Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Standing Committee on Petitions. I congratulate the member for Fowler on the excellent work she is doing—and you too of course, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams—with the committee.

I rise to present a petition approved by the Standing Committee on Petitions. This petition is in direct response to the Rudd government’s flawed decision to change the eligibility criteria for students seeking to access the independent rate of youth allowance.

I join with the petitioners in highlighting the simple fact that these changes to the youth allowance place another barrier to university participation for students in regional areas. They unfairly discriminate against students currently undertaking their gap here and contradict other efforts to increase university participation by students from rural and regional Australia.

The petition currently contains 206 signatures, but let me assure the House that such is the depth of concern over this issue there are many more on the way. My office has sent a further 2,000 signatures to the Petitions Committee this week and I have been inundated with emails and letters from concerned teachers and parents, and of course the students themselves.

And on that point I will take up comments from the Minister for Education who has responded to questions in this place by claiming that the opposition is merely scaremongering on the issue. The minister also said it was a ‘very silly question’ when I asked the minister to guarantee that the students currently on their gap year would not be financially penalised under the government’s changes. The petitioners who have already supported this petition before the House tonight—and those who have written letters or sent emails, all of which I am forwarding to the minister directly—are not being silly, nor are they scaremongering. I know the minister is particularly busy, but I urge the minister to stop playing politics with the hopes and aspirations of country students and take the time to read at least some of the letters from students, parents and educators in Gippsland and throughout Australia.

Just by way of example, let me quote from a media release distributed by the Baw Baw Latrobe Local Learning and Employment Network on 22 May. The CEO, Mick Murphy—a man who is also not in the habit of saying silly things or scaremongering—said:

This policy discriminates against rural and regional students and has taken a city-centric view of further education.

We also have the Isolated Children’s Parents Association offering some forthright comments in a media release on 20 May titled ‘Rudd giveth—Rudd taketh away’.

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