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

Thank you very much, Senator Mason. All of those students who had, in good faith, embarked upon their gap year with a view to getting independent youth allowance for assistance were simply told by the minister, ‘Sorry, that option’s not available to you anymore. You’ll have to find some other way.’ That was not good enough. I know that my Nationals colleagues, my regional Liberal colleagues in particular and my not-so-regional Liberal colleagues like Senator Mason recognised the absolute failing in that particular policy. To the credit of the coalition, last year we got the minister to do a partial backflip, allowing those students who live more than 90 minutes away by public transport from their tertiary institution to be grandfathered so that they are able to get the independent youth allowance. But still tens of thousands of students who had embarked on this process in good faith were left out on a limb.

What we have seen with the deal which the government has put to the coalition and has now been agreed is that all of those students will now not be hit with retrospective legislation. All students who finished year 12 at the end of 2008 and undertook a gap year will be able to access independent youth allowance this year. I have to say what a great decision that was. It should never have happened in the first place. This is the issue—this government going holus-bolus into yet another policy decision on the run, giving no thought to the detail, the impact and the effect that decision was going to have, particularly on regional students. At least that one has been addressed.

There is a grave inequity between regional students and metropolitan students when it comes to accessing tertiary education. I chaired the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs inquiry into rural and regional access to secondary and tertiary education opportunities. It became blatantly clear that the financial inequity which exists between regional and metropolitan students is stark. We know that around only 33 per cent of regional students go on to tertiary education, compared to 55 per cent in metropolitan areas. That simply is not good enough and it should not be tolerated. We know that this is because of the financial hardship caused by the fact that regional students have to relocate to attend university. They do not have the luxury of a university or even a choice of universities within the bus ride which Senator Mason referred to earlier. In so many instances, they are forced to move away from home to attend university.

Through all the work which has been done, we know that it costs $15,000 to $20,000 a year to relocate a student to attend a tertiary institution. Where is the equity in that, when city students are able to access universities which are practically on their doorsteps and regional students have to travel away, at a cost of up to $20,000, to university? This is one of the key points which is wrong with the system as it currently stands. In my view, we need to revamp the whole system. We need to start again and have a good look at what are the appropriate measures for supporting tertiary education. The inequity which exists is simply intolerable. We should have in place a tertiary access allowance so that we can address that inequity.

If you have a student in Sydney whose parental income is, say, $70,000 and a student out in a regional area whose parents also earn $70,000, both students receive the same amount of youth allowance, but on top of that, the regional student, who has to relocate, has to come up with $15,000 to $20,000 per year. That is simply not fair. People who choose to live in the regions should not be disadvantaged because universities do not exist where they live. That inequity leads to such a disparity between our regional students who go on to university and our metropolitan students who go on to university. We should be doing everything we can to encourage regional students to get to university, not make it harder. We know that students who undertake tertiary education in regional areas are far more likely to practise a profession in the regional areas. All credit to John Anderson when he set up the RAMA scheme because he knew that medical students from regional areas are far more likely to go back—about seven times more likely—to regional areas to work as doctors. And what is this government doing? It is trying to make it harder for regional students to get to university. How dumb is that? That is not a very flash adjective but it is about the best one I can come up with and is probably the most appropriate. It is a no-brainer that we should be doing more for regional students and not less. We should be giving regional students more support, not less.

This government has some bizarre view—I do not quite know what it is—that regional students should have to fend for themselves. It is indicative of the manner in which this government treats regional Australia. You see it time and time again. Regional Australia is absolutely disregarded by this government, not just in youth allowance but in a range of areas. The first Rudd government stripped more than $1 billion from country Australia. Regional development programs worth $436 million were scrapped and replaced with one program worth only $176 million. Existing agriculture programs worth $334 million were replaced with ones worth only about $220 million and most of those were about climate change. The second budget was worse. No specific program was put in place to support development in regional Australia and the area consultative committees across the nation were axed. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was the only department hit with an extra efficiency dividend. It goes on and on. Land and Water Australia has been abolished and $12 million has been taken from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. And this is a good one: they abolished the single desk for wheat—a good idea, if ever there was one!

And now look at what they have done for regional students across Australia. Not only have they done nothing; they have tried to make it worse. It is about time this government started to realise the importance of regional Australia to the future of this nation. Next time Kevin 747 is flying across regional Australia, he should look down and realise that those regional communities are the engine room of this country.