Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to continue my contribution to debate on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009, which was interrupted last night by the adjournment of the Senate. I have been sitting here for almost an hour waiting for the Senate to consider this very important bill. The government have wasted a good 20 minutes of our debating time by calling for two divisions on votes they knew they could not possibly win. It demonstrates what a mess the government are in in relation to the management of this chamber and, indeed, the management of the bill we are now debating.

It is essential that this bill be dealt with before 1 January 2010. I refer senators to contributions made by Senator Mason and other colleagues from this side and also to the very thoughtful contribution by Senator Fielding in relation to this matter. It is essential not only that we deal with this bill but, most importantly, that we agree to the amendments to be moved by Senator Mason, particularly to give country kids an opportunity to attend universities and other higher education institutions.

When I was speaking last night I was just reminding the Senate of the shortage of doctors there was in country Australia back 11 or 12 years or so ago when the Howard government first took office. At that time the then Labor government had no interest in rural and regional Australia, had no interest in rural and regional kids wanting to get to higher education, and did not care too much about the fact that much of country Australia did not have medical practitioners. At the time, as I mentioned last night, the then health minister, the Hon. Dr Michael Wooldridge, recognised that the way to get young people from the bush into universities and the way to ensure that those people when they graduated went back to the bush was to establish rural health departments at regional universities.

Last night I was talking about rural students at James Cook University in Townsville and Cairns, and particularly those in the School of Medicine and Dentistry. I mentioned that a Senate committee had been to James Cook University and taken evidence on this very issue that we in the Senate are considering at the present time. I mentioned the evidence given to the Senate committee by members of the Rural Health in Northern Outback organisation, or RHINO. Associate Professor Richard Murray, the head of the School of Medicine and Dentistry at James Cook University also gave evidence. I was telling the Senate about the results of a survey that RHINO conducted of students in the medical department at James Cook University.

The research of the students showed that participants spent approximately $10,500 per year on study from their own resources, and 70 per cent of those surveyed said that in addition to that they were supported by their family to an extent of, on average, $6,000. The survey showed that 65 per cent of students undertake 14.25 hours of work per week while studying on top of their university workloads. Over 50 per cent of those surveyed reported having received youth allowance at some point during their degree to support their tertiary education and nearly 70 per cent of those had claimed the independent rate. These figures are all very important in the context of the bill now before the Senate. Nearly 60 per cent of the respondents who received the independent rate of youth allowance reported that they had taken a gap year in order to become eligible and 70 per cent of students responded that they were required to move away from their home in order to pursue tertiary education opportunities.

It is interesting to look at the evidence of Professor Murray. He talked about the strategy of priority recruitment of students with diverse backgrounds—a strategy that James Cook University has adopted. He said:

For instance, in medicine it would be the most unusual demographic, I would suggest, of any school in the country, with the majority, 75 to 80 per cent, being of rural and remote origin. Many of them are the first in their family to go to university, let alone medical school.

He talked about students taking a year off so they could work a bit harder in Coles so they could get themselves through their last year. He said, and I quote:

This is just crazy in terms of the return for the nation of the health workforce.

Professor Murray also made a very good point when he said that students with a rural origin do need to be supported to access tertiary education. He further said that regional universities are the great producers of the regional workforce in health and need to be supported in a sense.

One of the RHINO students, a Miss Gordon, indicated that she did her schooling in a country location in Central Queensland. As she said, she did ‘do the gap year thing and earned $19,000’. She said:

To do that, I did three and sometimes four jobs in a week for that year, because I could not get full-time work.

It was a big move for her moving to a provincial city like Townsville. As she mentioned, she was away from her support network and away from home. Professor Murray made a very good point about medical students at a regional university like Townsville. He said:

Firstly, the majority of students in our programs are not from Townsville, and that is actually a really good thing because rural kids who go to the city typically feel a little isolated, whereas there is a greater welcoming experience here.

That is, a regional campus like Townsville. He went on to say:

There is local accommodation, and it is tight—

and I can vouch for that—

and people can find jobs and so on. However, in the health professional areas, clinical placement is a significant part of the program—

That is, of course, where students go out and work in hospitals, in general practice or in allied health. He said that when they go out for their clinical placement more often than not it is not in Townsville—it is not where the university is. He went on to say:

For instance, more than half the senior medical students are not in Townsville; the majority are in Mackay, Cairns and Darwin, and some are in Mount Isa and small places in between. Nursing students, allied health students, pharmacy students and so on will undertake placements all around northern Queensland and indeed elsewhere in the state and the country.

I just want to pause there from quoting his evidence to point out to the Senate that this is a fantastic outcome; these trainee doctors or allied health professionals, as I might call them, are doing their clinical work in the more remote parts—and, in some cases, very remote parts—of Queensland. It gives them the experience, the understanding, the culture and the confidence to be able to move back into those remote or country areas once they are qualified and provide a service for rural and regional North Queensland. I am sure the same experience happens elsewhere in Australia.

I have mentioned to the Senate before that when I attended the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival in Cape York I noticed there were about 30 or 40 young students from James Cook University. They were involved in this RHINO organisation and were out there meeting with Indigenous peoples to gain an understanding of their cultures and way of life and to get to know how to approach them. When these students are qualified, they can then go back and do some work that is of importance to Indigenous people: giving them access to medical services that people in the capital cities take for granted.

I go back to the point that Professor Murray was making. He was telling us that these students live in Townsville to do their work. They take these clinical placements in places outside of Townsville. He went on to say:

They do so largely at their expense. If you are dependent upon a minimum wage job in the hospitality industry of an evening but you then need to be away for eight, five or two weeks, it puts that employment at risk. You cannot give your share house accommodation up.

They will want to come back to it. They need to keep paying the rent in Townsville, but, when they then move to where their clinical placement is, they also have to fund accommodation there. I mention these things because they give an indication to this Senate of the cost to young people in pursuing their higher education. I am delighted that many of them can go there and do that. I have to say that when I was at that age—and that is quite a long time ago, as senators might appreciate—my family was unable to support me to go to university, so I had to start work as an article clerk and do all of my law studies externally through the University of Queensland. It was tough in those days. I think perhaps it is even tougher now, although these days these students are able to attend the university and they are able to be closer to their place of origin.

I do not want to take up my full allotted time on this debate. I am very conscious that we want to move ahead with this legislation. I repeat: in spite of the government’s mismanagement of the program, in order to be effective, this legislation needs to be passed through this Senate to start on 1 January next year. I will stop my remarks there so that other speakers can continue the debate. Again, I urge the Senate to seriously consider the starting date for this and very seriously consider Senator Mason’s essential amendments so that we can get some equity, justice and usefulness back into the system to help students who attend universities—particularly those form rural and regional Australia.