Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dunkley for her contribution and also thank the member for Grey, who spoke earlier. Following on from the member for Grey's speech, these changes are technical in nature. The bill seeks to amend the Student Assistance Act to make it consistent with the social security laws in the areas of tax file number collection, information management et cetera. These amendments don't place any additional administrative burden on funding receipts, and in some cases will lead to a streamlined process in terms of Abstudy and the Assistance of Isolated Children Scheme, or the AIC. They are technical, but I would like to address the issue of the real disadvantage of some of my communities and the opportunities they are now receiving through government programs and partnerships with country universities.

I grew up in the country town of Kempsey. There were no universities between Kempsey and Newcastle or Queensland. There are now two excellent universities at Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour: Southern Cross University and Charles Sturt University. One might think that the people who are disadvantaged in our smaller communities might just go to those closer universities only 50 or 60 kilometres away, but the opposite is indeed the fact. These people are people who need to work, who don't have the opportunities to go to the private universities, to pay those fees or to travel. So I was really pleased that a country university centre was opened in Kempsey only recently.

When I was preparing and looking at the figures something in those statistics really hit me. During semesters 1 and 2 in 2020 in the country universities they supported over 1,060 students from 38 universities. Forty-seven per cent of those people studying were the first in their family to study. Just let that sink in—the first in their family. Seventy-six per cent of that 47 per cent were female, eight per cent were of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage and 57 per cent were over the age of 25. So, in opening a country university centre, you're not just opening a place where people can go to do their work online. It's not just a pretty centre with a cafe or a kitchen or world-class internet. It is opportunity—opportunity for people who have never had that pathway to change their life. It is life-changing. It's not just a certificate. It's not just a degree saying you have a Bachelor of Laws. It's an opportunity to get a better job. It's an opportunity to get better pay, and, in doing so, to have a better lifestyle and, in the circumstance that you have a family, provide a better pathway and a better lifestyle for them.

Selfishly, as the member for Cowper, I say that what it does is makes our communities better. There was a young lady who was at the opening. She told the story that she started with one of the country university centres. She was working part time, going to the country university centre where she was living, and she completed her first degree. She was the first person in her family to do so. She is now doing her masters at the country university centre in Kempsey. She was in her mid-20s. She said she never thought she would even have a degree. She thought she would be working in retail or in the supermarkets, like her family had done, like her siblings had done. But because of these opportunities she now has opened up her world. While she might have started in retail, she can go and do all those things that the member for Dunkley said. She is not precluded by anything because of those opportunities presented.

When we talk about universities, sometimes we need to wind it right back and talk about those opportunities, which the small changes in this bill are providing to those who are not so fortunate. Many of us in this chamber don't know adversity. We've been privileged. I put myself in that category. I've never had to struggle. We've all gone out and got jobs, or second jobs, and put ourselves through university, or gone off and then studied later in life. But some people don't have those opportunities. They don't know how to get them. They don't know the pathways. And this country university in a small country town, like the other 25 or 26 across Australia, is changing people's lives, one by one, because of those opportunities.

To suggest that the federal government is taking these opportunities away from young Australians who want to better themselves—I'm sorry, but that's just a falsehood. That's a myth. The federal government is out there, trying to help these people help themselves, because, in doing so, we create more jobs, we create the environment to create more jobs and we make Australia a better nation. I commend this bill to the House.

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