Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

It is a reduction. I acknowledge that it is a reduction on what we actually put to this parliament. It is a reduction, and part of the cost of the compromises that you have made is a reduction of $100 per student. Every student should bear that in mind. The cost of these compromises is $100 a head.

There is $2,128 as a start-up for a scholarship student every year and $1,300 in 2010 if this legislation passes. Do not assume that this legislation will pass, because the opposition have moved amendments which they know cannot be accepted. When they play these games—when they engage in these gestures—and when they provide these opportunistic and, quite clearly, hypocritical and fraudulent devices, they should bear this in mind: the consequences will be registered.

The measures we have here include the raising of the parental income test. This is what is at stake here: 150,000 university students have the opportunity to receive a substantial benefit and that is put at risk by yet another bit of political gamesmanship by people who have already struck a deal. The parental income test under these measures will be raised so that families with two children studying away from home can earn more than $140,000 before their allowance is cut out completely. That is a massive benefit. Students who choose to move to study may be eligible for an additional relocation scholarship worth $4,000. That is what the opposition are putting at risk: $4,000 for students who are obliged to relocate. That is in the first year of study and there is $1,000 each subsequent year. So we are not talking about just the $4,000 but the $1,000 that comes thereafter.

As a result of these changes, from 1 July 2012 students will be able to earn up to $400 a fortnight—$236 up from the old scheme—without having their payments reduced. The other great benefit of this scheme, which the opposition choose to gloss over—choose to put at risk—is that the age of independence will reduce progressively from 25 years to 22 years by 2012, which will see an estimated 7,600 new recipients of the independent rate of allowance. It will be reduced to 24 this year, if the legislation is passed.

These are genuinely landmark reforms. They have the unanimous support of 39 university vice-chancellors across this county. They have been so concerned at the opposition’s shilly-shallying and political manoeuvring that they have written to every senator urging this chamber to pass this legislation. They know the consequences of the opposition’s political gamesmanship for the 150,000 Australian students who will miss out on the enormous benefits that this government wishes to introduce.

You, on the other side of the chamber, have been defending your scheme, which Professor Bradley described as desperately unfair. What we are doing is replacing a scheme that was desperately unfair. So when you get teary-eyed about this, bear in mind—