Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Of course, as I have raised these individual examples, opposition members, including the shadow minister for education, have called out, ‘Split the bill’. Let me explain it to them one more time: if we split the bill as indicated by Senator Nash on Sky TV, that will pass all the beneficial measures and none of the savings. That is not a one-off cost; that creates an ongoing cost to the student income support system of more than a billion dollars.

I can see the shadow Treasurer is now thinking about this, and I ask him to think this: if his members raise expectations in their electorates that the coalition, despite a track record in government of never having reformed student income support, in opposition is going to invest a billion dollars more in student income support, then I ask the Leader of the Opposition and I ask the shadow Treasurer: are they absolutely guaranteeing they will make good on that promise at the election? That is that the first entry the shadow Treasurer will put in his Charter of Budget Honesty will not be on health, it will not be on tax cuts, it will not be on infrastructure expenditure and it will not be on anything else—the first billion dollars off the top of expenditure he chooses to make at the election will be into student income support. And if there is any chance that the answer to that question is ‘no’—and I think we all know that the answer is going to be no—then it is cruel and it is wrong to hold up paying these benefits to students on the basis that you stand for them getting an extra billion dollars only to let them down in the election campaign.

There are members of the backbench who have some goodwill on this matter; some of them have individually come to my office for briefings and to talk to me about it, and I accept that they are genuinely concerned. I accept that they were genuinely concerned on the transition matter and we acted on those concerns—the legislation has been amended to address the transition matter that was raised by members opposite, as well as by members of the government, by student organisations and by the education community. That change has been made. Once again I ask those members of the opposition of goodwill: how are they going to feel if they reject this legislation now and they do not produce the billion dollars in the election campaign? What will you say to your constituents if that happens? Think about it, and if you think you are not promising that billion dollars then the right thing now is to pass this bill.

I urge the Leader of the Opposition to reconsider this question. I urge him to genuinely reconsider it. This is not a question of politics; this is a question of actually getting money into the hands of students. I ask the Leader of the Opposition to consider it and I ask the members of the backbench who are full of goodwill, and who I can see are actually considering this question now, to urge the Leader of the Opposition to allow this legislation to pass. I know the shadow minister wants to keep playing politics with it—just like he played politics with the money that we paid to schools. The time for politics is gone; it is time to let this legislation through.

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