Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I rise to also make a contribution to the debate on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Extend Family Assistance to ABSTUDY Secondary School Boarding Students Aged 16 and Over) Bill 2019. This bill extends family tax benefit eligibility to families of Abstudy secondary school students aged 16 or over who need to live away from home to attend school. Under current family assistance legislation, the family is no longer eligible to receive FTB once an Abstudy secondary school student who boards away from home turns 16. Clearly, this is nonsensical in this instance. This can represent a significant drop in income support for families that can be as high as $6,900 per year. FTB supports families with the cost of raising children and should continue to be paid until a student finishes school.

This bill will address a significant area of need for families and will assist with covering the costs of clothing, medicines and pocket money when students are away at boarding school. It basically addresses a very significant anomaly. It will, it is anticipated, increase year 12 completion rates for First Nations students. The Greens support this bill as it addresses a key policy gap by ensuring families of Abstudy students are eligible for FTB until they finish year 12.

The Community Affairs Legislation Committee held a short inquiry into the bill. During the committee process, several submitters also identified problems with the broader Abstudy scheme. While supporting this particular bill, they took the opportunity to articulate some concerns they had. Having heard these concerns, we share those concerns, some of which I would like to highlight today. To remind people: Abstudy is an important scheme available to First Nations students which aims to encourage First Nations people to take full advantage of the educational opportunities available, promote equity of education opportunity and improve educational outcomes. Unfortunately, the Abstudy scheme in its current form is not meeting some of these objectives, according to the witnesses that we heard from—or any of these objectives. First Nations people still face significant barriers to accessing and completing education in Australia. This is particularly true for students living in rural and remote areas, and Senator McCarthy has just very eloquently articulated some of the problems for those students.

In 2018, attendance rates for First Nations students ranged from 86 per cent in inner regional areas to 83 per cent in very remote areas. The Closing the Gap report in 2019—obviously, this year—shows that we are not on track to close the gap between First Nations people and non-Indigenous people in a number of areas, including in school attendance. Attendance rates for First Nations students did not improve between 2014 and 2018.

I'd like to articulate just a few of the concerns that people expressed. They talked about the current application process being complicated and said that it acts as a potential barrier to families wanting to access the scheme. I acknowledge that the department outlined to us how it had attempted to improve the situation and to improve the application process. However, it appears that this isn't fully meeting the needs of families. Families—

Debate interrupted.