Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, she did walk away but she can fix the problem. She can deal with the issues, take ministerial responsibility and do the job that she is supposed to do. Instead, there is another new version of ministerial responsibility, which is that the ministerial responsibility for not passing this issue actually rests with the opposition leader or with the opposition spokesman. Somehow or other they are responsible for the failure of the government to deal with this issue in a proper and effective way. The fact is that ministerial responsibility rests with the minister and fixing the problem that the government has created rests with the government. It does not rest with the shadow minister or with the opposition. If she wants to accept her responsibility as a minister she can do it today and she can sweep away the worries and concerns of students across the nation.

Last year, against the advice that the minister had received, the government abolished the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships and the Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships. That was vital support for students, in particular those from rural and regional areas. It enabled some of them to make the significant step of going to a capital city or a large provincial city and undertaking university education. The reality was that that income gave them the confidence to start. Others had chosen the gap year route, had worked their way through it and were ready to study away from home at university.

You would know well from your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, that people in remote areas have only one-third the chance of getting a university degree that people who live in the cities have. I ask the minister in the context of her role as Minister for Social Inclusion to include the people of rural and remote areas in the education dream. Minister, If anyone is serious about social justice, social equity and social inclusion in this nation then they cannot regard that figure as acceptable.

We must work to find ways of supporting people making the significant change in their lives of opening a new home far away from families, friends and support groups to give themselves and their families a better chance in life and to bring back their professional skills to their rural towns. They can train to be doctors, lawyers, accountants or engineers and come back to the regional communities to help build up the skills in those towns. You cannot do that unless you get can get a fair go at an education. The reality is that the government is not prepared to put in place mechanisms which give rural and regional students a fair go.

All of this arose, the government told us, because they were concerned that some wealthy families in cities were able to qualify for the independent youth allowance. I acknowledge that there were deficiencies in the old scheme and it is reasonable that they should be corrected, but you do not have to get rid of the entire scheme for everybody in order to deliver those reforms. We are prepared to make those changes. We will support those kinds of constructive changes to the youth allowance scheme, but do not introduce a 30-hour work test which you know no student in regional Australia can ever pass.

They are no jobs in regional communities that offer the 30 hours a week for 18 months needed for them to qualify. The work that comes up in regional communities is generally seasonal. They may work 60 hours a week for a few months, earn the qualifying amount of money and then be able to receive a university education. The government is ruling out this option. There were a few jobs around in regional Australia over the last few months installing batts in ceilings but they did not last very long. They may have paid quite a bit of money for a short-term program of that nature and enabled students to qualify, but the program is gone and the opportunity for those people to work to qualify for the independent youth allowance has gone with it.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you and many other members, particularly in regional areas, have heard hundreds of stories of students who have been left in the lurch by the government’s failure to address the independent youth allowance question. There are many stories from people who are concerned about where this scheme has gone. The government talks about having an education revolution, but it is not an education revolution when you deny people an opportunity to go to university. Leisha, from Geraldton, wrote last month to say that she had studied hard to get an acceptable score for university in Perth. She took a gap year in 2009 and worked full-time to try to qualify for the youth allowance and live in an expensive city. Now she faces taking on a full-time job while studying in an effort to make ends meet.

I got an email from Michael of Gladstone, who did try the full-time job route while he was at university in Brisbane. He could not manage that workload and do his studies as well. He decided to take a gap year to try to earn sufficient money so that he would be able to complete his university studies. Roz, a parent and a drought-stricken primary producer near Toowoomba, wrote desperately seeking action and information for her daughter about what was going to apply. She said: ‘I need an urgent reply as she has only nine days to make a decision about whether she is going to defer, and she needs to know what the possibilities are.’ That was months ago and the government still has not given these people an answer. The Isolated Children’s Parents Association and the Country Education Foundation wrote repeatedly to the minister to make it clear that the work test she was proposing would simply deny access to every student from regional areas who wanted to qualify. That is not fair. That is not the way to deal with an issue of this nature.

The minister now has an opportunity to correct those problems. She will have an opportunity to split the legislation to enable the scholarships to go forward, to enable students to commence their academic year. Is she going to vote against her own Commonwealth scholarships? Is she going to vote for what she has been proposing? Michael from Gladstone called it ‘terrible legislation’. Now it can be fixed. Will the minister finally give some level of belated certainty to students and their parents? The ball is in the government’s court. There is ministerial responsibility on the line. It is not the opposition’s fault, it is not the opposition spokesman’s fault; it is the government’s fault, because the government has failed—(Time expired)

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