Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I accept that. Senator Mason has indicated that the coalition now supports these new schemes. Senator Mason personally understood this. I have always said that Senator Mason has a better understanding of the consequences of these manoeuvrings than most of his colleagues. But it bears repeating that the scheme that people have been defending in here saw a family with two children aged 17 and 19 at home receiving a part income support when the total family income was just over $100,900 when compared with the previous cut-off of $60,000. That is the model you thought was great in the past.

What the Bradley review found, when they went to the detail of it, was that the current student income scheme—the old scheme—was incredibly poorly targeted and found that 36 per cent of independent students living at home were from families with incomes above $100,000. Professor Bradley’s research found that 18 per cent of students in this situation came from families earning incomes of above $150,000 and that 10 per cent of families who were receiving support had earnings of over $200,000. So the old scheme was not only incredibly unfair but fundamentally unjust.

We have an opportunity here today to put a new set of arrangements in place. If the amendment that has been foreshadowed is carried by this chamber, that is put at risk. This chamber gets up tomorrow night for a seven-week break. So there is a real issue here that cannot be simply glossed over by some procedural device or some attempt to pretend that you are doing anything other than what you are committed to.

Senator Mason, I do not envy you your position in a party full of such ignorant people. It must be difficult being a man who actually knows something about these topics to have to come in here and argue such an indefensible position. I understand how hard this can be, from time to time, when you have members of the House of Representatives who treat this place in a way that suggests that they do not really understand the consequences of what they are doing. Senator Mason, I am sure you would be aware that the member for Sturt actually wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister on 16 March. And while he wrote his usual sanctimonious stuff about how he would like to see more, he said:

We do believe there is still scope for improvement to the legislation for the provision of further concessions to also apply for students from inner regional areas.

I want to make sure those senators that may be living in some dream world and think they can play games with the lives of 150,000 Australians understand this. What Mr Pyne says is, ‘However, as agreed with you, we will ensure passage of the legislation this week so that Commonwealth scholarships can be made available as soon as possible to students.’