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

Today I rise to thank my colleague and dear friend the member for Durack for introducing this private member's bill acknowledging the commitment of this government towards improving educational opportunities in the bush. Together, our electorates of Durack and O'Connor make up most of rural, regional and remote Western Australia. Our constituency is as varied as the landscapes we traverse in our daily work. Our challenges range from improving Indigenous school attendance and academic outcomes to ensuring all remote students have optimal access to distance education programs. We want our country schools' sporting, arts and academic champions to have the opportunities to compete on a global stage and for our school leaders to have equitable access to higher education, relative to their urban counterparts.

So what is the government doing to maximise the opportunities for kids in electorates like O'Connor? In the Indigenous space, I have visited many remote communities who are proactively working towards greater school attendance. Many O'Connor schools participate in the Clontarf program, which I have been involved with, along with Wongutha CAPS, which is a non-government boarding school with two campuses in O'Connor—in Esperance and Coolgardie—providing outstanding learning opportunities for remote Aboriginal students. The government's Indigenous Boarding Initiative assists students like these who choose to board to maximise their academic, artistic, sporting or educational opportunities. Last year over 1,700 students from electorates just like mine benefited from this initiative. Many of the more remote schools in my electorate receive additional government assistance through funding weighted according to their accessibility, remoteness, Indigenous make-up and measurable social disadvantage.

Over the next four years, the government is providing $22 million to roll out the Flexible Literacy for Remote Primary Schools program, which will help remote schools target those students who are not meeting the NAPLAN minimum standards for reading. The government also understands the unique challenges facing parents in isolated areas and supports the Isolated Children's Parents' Association, who are not only advocates but also innovators, assisting parents educating their children via distance education. Meanwhile, the Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme financially supports children who, due to geographical disadvantage, isolation or special needs, need to live away from home to undertake their studies.

Probably the most significant change this government has instituted is the amendments to Youth Allowance eligibility announced in last year's budget. The removal of the Family Assets Test and Family Actual Means Test as of January this year will have far-reaching consequences for the families of O'Connor. I have long campaigned for changes to Youth Allowance to address the inequities in accessing higher education for our regional and remote students who face greater costs due to having to move away from home to study.

Whilst O'Connor is fortunate to have regional campuses of the University of WA in Albany and the School of Mines campus of Curtin University in Kalgoorlie, the vast majority of our school leavers must relocate to Perth to realise their tertiary education aspirations. Tragically, although regional students have more chance of being offered a university place than their city counterparts, less than 62 per cent accept their offer. Of these, over 16 per cent defer their enrolment—more than double that of city students. Others postpone their studies for 18 to 24 months to become eligible for Youth Allowance and then reapply for a university place. Last year, principals from schools in the Great Southern informed me that, although 80 per cent of the graduating class of 2014 qualified for university entrance, approximately 97 per cent were taking a gap year, largely for financial reasons.

I thank the current government and in particular the ministers for education and social services, who have listened to MPs from electorates like mine and heeded the outcomes of regional consultations from the recent Australia-wide higher education forums. I am grateful for the changes that have been initiated this year, which are benefiting families across my electorate. I thank them for the upcoming changes from 1 July that will see larger families benefit from the consideration of all dependent children when assessing Youth Allowance eligibility and taper rates. However, I implore them to continue to consider ways to make tertiary education more accessible for regional students. I note the member for Durack mentioned that additional rent allowance would be much appreciated. I believe the biggest remaining eligibility barrier for regional students applying for Youth Allowance is the Parental Income Test. These kids work hard to attain independent status by earning over a specified threshold only to be deemed ineligible due to their joint parental income exceeding the $150,000 threshold. I encourage the government to continue to try to even the playing field for regional, rural and remote students seeking tertiary qualifications, for they are our regional professionals of the future.

I would like to close by acknowledging some schools in my electorate that have achieved recent accolades that reflect the calibre of our regional education. Many of these are independent public schools, so I congratulate their boards and principals for the autonomy and innovation that they have embraced that is now paying dividends. Last year, Manjimup Senior High School was awarded the title of WA Secondary School of the Year, East Kalgoorlie Primary School principal Nicole Hanna was awarded the title of WA Primary School Leader of the Year and the Mount Barker Community College made the top 25 WA Certificate of Education schools and was ranked the top regional school in WA.

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