Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about something that is very important for the people in my electorate and more important for the long-term future of my electorate. In the electorate of Mallee we have completion rates for university studies of under 30 per cent, compared to, for example, the electorate of Higgins with 90 per cent completion rates. I think addressing this is going to be fundamental to our future. There is no doubt there is great potential for prosperity for our future and for lots of jobs, but we want these jobs to be more diversified across the economy. My fear is that if we do not address our university completion rates then some of our country towns will simply become providers of service industries for agriculture, retirement villages and tourist towns. We do have great agriculture, we are a great place to retire and we do have great tourism. However, what we want to see is some of those small to medium enterprises, manufacturing and high skilled jobs come back to and reside in rural Australia.

The government has expanded the Commonwealth funding system to students studying for higher education for diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees. This will greatly help colleges such as Longerenong, SuniTAFE and several others across the electorate. One of the things I also see that will complement getting country kids into higher education is better telecommunications. Being able to have high-end broadband means that the need to be settled in city areas is not as critical and you can settle in regional Australia.

We have seen that, if country kids go away to study and experience the world, they bring their skills back. It is a lot easier to attract country kids back to the country to put their roots down in their 30s and 40s than it is to keep those who have not had that exposure. I think this is why it is so important to invest in country kids. But it is not just a matter of what the university fees costs; it is also a matter of what it costs in order to get to the university. For example, for a single-income mum-and-dad family in my electorate earning $35,000, the cost of having their child, or two children, shift six hours away and having to pay living away from home costs and all those additional things are challenges for them. As a government we need to be cementing our ideas around how we make universities more accessible for country kids who have to travel a long way. This is something I am going to try to champion in the parliament. I want my electorate to know that increasing completion rates for country kids will be a focus for me as a member of parliament.