Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009. This is a bill about which, a number of months ago, I had a lot of correspondence, which I will allude to shortly. This bill has been developed in response to the Bradley review into higher education. This review focused on the current situation and future challenges facing higher education in Australia. It was led by Professor Denise Bradley, who has had a prominent and successful career in higher education, including a long stint as Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Australia.

Throughout her career, Professor Bradley has consistently advocated for those experiencing social disadvantage and, particularly while at UniSA, has sought to build professional and community links between the university and some of Australia’s most economically challenged communities in Adelaide’s northern urban fringe. One example of these kinds of links was the recently completed research project between UniSA and 10 schools in Adelaide’s north. The Australian Research Council’s linkage project between the school of education, the northern areas secondary schools principals’ network, the South Australian Education Union and SA’s social inclusion unit sought to contribute to social sustainability and regional capacity building.

In short, the redesigning of pedagogies in the north project worked with teachers in disadvantaged schools to develop new ways of teaching to address poor retention rates and engage students in their learning by connecting student learning with their lives in the community. Of the numerous innovations and findings of this project, one stands out as significant to debate on this bill. This project found that teachers who came from and lived in the community in which they taught were often more effective in engaging students in their learning. This was found to be more than having opportunities to build relationships outside of school. It was also about understanding the needs and interests of students and their communities.

While some of those communities face challenges of social disadvantage, poverty, conflict or trauma, such an understanding is vital to professionals being effective in their service to those communities. It also goes some of the way to addressing difficulties and attracting people to work in areas that are doing it tough and reducing professional churn, with the resulting challenges of retraining professionals and retaining service quality. While this study focused on teachers working in schools and urban fringe communities, the idea that people from socially disadvantaged communities received training and returned to those communities will make sense for other professions. This idea will also make sense to those living in regional communities.

I believe the issue of improving access to university to those from areas that experience social disadvantage is vital. Therefore, it is significant that the Bradley review found that there were significant barriers to entering university for Indigenous and regional youth, as well as young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. One of the major reasons stated in the review was that current levels of income support are inadequate for these students. In response, the Bradley review made a series of recommendations, several of which are taken up in this bill. Broadly, this bill changes the criteria by which a student may be deemed independent for the youth allowance, changes the means testing arrangements for payments to students and youth, introduces new scholarships for students on income support for their study and removes equity and merit based scholarships from income tests.

More specifically, in relation to changing the criteria for independence, this bill will, firstly, gradually reduce the age for being considered independent from 25 to 22 years by 2012 and, secondly, prevent a person from claiming independence through part-time work. In relation to changing the means testing arrangements for payments, this bill will lift the parental income eligibility test from $32,800 to $44,165. This will allow more young people to qualify as independent; will reduce the taper rate on parental income to 20 per cent, which will also lift the point at which students can qualify; and will increase the personal income test from $236 to $400 per fortnight, which lifts the amount that students can earn before having their payments reduced. That is something that is welcome. I thought it was very petty; at that level it was simply too low.

Finally, this bill initiates a new student start-up scholarship of $12,127 for each six months of study and a new scholarship of $4,000 in the first year and $1,000 every year after for students who need to relocate for study. As the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee report noted, the vast majority of these changes are largely uncontroversial; however, there has been much public concern about the impact of these changes on regional students, particularly those who have chosen to take a gap year to gain independent status. I share these concerns.

I first became aware of this issue in May of this year, when my office was contacted by people expressing their dissatisfaction after the measures were announced. I took these concerns to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister and requested a detailed response. Around that time, that media became aware of this issue, and my colleague Senator Sarah Hanson-Young advocated a review into these concerns—a position that I shared. My response at the time was to say that I would support such a review should the response from the Deputy Prime Minister be either not detailed enough or inadequate. I believe it was not at that time, so I supported the review by the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee which commenced on 17 August this year.

However, I was encouraged to see that the minister announced on 26 August that students who have taken a gap year and live more than 90 minutes away from university by public transport will be entitled to claim independent status for youth allowance until 30 June 2010. This is an extension of six months on the previous starting date for the new independent status arrangements. Due to these changes to the independence criteria, the government has estimated that, of the 30,700 students who would otherwise be ineligible for independent status, 5,000 will be covered by the minister’s decision to extend the start date by six months and 12,500 will still gain independence because the increases in the parental income threshold will mean that they will qualify. This leaves approximately 12½ thousand students who could miss out or receive smaller payments because they are living at home with their parents on too high an income.

The response of the coalition is that all of these 30,700 persons should be covered, and it is proposed by the coalition that the start date of the new independence criteria be pushed back by a further six months and that the size of the student start-ups be reduced. Further, the coalition estimates that rolling back the start-up by 12 months will cost some $573 million. I think that is correct, but I will stand corrected if it is not. However, the government has made it clear that it does not intend to support any amendment that is not revenue neutral. Consequently, the coalition has supplemented this change with a second measure that is estimated to raise $696 million. This change is to cut the annual student start-up scholarship by $1,254 per year. However, the government claims these changes will not be revenue neutral; rather they will cut funding significantly beyond the forward estimates. It is in this context of claim and counterclaim that I am attempting to formulate my response to this bill. I will be listening carefully in the committee stages as I wish to hear both sides substantiate these claims. Providing adequate evidence will be crucial to my final decision. An evidence based approach is always a good thing.

I also think it is appropriate to note the work done by the RRAT References Committee on the issue of regional students and indicate that I believe there is merit in the committee considering a regional tertiary entrance fund. I commend the work of members of that committee, in particular Senator Fiona Nash, the chair. It is my understanding that Senator Nash has a second reading amendment to this end, and I call on the government to give its full support with some degree of urgency to any investigation into new measures to provide specific support for regional students to start study at university.

The issue of assistance for regional students is one of the utmost importance to me. I acknowledge that some regional students will be better off under the bill due to the new scholarship arrangements, but I believe that there is a lot more that can and should be done. The disproportionate cost of relocation and living at home for country and regional students needs to be addressed, particularly for those in more remote areas. The possibility that hardship criteria for independent youth allowance status could be extended to students from remote areas is worthy of consideration. I also believe that the government should seriously consider bringing forward its review of regional loading.

My colleagues have indicated that they intend to introduce a broad range of amendments, but the theme is a common one: how do we support more regional students entering tertiary education? If the government wants the support of the Senate for this bill, the onus is on it to provide much more information as part of the committee debate to indicate its plans to address these challenges. With these things in mind, I broadly support the changes to scholarships proposed in the bill. I also note the overwhelming support for this bill voiced earlier today by university vice-chancellors and student unions.

Finally, I welcome the way that this bill embraces many of the positive recommendations of the Bradley review. I think there is considerable scope for reform. This bill addresses a number of those issues. My concerns are in relation to regional students and the whole issue of the potential retrospectivity of the bill. I understand it is a difficult policy issue. We are not dealing with a magic pudding—we have a limited amount of money to deal with this—but I think that the government needs to take up with some urgency the concerns expressed by the RRAT References Committee and the concerns expressed by Senator Nash and by others, such as Senator Hanson-Young, about how not to disadvantage and how to go forward with the issue of regional and disadvantaged students having access to our tertiary education. With those comments, I support this bill at the second reading.