Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (More Generous Means Testing for Youth Payments) Bill 2015. I welcome the support from the member for Jagajaga and the Labor Party for this bill. It does go part way to rectifying the damage done to youth allowance by the Rudd government in 2010.

I first want to thank the Hon. Scott Morrison, the former Minister for Social Services, for introducing this amendment bill after listening to the pleas from regional backbenchers such as myself and my colleague the member for Murray and also from Senator Bridget McKenzie, Chair of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, when we appealed for more equitable access to higher education opportunities for the youth of regional, rural and remote Australia.

I thank Senator McKenzie and her panel of representatives from the education and social services departments who recently conducted over 14 regional education forums across the country, including one in Albany in my electorate of O'Connor. These forums were an opportunity to hear firsthand the experience of families and students when trying to access higher education in regional, rural and remote Australia. The information collected at these forums will be collated into a final report to be presented to the new ministers, my dear friend the Hon. Christian Porter, the new Minister for Social Services, and Senator the Hon. Simon Birmingham, the Minister for Education and Training, for their consideration in November to help shape further changes to accessibility for youth payments going forward.

In Albany, over 65 people attended our forum, including parents and grandparents, university, high school and gap year students, educational professionals and others concerned by the barriers country kids are experiencing in obtaining tertiary education. I commend the attendees for sharing their personal and often heart-rending stories and I acknowledge their well-considered recommendations on how the federal government can address the obstacles they have encountered. Together we heard of the emotional as well as financial cost for regional students having to leave home and the security of family, friends and mentors to set up a life in the city, taking full responsibility for the daily necessities of feeding, clothing and transporting themselves as well as securing a job while maintaining their studies. Many are ineligible for any form of government financial assistance.

Youth allowance is the main benefit these students seek to access to allow them to live guilt-free of the financial burden incurred by their parents, many of whom are supporting other siblings at school and university. I myself was once one such student. I was the youngest of six children. My mother was a widow working as a nursing sister to support my four older sisters as they pursued their university studies. My brother, Allan, and I remained at home, working on the farm after graduation from high school. I worked for two years to attain independent status for youth allowance and was able to move away to the Muresk campus of Curtin University and pursue my agribusiness degree. I am eternally grateful for the support that allowed me the opportunity to be the person I am today.

Now, some 30 years later, I see country kids just like me struggling with a system that is complicated to negotiate and, for some, impossible to gain any benefit through. Attendees at the recent higher education forum described the onerous application process for youth allowance, with one highly educated parent clocking up 80 hours helping their child fill out the necessary documentation.

Those from farms spoke of issues regarding the family asset test, where, even with the substantial discount applied, they still exceeded the threshold for youth allowance eligibility. In addition, farmers made the point that in this current economic climate you cannot just liquidate a farm asset overnight and, even if it were possible to do so, you would simultaneously lose your main income source. With respect to the family actual means test, I have met constituents who found the whole process so onerous they simply gave up.

This amendment to remove the family assets test and family actual means test from the parental income test will base the assessment of a young person's eligibility for youth allowance on a much fairer measure of their family income than the current system. I believe removing the family assets test will see around 4,100 additional dependent students qualify for the first time, accessing payments of more than $7,000 a year. The passage of this bill will significantly reduce the regulatory burden on around 200,000 families subject to the family assets test. Removing the family actual means test will see an additional 1,200 students receive youth allowance for the first time, and some 4,800 existing students will see their payments rise by approximately $2,000 a year. The passage of this bill will reduce the regulatory burden on around 30,000 families subject to the family actual means test. I therefore heartily welcome the plan to scrap the family assets test and family actual means test from the youth allowance eligibility and calculation criteria. I foresee this leading to tremendous improvements in access to youth allowance payments for the farming families of O'Connor.

This brings me to another issue raised at the forum by those with large families and multiple children studying. These parents find their children are ineligible for youth allowance due to them exceeding the parental income thresholds, yet they say there is inadequate consideration of the immense financial burden of supporting each of these children's individual education and accommodation needs. Many parents at our forum described paying living expenses of $17,000 to $25,000 per year per child attending university and only marginally less for children boarding for secondary school. One parent at the forum had put four children through higher education and another had spent $250,000 on higher education over the past 10 years.

It is for this reason that I welcome the amendments to change the youth allowance parental income testing arrangements to include all family tax benefit children in the family pool. Currently only children over 16 years of age are included in this test. These changes to the family pool for the youth parental income test will allow around 13,700 families with dependent children in both the family tax benefit part A and the youth systems to become eligible for an average increase in payment of around $1,100 per annum. Around 5,800 families who currently miss out on payments due to the combined high taper rates will become eligible for payments of around $1,300 per year. The changes in this amendment bill will soften the reductions in the dependent child's youth allowance payment as the family's income increases. I look forward to the changes this bill will introduce as a first step in a process that requires a major revamp. These changes to the current legislation will facilitate fairer access to dependent youth allowance for rural, regional and remote students.

