. Following the withdrawal of the bill, the government announced that it would close the scheme using administrative means. And so it was in December 2003 that the then minister for education announced that there would be no new loans from the Student Financial Supplement Scheme from 31 December of that year. Effectively, the government thumbed its nose at the parliament, and at the Senate in particular, and simply decreed that this scheme was no longer open for business.

The present bill is yet another attempt by the government to expunge from the statutes all references to the Student Financial Supplement Scheme—a scheme which filled a particular need for students requiring additional income support. This scheme provided extra options for students in ways that could be tailored to suit the individual circumstances of the students.

In 1993, the first year of the operation of the Student Financial Supplement Scheme, some 44,000 students took advantage of the new financial supplement. By 1996, the number of students with a financial supplement loan had grown to some 68,000—around 13 per cent of all Austudy and Abstudy recipients. Although it is correct that most loans were accessed through the scheme between 1995 and 1999, a large number of students were assisted by this flexible facility beyond those years. In fact, in excess of 200,000 loans were made available through the scheme in the last five years of its operation, between 1999 and 2003.

In 2002, just under 40,000 students applied for and accepted these loans. It is worth while considering who these people were when one looks at the impact of the closure of this scheme. Of these students, 15.6 per cent were Indigenous, 1.6 per cent were from remote regions, just over 15 per cent were recorded as single parenting payment recipients, 12.2 per cent were not born in Australia and some 54.7 per cent—the great majority of the applicants who received loans—were women.

These figures reinforce 2003 data provided by the government that disclosed that the largest beneficiaries of these loans were low-income earners—students who were single parents, disabled or Indigenous—who could not access support from other sources such as their parents or who faced other constraints in the labour market. It is clear that the scheme was of greatest assistance to the most financially vulnerable students. Without it they were at grave risk of not being able to complete their studies. It was no great shock that, when the Howard government pulled the rug from beneath the feet of these students in 2003 through the sudden closure of the scheme, many were left in a difficult situation.

Whilst we in opposition accept the reality that the government has effectively closed the Student Financial Supplement Scheme, we are not prepared to meekly accept that a student income support scheme should be jettisoned without anything being put in place to fill the void. That this void has been permitted and in fact created is completely consistent with the track record of the Howard government, its manifest lack of adequate income support for students and its seeming disinterest in the real hardships faced by many students during their studies.

The June 2005 report of the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee on student income support exposed the severe shortcomings of the government in this particular area of public policy. The report’s preface states:

Over the last decade the student income support system has operated in a policy vacuum. It is now showing the signs of this neglect. The government’s preoccupation with program efficiency over policy effectiveness and continuing problems with Centrelink’s delivery of payments have taken their toll on students. The current level of income support does not come close to providing students with a decent living wage to cover the cost of accommodation, food, bills and transport. The level of income support has been falling steadily behind the rising cost of living. This has resulted in many students experiencing severe financial hardship and poverty.

The evidence from the Senate inquiry, from numerous reports on student finances and the experiences of students is clear—more students are working and more students are working more. Student income support policy has simply been neglected by the Howard government.

At the same time, a whole range of other student welfare and support services are set to disappear following the passage last year of the VSU legislation. We have already seen evidence of the ways in which this legislation and the abolition of student unions will make life tougher for students, particularly those who are in dire need of support. The harsh reality on many campuses right now is that these services are already closing down. As we in the opposition and other parties in this chamber predicted, student welfare and support services have been amongst the first to go. I will not canvass in detail here the generally detrimental effects of VSU legislation. They have been well canvassed in many places, not the least of which is this chamber.

The Howard government cannot rely on the excuse that it was not given volumes of credible evidence about the disastrous effects its policies are having on a range of disadvantaged students, such as those from rural areas. A national report by the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education released in June last year showed that students from rural backgrounds are twice as likely as their urban counterparts to defer studies at university. The research report was entitled The first year experience in Australian universities: findings from a decade of national studies. It showed that nearly one in five rural students deferred university compared to one in 10 students in the broader population. The report found:

The reason for this difference is ... likely to be the greater need for rural students to accumulate savings to meet their additional costs of attending university.

The research concludes that students from rural backgrounds are being forced to delay commencement of their university studies because the Howard government’s income support is nowhere near enough to keep up with the living costs faced by these students. I would welcome some contribution to this debate, and to the issue of access to university by rural students, from the National Party—the great defenders of rural and regional Australia. Evidence has come before the Senate on a number of occasions about the harsh ways in which this government’s higher education policies negatively impact on students from rural and regional Australia. What do we hear from the National Party about access to tertiary education for the constituency they profess to represent?