Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009. As most would know, this issue is very close to me, being a farmer and the mother of two sons. We lived 3½ hours from the city in Western Australia and my sons had to go to Perth to be educated. There was no way that they were able to attend university in the area we lived in. I am also a member of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, which is currently conducting an inquiry into youth allowance.

The committee has travelled around Australia and the last hearing I attended was at James Cook University in Townsville, which Senator Ian Macdonald has spoken about. We were given very good evidence there. People there who had had the opportunity to attend university were concerned about their siblings. As well as the dean of the medical school, we had a medical student and an occupational therapy student come and give evidence. Those two young women were concerned and agitated about whether their siblings would be able to go to university if they could not obtain youth allowance.

Throughout that committee inquiry, we have received a large number of submissions—I think just over 700 altogether—and all of these people are saying, ‘This is completely unfair.’ The government talks about social inclusion, access and equity but, as a mother of two sons who wish to go to university, I can assure you that none of these things were shown to them or to their colleagues. The government’s youth allowance changes are unfair for country students. This is typical of a government with such a narrow point of view and a large lack of understanding of the issues for rural and regional Australia. The coalition is all for enabling better access to education for young people in rural and regional areas, especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

This ill-thought-out legislation will affect thousands of families by hindering the opportunities of many young Australians from the country who hope for a university education. The government do not get it. I do not think they really understand the fact that, in order to have a chance to meet the new requirements to obtain the youth allowance, most rural students would have to move from their home. They cannot obtain work where they live and it is therefore a matter of moving from their home to the city to compete with all the others that are trying to get jobs.

Labor’s relentless ideological attack on a minority cohort of wealthier city families is having a devastating effect on hardworking Australian families in regional areas who are trying to give their children a good education. The coalition agrees with the attack on the small number of those city families who may have skipped through a loophole. But why should it affect these families that live in rural and regional areas? The Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association is probably one of the strongest advocates for the problems that have arisen for their members. More than 25,000 young Australians who were preparing for university have had the rug pulled out from under their feet. As a result of the retrospectivity of these laws, students taking a gap year in 2009 have had their tertiary study intentions ruined. School and tertiary education counsellors and Centrelink had advised many of them to take a gap year. Now they have been left hung out to dry and are at risk of losing their course places.

Over the course of our committee inquiry we had a number of universities giving evidence. Some of them were prepared to confirm that students would be able to come back after two years of fulfilling their Youth Allowance guidelines. Others, however, were a little hesitant, saying that the cohort for the first gap year was fine but that the second year was a problem because there would be other students coming in who were not actually having a gap year and that they would therefore have to accommodate them. Rural people are very, very confused. They just do not understand. They are terribly concerned about the two-year gap. We asked a number of the universities about students having a two-year gap, such as those who were away working—and especially about those in Western Australia who may be able to get jobs in the mines on very large salaries. Would those students be prepared to come back and study? Another concern for us is that, whilst a gap year is fine, it is very hard to get back into study, and the work ethic that is required, after two years away. It is especially hard if you are earning a lot of money.

All these issues are very basic to a 17-, 18- or 19-year-old person. They are going to think, ‘I have got this and I have got that and if I stay here a little bit longer I may be able to afford a house.’ They will then consider their options and ask, ‘Do I really want to give this up and go to university?’ I know that a number of parents are very concerned about this. They know that a small rural community—such as the community I have lived in for 36 years, which is just under 2,000 people—would not be able to accommodate and employ the number of university students that would be trying to get the youth allowance. They might be able to do so at harvest and seeding times but, given seasonal conditions, those are the only times. To get a full-time job or a job for 30 hours a week is really impossible.

So, as I have said, they have to shift, and they have to face the issues of where to live and how to compete for jobs with all the other students. And for a number of them, particularly those who have not had exposure to city life, it is very difficult to have to compete with their city counterparts and to afford to rent accommodation and provide for themselves. Retrospectivity for current gap-year students must be removed, and the coalition amendments will do this. Labor talk about access, and they are right; this is all about access. But to give people from rural and regional areas access you need to assist them. And this is what our amendments will do—assist them to get access.

