Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (3) on sheet 5921 revised:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 2, page 4 (line 20), omit “or (10C)”, substitute “, (10C) or 10(CA)”.

(2)    Schedule 1, item 2, page 5 (after line 24), after paragraph 1067A(10C), insert:

(10CA)    This subsection applies to a person if the Secretary is satisfied that:

             (a)    in 2008 the person completed a course of education determined under section 5D of the Student Assistance Act 1973 to be a secondary course for the purposes of that Act; and

             (b)    the person is undertaking full-time study because of his or her enrolment at a higher education institution in a course of education (the chosen course) determined under section 592N to be an approved scholarship course.

Note:   For undertaking full-time study see section 541B.

(3)    Schedule 1, item 4, page 6 (line 4), omit “and (10C)”, substitute “, (10C) and 10(CA)”.

This amendment realises that the government has made some changes to the original legislation that said that gap-year students will be exempt if they have to move away from home. These are students that have finished their studies in 2008 and decided to take a gap year in 2009. The government cheekily, outrageously, tried to change the rules on these people. It was outrageous that they could do that and think they could get away with it. We have got an amendment here for those students that did not take a gap year in 2009—they finished their studies in 2008 and, going on the premise of the existing rules, are working like crazy to try to qualify for youth allowance, or the independence part of it, for the following years.

Most of these students have worked very hard and are studying and doing a job part time, knowing that they could sustain it for a year just to get through. We are saying that the rules should apply to the kids who have not taken a gap year and decided to study on the basis that they were going to earn enough money to qualify for youth allowance, knowing that they could not study or work at the same rate going forward. So this amendment really looks after those people who, in good faith, were working on the basis that the rules were fixed until the end of the year. It takes care of those people who did not take a gap year but studied and also tried to qualify for youth allowance. It means that the old rules will apply for them going forward.

Question negatived.