Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to discuss the motion that the Senate take note of answers given by Senator Carr. What an extraordinary situation we saw today, with Senator Adams asking questions about changes to the youth allowance scheme and the effect on regional students, and the government side of this chamber simply not knowing where the question belonged. It was quite extraordinary. We had a very specific question here on regional students’ access to education, and the Leader of the Government in the Senate was jumping up and down saying, ‘We are really sorry; we do not know where this question has to go.’ They do not even know where this particular issue belongs on their side of this place. It is absolutely extraordinary.

Given the nature of this issue and how important it is to regional students and regional families, this just shows the complete disconnect that this Labor government has with regional communities. I am happy to inform the other side of this chamber that indeed Senator Carr was the appropriate minister to respond on behalf of the education minister, and I say that because he was also the appropriate person to deal with this matter in Senate estimates, which I think, Senator Adams, was only a couple of weeks ago. Our view was that Senator Carr was responsible for this particular youth allowance issue two weeks ago, and maybe things had not changed.

This is an incredibly serious issue. I do not think I have ever seen representation as overwhelming as this from a particular group as I am seeing now. In the four years I have been a senator and the about five years I worked on and off in this building before that, I have never seen such concern from rural and regional families over a particular issue. What did Senator Carr call it in Senate estimates? When he was asked about people automatically qualifying under the scheme and what would happen, he referred to it as political hysteria. I do not think that the concerns of rural and regional families out there demonstrate anything approximating political hysteria. These are very genuine concerns about a serious issue. Regardless of the protestations from the other side, this is seriously going to affect those students taking a gap year at the moment. I know those on the other side would say, ‘Well, it is just ill-informed families; once they realise what the changes actually mean they will understand they are just as well covered as they would have been under the previous system.’ That is complete rubbish. The parents of the students who are writing in to us know about the changes. They are very well aware of the changes and what they will mean to them. But they have realised that under this particular criteria they are going to fall outside the net.

These are students who finished school at the end of last year and who in good faith and on good advice chose to take a gap year to qualify for the youth allowance under the $19,500 earning limit criteria. They were told by Centrelink, they were told by teachers and they were told by advisers that they should use this criterion to make sure they qualified to get that assistance they so desperately need. What do we see the Rudd Labor government do? They move the goalposts in the middle of the game. No matter what the Labor contribution has been up to now, they know absolutely full well that the students caught in the net are now in an invidious position—because the goalposts have moved, because that start date is going to be 1 January, they can no longer qualify for youth allowance under this criterion. They simply cannot do it. These are rural and regional families who, as my good colleague from Western Australia, Senator Adams, would know, have been suffering unbelievably from drought and debt for years and years and years and they simply want to make sure that they give their children the best possible start and the best possible access to tertiary education that they can.

What do we see from the Rudd Labor government? An absolute complete disregard for those regional students who, in good faith, embarked upon a course of action to qualify for the youth allowance under this criterion—an absolute disregard. The Labor line is simply, ‘Well, that’s okay; under the other arrangements they will fall under those measures and they will be catered for just the same.’ It is simply rubbish—they will not. Those rates will taper off. The $370 a week that they would have got under the youth allowance program under the previous arrangements simply will not exist for all the students currently on their gap year. The government should take responsibility for this and at the very least, amongst the other changes that need to be made, make sure that those gap year students from regional areas and from the cities wanting to go out to the regions are not caught in the net and that they fix this problem.