Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

For students who move from a remote region to a city location, Senator, under the applications of the SES formulas, their home address is what is utilised for the purposes of the allocations of funding—even though they are in a boarding school. So the principle remains at the higher rates.

You asked me a question with regard to the funding guarantees and the figures in the bill. The figures in the bill highlight the fact that, because of the application of the AGSRC, which is an index, it is at the very highest rate. It is, in fact, at the highest rate of all the Commonwealth grants programs—which, from memory, was 6.2 or 7-point something; better than the WCI 1s, WCI 2s, WCI 3s or WCI 4s or any of the other education indexation programs. The fact remains that the AGSRC is the most generous funding formula of any of the grants programs that are run by the Commonwealth, in my experience—certainly in education. Compare the AGSRC with the vocational education system or the university system or even other aspects of the grants programs that operate within the school system. If you apply the AGSRC, you are at the top of the pile—and that is what this bill provides. As a consequence, there are variations in the figures because of the need for the programs to be indexed at that higher rate. Senator Macdonald, you can shake your head and you can be as indignant as you like, but all I can do is come back to the same points—and I will do so over and over again, no matter how many times you ask the same question.