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

As Senator Stott Despoja points out, we in fact have no National Party senators in the chamber currently for this debate! I will now turn to another recent report, The impact of drought on secondary education access in Australia’s rural and remote areas, by Margaret Alston and Jenny Kent of Charles Sturt University. That study similarly found that rural young people simply cannot afford to go to university anymore. The report said that many families are unable to support their young people away from home and that there is a huge sense of frustration that university education is no longer available on a merit basis. The remedy to this problem is, of course, in the government’s hands, but we in the Labor opposition will not hold our breath. We will not hold our breath waiting for the Howard government to break its long-held habit of 10 years and do the right and decent thing by students of this country.

The Labor Party have demonstrated our commitment to policies which will provide much needed relief from the financial pressures on students in higher education today. For example, at the last election, Labor proposed fully costed and responsible policies to better support struggling students by extending rental assistance to Austudy recipients and by reducing the age of independence for students on Youth Allowance from 25 to 23. We on this side of politics believe that students need better support if they are to get the best out of their studies and we believe that, if Australia is to get the best out of them, we need to do more. In contrast, all we see from the Howard government is a deepening void. We see the cancellation of financial support schemes which could potentially make the difference between continuing to graduation and deferring or dropping out altogether.

This bill also contains a clause that is unrelated to the closure of the Student Financial Supplement Scheme but is potentially of significant moment in relation to two further income support schemes. There is a clause in the bill which would appear to remove the need to make new regulations each time the guidelines for Abstudy and Assistance for Isolated Children schemes are altered. Such revision is described by the government as a ‘minor technical amendment’, but advice received from the Parliamentary Library indicates it is not minor at all and may have major consequences for parliamentary oversight of important elements of these two schemes.

One of the proper roles for any legislature is to ensure sufficient scrutiny of the proposals advanced by the executive in enactments. Appropriate levels of accountability demand that such scrutiny and oversight occur in relation to all instruments of legislative authority. This is particularly the case for non-statutory programs such as Abstudy. In fact, in relation to Abstudy, it seems that the only opportunity for the parliament to be aware of changes to certain important components of the scheme in the past was via the process of notification from time to time of the date of changes to the relevant Abstudy policy manual, which is in effect the compendium of guidelines made under the scheme. I say that this was the case in the past, because the department of education has advised the relevant Senate committee which conducted an inquiry into this bill that references to Abstudy and the Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme have recently been removed altogether from the regulations. Where that particular act leaves parliamentary scrutiny of these schemes is entirely unclear.

I recognise that this issue is legally complex and difficult. We in the opposition are relying on the expertise of the Parliamentary Library’s research service to set out the two competing interpretations of the bill’s provisions in this regard. I would like to quote at some length from the Bills Digest prepared on this bill. It says:

The changes to section 48 of the SAA will modify the way in which notification obligations are to be defined. Under the new regime, the scope of the obligation can be defined by the Executive. These changes have an immediate influence upon the offence provision, section 49. Accordingly, the proposed amendment in Schedule 2, Part 2, item 10 is not without difficulties. In particular, should the broad view be followed, the proposed amendment could:

• remove parliamentary scrutiny with respect to the scope of the obligation and, as result, of the offence, and
• erode the rule of law because it has the potential to remove certainty from the obligation and the matching offence.

Parliament may want to consider whether the proposed law should be amended to put beyond doubt that the expansion of the regulation-making power does not include the determination of ‘prescribed events’, but is limited to the prescription of the notification process.

I wish to make it clear to the chamber that it is this advice, as contained in the Bills Digest, which has formed the basis for Labor’s amendment which I will move during the committee stage of the bill. For the reasons I have set out, and in particular because of the competing and valid legal interpretations of the consequences of the bill, I urge the government to consider the serious grounds that Labor has for proposing this amendment. Our view is that continued oversight of legislative instruments which can effect changes in access and eligibility criteria is a crucial function of this parliament. They should not be watered down under the cover of a so-called technical amendment. I fear this is yet another example of the way in which this government draws more power to the executive and reduces the power of the legislature.

I also note with interest that the Department of Education, Science and Training has informed the Senate committee that they are prepared to make a recommendation to the minister—and I quote from the department’s evidence—to:

... include an express statement that, to remove doubt, the power in proposed subsection 48(2) is not intended to permit the determination of prescribed events in extrinsic materials and that prescribed events may only be determined expressly in the Regulations.

Immediately prior to consideration of this bill in the House of Representatives, the new Minister for Education, Science and Training tabled an amended explanatory memorandum which contained a statement in precisely those terms. Of course, the statement itself would now constitute extrinsic material for any court considering any case brought under the act as amended by this bill. However, during the debate in the House, the minister was asked to explicitly state whether this statement had exactly the same effect as the substantive amendment moved by the opposition. The minister would not, or could not, provide such an assurance. For this reason, the opposition intends to move the same amendment during the committee stage here in the Senate, and the minister responsible for the bill would be well advised to seek advice from officers on whether the added statement in the explanatory memorandum does indeed fully address the issues of concern raised by the opposition.

I stress that these concerns, while technical and legal in nature, go to fundamental issues of the powers of the parliament to adequately scrutinise legislation which impacts on the entitlement of Australians to income support benefits. In conclusion, this bill as a whole will enshrine a much diminished set of options for student income support, against the backdrop of a government record of unalloyed policy failure in an area that is vital to the success of so many students who are in genuine need of assistance. Other provisions of this bill attack the role of the parliament as a watchdog on untrammelled executive power, and these are utterly unacceptable. For these reasons, the opposition cannot possibly support this bill in its current form.

Debate interrupted.