Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is true, Bob. I will give you an example. In my area, D&B Gears, which was previously a mass producer of gears in my electorate, is now an extremely successful exporting business. Why? Because they gave up the mass production of gears and now produce large-scale individual key projects for places like ports, where they go in, assess the needs, develop the gears, manufacture the gears and install and provide after-sale service. They do that very successfully. That is what we should be encouraging. The university wants to be part of that and I commend Gerard Sutton and his team for getting this allocation.

Most importantly, as I have outlined, there are 61 schools in my electorate, with 87 projects going on, a total of $36.11 million of work. I am a bit biased on this. Not only is it important to jobs but, as a former teacher, I believe the quality of the place you send your kids to gives them a very significant message about how you value their education. If you continue to send them to buildings which are run down and leaking, I think you are saying something to them about how important their education is. Infrastructure in schools is critically important to young people.

As chair of the Standing Committee on Education and Training, I want to finish on the change to youth allowance. Having two students studying at tertiary level, I think it is very important that we understand that the parental income has been raised, that many young people who have been expressing concern may actually now, for the first time, be eligible for youth allowance under the parental income test and not have to defer, to take 18 months off to gain independence status. If those opposite are genuinely interested in helping young people, I encourage them to look at the full suite of reforms under the youth allowance system to see whether individuals can now go straight on to university and do not have to take time off. I commend the budget. I think it is the right budget for difficult times. I encourage those opposite to engage in a more informed and constructive debate about how we deal with the times we face.

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