Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I join this debate. Let us reflect for a moment. The member for Hunter made some very good points, but they were in the wrong debate. The member for Hunter referred a lot to the parental income thresholds, which have nothing to do with the motion that has been brought to the House by the member for Forrest. I congratulate the member for Forrest for moving this very important motion and recognise the interest which has been shown by regional MPs from across the political spectrum, primarily of course from the Liberal and National parties, but some Labor regional MPs and some Greens have also expressed a great deal of interest in this debate.

It is a real opportunity for us to prove to the people of Australia that under this minority government in this hung parliament we can actually work together to achieve some positive outcomes, particularly on behalf of regional students. I take up the contribution by the member for Durack, who referred to the fact that this is about equity. That is the crux of this issue, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott. I know that in your own electorate of Maranoa there are some real concerns amongst regional families about the great inequity faced by students from regional communities who go to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or Perth and try to make ends meet when they move away from home to undertake further studies. Today we have a chance to take some real, positive steps to fix the mess that has been created in relation to student income support in this nation.

Before I discuss the full details of the motion, I want to remind the House about the recent history of this government in dealing with issues surround student income support and particularly the reform measures introduced by the Minister for Education in the Rudd government, and current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Last year, she announced without warning or consultation plans that actively discriminated against students who were on their gap year at that time—students who had done absolutely nothing wrong, who had followed the advice of their careers advisers, parents and teachers. In many cases they had even sought information from Centrelink. As education minister, Julia Gillard was prepared to pull the rug out from under their feet without any consultation whatsoever. The only reason she changed her mind was that she saw a political problem in the torrent of petitions and letters and of pressure and protest coming from throughout regional Australia. The end result was that, yes, some changes were made and students on a gap year at the time were protected from the retrospective nature of the legislation. But the minister’s insistence that the changes were cost neutral created more problems.

This was not an education revolution, as the minister often proclaims. It was just tinkering at the edges and in the process another discriminatory position was entrenched which actively discriminated against many students in regional areas. This concept of inner regional and outer regional classifications for the purpose of deciding eligibility for the workforce participation criteria associated with the independent youth allowance is a mess. Yes, that is a mouthful and that is part of the problem. The system of student income support is ridiculously confusing. It is cumbersome, it alienates parents, students and teachers and it is fundamentally flawed. The government knows it. The regional backbench MPs in the Labor Party know it as well. This motion is an attempt to fix just one of those flaws.

Under the Rudd-Gillard government reforms, we have the ridiculous system where two students attending the same school, going to the same class but living just a couple of kilometres apart have to achieve different standards of workforce participation to achieve independence and become eligible for the highest rate of youth allowance. I remind the Labor backbenchers who have spoken here tonight that we are talking about the independent youth allowance. It might suit them to talk about the parental income test and the improvements to the thresholds, which were supported by this side of the House, but the debate tonight is about the independent youth allowance and the discriminatory classification system of inner regional and outer regional, which is inequitable. The minister knows it and the Labor backbenchers know it as well. They stop me in the hallway and talk to me about it. They talk to me about the system of youth allowance.

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