But how many of these kids are truly dependent? Most cannot remain living at home to complete their studies. In Western Australia, unlike in our eastern neighbour states, we do not have regional universities. In some large regional centres, such as Albany, we are blessed to have satellite campuses of metropolitan universities such as the University of Western Australia. In Kalgoorlie we have the Western Australian School of Mines campus of Curtin University. Albany's Great Southern Institute of Technology hopes to soon offer degree programs in nursing and other in-demand qualifications through university partnerships so local students can be educated in situ and, hopefully, graduate to contribute to our much needed regional professional workforce. The City of Albany is actively trying to grow Albany as a tertiary education destination, and I strongly endorse the efforts of Mayor Dennis Wellington and his deputy, Greg Stocks.

Most of all, I acknowledge the quality of our country students. They are distinguished by excellent academic achievement, qualifying for university places only to be hampered in their aspirations for their desired courses by the tyranny of distance and the inherent financial barriers to obtaining self-sufficiency. Secondary school principals who attended the think tank I convened after the regional higher education forum confirmed up to 80 per cent of their graduates in 2014 qualified for university entrance, yet some 97 per cent of those would take a gap year, driven largely by financial considerations. It is important to note at this point that deferral from university only holds a place for 12 months, yet students have to take 12 to 24 months to qualify for youth allowance under various different criteria. Those who take time out are often lost to the temptations of a regular disposable income and peer group pressure. One principal stated over 33 per cent of their students taking a gap year would not proceed to university.

Although there are concerted attempts to offer educational opportunities in the regions so students have the opportunity to study in situ with the support of their friends, family and greater community, the undeniable fact is that most of our country kids have no choice but to move to the city for all of their studies. These kids leave home, often relocating many hundreds of kilometres, to set themselves up in halls of residence or rental digs where they have to largely fend for themselves. Although they have access to various support networks, there is nothing like the comfort of coming home to a warm hug or a home-cooked meal. I applaud the young people of my electorate who successfully make this transition to university life and work hard at their studies whilst also holding down jobs to support themselves.

At this juncture, I digress to congratulate three innovative Albany siblings, twins Caitlin and Damien and big brother Joshua Boccamazzo, all of whom are living away from home to complete degrees in Perth. Together they have drawn on their collective experience to create a website for country students, called City & Beyond, which aims to help country students like themselves in the transition to city and university life. Their website details the pitfalls and perils associated with accessing rental accommodation, negotiating the job market and applying for scholarships and benefits like youth allowance. I met with the Boccamazzo twins recently and was gobsmacked to hear that despite their identical education and employment histories they had both failed eligibility for youth allowance on different criteria. I think this anomaly is symptomatic of the broken vehicle this vital benefit had become under the previous government, and I challenge Minister Porter to fix this trusty old wreck one piece at a time.

For my electorate, the biggest constituent issue is actually eligibility for youth allowance under the independence criteria. For general independence eligibility, any student anywhere in Australia must prove they have supported themselves by working full-time for 18 months in a two-year period. This is not an easy feat in regional and rural areas where jobs may be seasonal, inconsistent or non-existent. I have met many students who have failed to meet these criteria due to situations beyond their control, such as illness, the seasonal nature of farm labour force requirements and competition from younger, cheaper labour during school holidays. A failure to meet these eligibility requirements often means abandoning their plans to study. For the special regional and remote criteria, a country student can be assessed as independent if they have received at least 75 per cent of wage level A of the National Training Wage Schedule in an 18-month period or have worked part-time for at least 15 hours a week for at least two years.

In addition, their parents must also have earned less than $150,000 in the most recent tax year. I have encountered countless constituents whose children have worked hard for the requisite period to prove their independence only to find they fail eligibility under the parental income criterion. Many parents cited the parental threshold of $150,000 as inadequately low when taking into account double-income families and those supporting other truly dependent children. I have also heard of cases where changes in parental circumstances have resulted in previously eligible kids losing their benefits part-way through their degrees and having to drop out. I therefore hope there is scope for reviewing youth allowance independence criteria in the near future.

All in all, I anticipate Ministers Porter and Birmingham will take the information gleaned from these Australia-wide regional higher education forums, together with the thoughtfully penned individual submissions of parents and students, teachers and mentors—all reflecting on the barriers to accessing higher education for country kids—and consider their constructive suggestions moving forward. It is my sincere hope that together they can shape a great youth allowance of the future, one that is equitable for all students—remote, rural, regional and metropolitan—and is based on their individual needs, so that we can nurture and encourage our youth to pursue a higher education.

I thank the former Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Scott Morrison, for the well-constructed amendment bill before us for debate today. It fulfils a budget promise to provide more generous and consistent support for families with dependent students who qualify for certain youth income support payments. I thank the government for their commitment of over $262 million over the forward estimates to bring extra support to some 30,000 families. In particular, I reiterate that this bill will benefit the many families in my electorate of O'Connor who have children wishing to pursue studies beyond year 12. These children are our future community leaders. They deserve access to the same education as their metropolitan cousins so they can become the best they can possibly be, irrespective of their postcode. I commend the bill to the House.

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