Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to wish Gippsland VCE students all the best as they approach their exams. More than 43,000 students across Victoria, including my own Daughter, Morgan, will sit their English exams this Wednesday. This will be followed by a busy three weeks of further exams across the remaining subjects. While exam time is important for the students, they should not feel defined by their VCE results. Students who go on to get the ATAR score they desire I congratulate in advance for their hard work and commitment. For those who miss out on their preferred ATAR score there are many different pathways available to help them secure their dreams.

I do not regard university study as the be all and end all by any stretch and I have many students in my electorate who go on to fulfil very successful careers in trades or other industries, but I am worried by the persistently low participation rate among regional students compared to metropolitan students when it comes to tertiary studies. There are significant economic barriers for regional students, particularly those who are forced to move many hours away from home to access the course that meets their needs and with the unfinished business of student income support, or youth allowance as it is commonly called. It is unfinished business because Labor botched its reforms while in government. The Labor Party tinkered around the edges of student income support when what was required was a wholesale change to the system.

As students prepare nervously for their exams and then wait for their results, spare a thought also for their mums and their dads. Many are trying to work out right now how they will possibly manage to juggle their family finances to meet the living-away-from-home costs that they will incur. These are costs that metropolitan students do not incur. On average it costs a regional family $15,000 to $20,000 more per year to help their sons and daughters meet these costs.

The Nationals have been joined in recent years by other regional MPs from both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party in expressing concerns about the current system. I urge all members who are interested in this issue to continue to push for reform in this place. We need to do more to address the inequity in terms of regional students. The Nationals' own policy documents that were released in the lead-up to the last election—and I stress that the Nationals policy direction is prepared in consultation with our grassroots members—call on the government to address the real cost of living away from home for education. We proposed at that time a new and targeted rural and regional program to assist regional students who cannot stay at home with their parents while they pursue extra study.

I will be continuing to work hard to gather support for this position amongst members, particularly those members from regional communities. If successful in our efforts, the Nationals would like to see implemented our tertiary access allowance, which would apply to students for whom public transport is not reasonably available within 90 minutes of their place of study. They would then be entitled to a new allowance which would replace the current relocation allowance and in most instances the independent youth allowance. We believe that as a matter of fairness and equity it should not be regarded as a welfare measure. The tertiary access allowance in this regard would not be means tested, if the Nationals policy direction, as supported by our grassroots members, were implemented. We should also remove the $150,000 parental income test for regional students applying for the independent youth allowance.