Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to point out that, despite my concerns about the scholarship issue, that is not actually the amendment we are dealing with, so you may need to repeat all those comments at the next amendment.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move:

That the House of Representatives be requested to make the following amendments:

• (1)      Clause 2, page 2 (table item 4), omit “1 July 2012” (twice occurring), substitute “1 January 2011”.

Statement pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

Amendments (1), (4) and (5)

These amendments bring forward by 18 months the date of effect of provisions that relax the ‘personal income test’ for students, increasing the amount they can earn before they begin to lose their entitlement to youth allowance payments. The provisions in the bill would increase the amount of the payment received by a class of people. The additional expenditure expected under these provisions is offset by savings elsewhere in the bill, however it appears that the combined effect of introducing these provisions and bringing forward the date of their commencement would result in increased expenditure under the standing appropriation in section 242 of the Social Security Administration Act 1999.

Amendments (1), (4) and (5) should therefore be moved as requests.

Amendment (3)

Schedule 1, item 2 of the bill imposes conditions restricting the entitlement of some students to the receive the youth allowance at the independent rate. In this respect, the effect of the bill is to restrict the class of people who would be eligible for the payment, and reduce expenditure under the standing appropriation in section 242 of the Social Security Administration Act 1999.

Amendment (3) would add a new class of eligible students and increase expenditure under the standing appropriation, as compared to the provisions in the bill. It is not clear, however, that the effect of the amendment would be to increase expenditure under that appropriation above the expenditure authorised under the Act as it currently stands.

Amendment (3) should therefore be moved as an amendment.

Amendments (6) and (7)

The combined effect of these amendments is to exempt certain scholarships from income tests under social security legislation. Although the effect would be to enable a small class of people to receive increased benefits, it has been argued that the cost will be negligible. It is not clear that the effect of these amendments would be to increase expenditure under the standing appropriation in section 242 of the Social Security Administration Act 1999 when compared with the expenditure under the Act as it currently stands.

Amendments (6) and (7) should therefore be moved as amendments.

Statement by the Clerk of the Senate pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

The Senate has long followed the practice that it should treat as requests amendments which would result in increased expenditure under a standing appropriation.

On the basis that amendments (1), (4) and (5) would result in increased expenditure under the standing appropriation in section 242 of the Social Security Administration Act 1999, it is in accordance with the precedents of the Senate that those amendments be moved as requests.

It is also in accordance with the precedents of the Senate that amendments (3), (6) and (7) not be moved as requests. Although those amendments would increase the expenditure authorised under the bill, it is not clear that their effect would be to increase expenditure under the standing appropriation.

These amendments are in relation to the issues that came about after the government realised there was such a backlash to the retrospectivity aspect of cutting the gap year halfway through people’s journeys of raising the $19½ thousand on their way to achieving independent status for youth allowance. In her wisdom, the Deputy Prime Minister, not wanting to admit that this was a badly conceived policy scribbled on the back of an envelope, decided she would punish those other students further down the track by pushing back the ability for them to continue to earn a little more money in the personal income threshold in order to help pay for their education and living costs. The need to increase that personal income threshold has been paramount for years.

Last night in my speech in the second reading debate I spoke about how low the maximum rate of youth allowance is. It is far below the Newstart allowance, let alone anywhere within reach of the Henderson poverty line. For young people who are struggling to pay for all their living costs—rent, textbooks and everything—the fact is that they then get penalised for taking a part-time job and can only earn a certain amount, and that amount is set quite low. There has been a long campaign from student groups right around the country to try to lift this.

It was good, in the beginning, that the government saw this needed to be done. It was obviously a recommendation from the Bradley review, which was fabulous. But the Deputy Prime Minister, in her cruel and twisted way, decided to punish those students because she did not want to fess up that she had stuffed up the policy in the first place by being retrospective. We need to remove this, because it is virtually unfair now to push back one of the more positive aspects of this package. I was one of the first people to acknowledge that this was a positive aspect of the package, but in her cruel and twisted way she has pushed that back in order to save face where the removal of the workplace criteria was retrospective and she has pulled the rug from underneath other students. We need to ensure that we remove that because it is simply unfair.