In reflecting on this bill, it is clear that Labor does not understand much about living in Australia beyond the cities. Families in regional Australia are already making large sacrifices to give their children a good education. A petition circulated by the member for O’Connor on this issue has had over 13,000 signatories from all over regional Australia. Students from farming and small business backgrounds in the country are often ineligible to receive youth allowance as dependants because the value of the average family farm is significantly higher than the level of assets allowed under the test. I remember looking at Senator Carr during estimates and seeing the look of horror upon his face when we were talking about the asset threshold of $2.28 million. We were trying to explain that, on a property, and especially a grain property, the cost of the plant and equipment and of putting in a crop can certainly exceed $1½ to $2 million. And that is without the actual cost of the property, the number of stock or whatever else. It is a very large business. It really is time that some government members realised that farming is a big business. It is no longer just about lifestyle. If you are going to make a profit and therefore afford to exist, you really do need the acres, and the plant and equipment that go with that, to be able to run that business.

As I have said, the average Australian family often cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars required to support their child’s move, accommodation and living expenses while studying at university. I might say that I myself had a very successful nursing career, but with the children having to be educated and wishing to go to university I spent 23 years working as a farmhand to put my children through their education and through university. As a mother, I believe that the most valuable thing you can do for your child is to educate them properly. Without a good education, they really will have a problem. That was the way that my husband and I looked at the way we could help our children, and fortunately they both went to university, have degrees and are hopefully very successful in what they are doing and what they are trying to achieve.

Farm businesses are asset rich and cash poor, and the expense of putting children through secondary school and then on to university and the logistics associated with that are very difficult. We were lucky that we were able to do it, but other families are not. Therefore, their children have to rely on youth allowance and I think the 30 hours per week for 18 months is just too difficult, so I certainly cannot support that part of this bill. The added expense and the logistics for young adults starting their tertiary education and having to cover the costs of accommodation and all other expenses of no longer living at home are very difficult.

Speaking about Western Australia, most of our students wishing to pursue a university career have to go to Perth, and the rentals in Perth are probably higher than in most places in Australia. It is very difficult. Some of the stories that we have heard about students are horrific. It is a little bit like living on a submarine, where you have ‘hot beds’—someone gets out of it and goes to work and the other student comes back after working probably fairly late into the evening to sleep in that bed or else on a sofa or wherever they can. Some of these stories are just horrific. Students are trying to work three jobs. How is their study going to go if they are working three jobs as well? It is just too difficult.

Social inclusion is important for country people and I feel this bill is taking away the opportunity for thousands of country students to move to the city for studies and to establish new networks. This is hardly equitable. As a senior schoolteacher in rural Victoria says:

Why should rural and regional students face financial discrimination just because they’re intelligent and they don’t happen to live next door to a university?

The coalition’s amendments will enable access and equity.

I have received hundreds of letters and emails about this issue and have heard firsthand accounts through the rural education inquiry, where a large number of submissions related to the students currently in their gap year, who will now have to work for the first six months of 2010. The goals were changed during the middle of their game and these young people and their families have been caused enormous stress and anxiety. A year of their lives has been wasted after they took a gap year in order to gain the independent youth allowance. There is a very real risk that a lot of prospective students who have been caught out by this situation will now retreat from studying, which I feel is completely unfair for them. The government must start being genuine when they refer to access. They must include equitable access for disadvantaged families, Indigenous families and families from rural and regional areas.

The reason that we wanted to conclude debate on this bill is that all of this has to be sorted out by 1 January 2010. Coalition amendments will move the start date for the new workforce participation criteria from 1 January 2010 to 1 January 2011. If this amendment is not made before 1 January, the students currently taking a gap year in order to earn the required threshold to demonstrate independence will no longer be eligible as the criteria will have been axed. I feel that with Minister Julia Gillard’s changes to Youth Allowance the government is giving with one hand while taking away with the other.

More and more people have come forward to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs References Committee, and even in the last fortnight the emails and letters that I have received have all been very supportive of having the committee moving around the country and of the approach that the coalition is taking. So I feel it would be very good if the government could look at the problem for rural and regional students and their access to the youth allowance. As the students at James Cook University said, there were students from Brisbane, Cairns and Sydney who wished to move to Townsville to study at James Cook University because of the medical course, the nursing course and the allied health courses mainly focusing on the rural workforce. These people really wished to go and study there. So once again there must be some leeway for them to move. They also have to relocate to study in a regional centre, so I think that this is another issue that we should be looking at.

As for students in the city, if they live there they do not have to relocate from their homes, whereas, as I have said before, with the lack of employment in some of these smaller rural communities it is not just relocating to the city to go and study; it is actually relocating to somewhere where they can get a job so that they can then relocate, perhaps to the city, to study as an independent student. I really would ask the government if they would reconsider part of this bill.