Sophie Mirabella: Youth Allowance debate - 1 June 09

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on a matter that is of particular concern and has caused extreme stress amongst certain communities in my electorate of Indi north-east Victoria—in fact, right across to rural and regional Australia. Young country kids with a dream to go on to tertiary study, and their families, are now being put in a position where they are paying for Labor’s reckless spending. They are paying for Labor’s $315 billion debt. They are some of the biggest losers that have emerged from the government’s current budget and projected budget. But they are not the only ones—they are the ones that are immediately apparent. I have been personally contacted and my office has been inundated with extremely stressed parents, educational institutions and young people who were caught unawares with the government changes to the Youth Allowance Scheme. They did not think that one of the poorest groups in the community, struggling students, would be slugged and would be punished by the current government. But that is exactly what has happened.

This is not a rort. Young students, particularly rural students, applying for the independent living away from home allowance is not a rort; it is an absolute necessity for some young people to go on and study. That does not mean that they themselves do not still work part-time jobs or that their parents do not save thousands of dollars to send them off to pursue further tertiary studies, but it is that bit of assistance for those students who do not have the luxury, like many students in capital cities, to live at home or to live close to home with their parents while they are studying. For rural students it is doubly hard, moving away from a familiar environment and also incurring all those expenses that one incurs when one moves out of home—not when they are prepared to do so but because they have to.

So what do a lot of students do? They work hard and they have been working hard trying to earn over $19,500 to qualify for the independent youth allowance entitlement. But the government has now said: ‘No, we don’t think that’s fair. We think that you must work 30 hours a week for at least 18 months.’ This is in an environment where we are told next year there are going to be a million people unemployed. They are saying to young people: ‘We’ve put your future into debt. We have hocked the future. We think we are going to pay it off by 2022, but it will probably go well on into the future.’ The $315 billion will not stay at that, I can assure you of that, Madam Deputy Speaker Moylan. Just as we are certain that by the time we retire superannuation laws will have challenged several times over, we can be just as confident that the debt will definitely increase beyond this amount under the current government.

So not only have they burdened future generations they are also saying, ‘You will work 30 hours a week over 18 months in an environment of increasing unemployment.’ This is when many rural areas are suffering from drought and it is really hurting. It is not just those farming businesses but also other industries that rely on that and those industries that see the filter-through effect in these regional towns and centres. In that sort of environment that is what Labor is saying to young people and young rural families. It is absolute proof that they are utterly out of touch and utterly insensitive to the aspirations of young country kids and their families.

We heard today, during question time in the House, one of the Labor ministers mock this notion of aspiration. But there is genuine aspiration out there in the community, even with the dark and difficult times ahead. Young people who are straight out of school have a right to dream; they have a right to pursue their further studies and not to be hampered by the fact that they live in the country. They still do it hard; they still work. Now we have a situation where those students who are currently having a gap year and who are fully expecting to start tertiary studies next year will slip through the cracks.

The government has been asked to make some changes to youth allowance. It has also been asked to put off some of its changes. I have received a lot of correspondence on this matter, and I want to read some extracts from some of these letters and emails. This one says:

Our son Joseph successfully completed his VC last year and gained placement at a university at Melbourne to undertake a degree in 3D animation, which has been his passion for many years. Whilst we would have loved for Joseph to continue to live at home whilst pursuing his dream, Albury-Wodonga tertiary institutions unfortunately do not offer this course. As proud parents, we were naturally thrilled and proud of our son’s achievement. Due to the substantial financial burden of having a son living away from home, Joseph and we decided that he would defer his university studies for a year and hopefully find work in order to qualify for Centrelink’s youth allowance. In February, Joseph gained employment in a local factory doing process work on night shift. Moving from a high school environment to working nights in a factory presents as a very dramatic transition. Joseph has met this challenge admirably. He is very goal oriented and we will do whatever it takes to get to where he wants to be.

The federal government’s 2009 budget proposes changes to the youth allowance eligibility criteria. Effective from 1 January 2010 the criteria for which Joseph was working towards have been removed—meaning that he cannot become eligible with the actions he has been undertaking for the past four months. We are devastated by this and completely fail to see any fairness in this change whatsoever. The impact of this change on Joseph is that his career aspirations are now in serious doubt.

And the quotes go on. This quote is from two parents who are in their 50s:

Yes, my husband and I both work and are over 50 and have a large housing loan because we chose to make a move to a larger town where jobs were more plentiful. We are certainly living better than some out there but we are not really in a position to take full financial responsibility for Emma living and attending university in Melbourne. How many politicians or highly paid public servants would ever have to go through the decisions that every day students and parents are having to decide presently? I think that we have been severely short changed and sold out by the Rudd government.

It goes on to say:

I actually voted for them because I believed in them. I am sure both my husband and myself would have been happy to forgo our lots of $900 if it meant keeping the youth allowance in tact.

And it goes on. And why does it go on? Because this measure is really hurting people out there. It is hurting families and it is hurting young students.

But we saw today the Deputy Prime Minister in her sheer insensitivity and arrogance claim that the Liberal Party want to defend the current system. In criticising the existing system, she said:

If the Liberal Party want to go out and defend the current system with its skew to people who earn $200,000, $300,000 and $400,000 a year, we would simply say: ‘That is what the Liberal Party does. It always seeks to benefit those better off at the expense of the vast majority.

Well, Deputy Prime Minister, you are wrong. There are many decent Australians out there who are not earning $200,000, $300,000 or $400,000 a year. There are many families out there who need the current system to remain as it is. You ought to have the courage to say that you are wrong. You ought to have the courage to apologise to these families for the stress that you have caused them. And you ought to seriously reconsider the decision. It is not just the financial burden that this generation will have of paying back your debt and your reckless spending but also the impact of this decision on country kids. All sorts of organisations, such as the Albury Wodonga Careers Advisers Association, as well as parents and schools are trying to help by asking the government to enact a grandfather clause that will protect these young people who are currently deferring their studies. I fully support them in that pursuit.

Just think about the burden you have created and think about your responsibility in actually governing for all Australians and look beyond the politics of envy and the false assumptions that that has given you in looking at country students and their families. You need to have a look at these changes and you need for once to listen to rural and regional Australia and young students.