Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2010-2011 and the amendment moved by Mr Pyne with regard to youth allowance. It is a great frustration to me and many of the people I represent that this argument about youth allowance is still continuing. The former education minister, now the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, introduced these changes to youth allowance two years ago. They severely handicapp the ability of regional students to obtain a tertiary education. There was some negotiation and some ground given last year that allowed students from remote Australia and outer regional Australia to obtain independent youth allowance, but due to the vagaries of lines on maps and a methodology that had absolutely nothing to do with education and more to do with health provision we had huge anomalies in youth allowance. When students were living on opposite sides of a road, one was eligible and the other was not.

In my electorate, particularly disadvantaged were the students who live in Mudgee and Dubbo. Despite what people might think, many of my constituents are not from farms. Most of my constituents live in towns. I had a lot of correspondence from students in Dubbo and Mudgee and particularly from their parents who were concerned that they would not be able to afford a tertiary education for their children. One mother actually rang me and said that they had three children and they were going to have to decide which of their children was going to have a tertiary education and which two would have to miss out.

The Prime Minister, then the Minister for Education, spoke about the changes she brought in and said that there were many more scholarships available to allow country kids to study at university. But the issue is that they were not of a high enough value. I know the independent youth allowance is not perfect but I am a great supporter of it for several reasons. One is that it enables students to take a gap year after high school and take part in the workforce, to show some responsibility and earn money of their own. They get into the routine, they get out of the school environment and, as they are working and earning that money, they can contemplate their future. I know many young people who in that time have had a change of heart as to what they might really want to study at university and have gone into something else. So I think that 12-month period is very good. I also like the fact that they are more often than not in a fairly low-level, entry job in the workplace. Quite often academic students go on to something at university without experiencing working on a shopfloor, stacking meat in an abattoir or working at a supermarket checkout—all these jobs are worth while and very beneficial—and so they miss out.

We believed last week that there were going to be changes and the Independents in the House of Representatives decided to back the government and indicated that youth allowance was being fixed. But I tend to think they have been duped. At this stage, and Senator Evans confirmed it in Senate estimates last week, there is no clear plan for where the government is going with youth allowance. They have promised another review this year, but the problem we have is that two years of students—the ones in year 9 and the ones in year 10—are going to miss out. Mr Pyne’s amendment will allow youth allowance to start in June and students in year 9 and 10 will be covered. In the 21st century, to have students with perfect capabilities and the rest of their lives in front of them not being given the opportunity to reach their full potential because they cannot attend university is a shame. A lot of the reason we are still here discussing this is the pride of the Prime Minister, the pig-headedness of the Prime Minister. She will not admit that she got it wrong two years ago.

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