QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE – GAP YEAR STUDENTS
August 18, 2009
Mr CHESTER (3.43 pm) — My question is to the Minister for Education. I refer the minister to the parental
income test that prevents a student from the average Australian farming family from receiving dependant
youth allowance despite the fact that the average farm income was only $62½ thousand last year.
Given that the minister now proposes to remove the gap year provision, which has until now allowed such
students to receive independent youth allowance, where does the minister propose that these families
should find the money to send their children to the city to attend university? Minister, when are you going
to give a fair go to students on their gap year?
Ms GILLARD — I thank the member for his question because it gives me the opportunity to explain
something that I think he would find deeply disturbing: that, under the current student financing arrangements,
the participation of regional and rural Australians in universities has gone down. If the current arrangements
were working to facilitate the kinds of families that he cares about, we would not have seen that result. So, in
terms of the kinds of families he cares about—and I accept that he has raised this because of his personal
concern about it—the statistics tell you that the current system is not working. When you talk to people about
youth allowance, many can tell you a personal story about a very high income family that has a child living
at home and attending university, who, through the gap year provisions, has managed to qualify for full income
support. Indeed, the Bradley review pointed to the fact that in a large percentage of cases—36 per cent of
cases, where people are living at home and getting the full allowance—there were these kinds of problems.
The Bradley review told us that there were families with incomes of more than $200,000 where people
were getting the full student income support and living at home. That is not the circumstance of the families
that you are talking about. The families that you are talking about have to send their kids away to study.
They are families who earn, by Australian standards, middle incomes. That is why we have changed the parental
means test so people in those kinds of income brackets will qualify for youth allowance based on
their parental income. It depends, of course, on the number of children in the family but if you had two
children in the family studying away from home you could be talking about parental income of up to
$140,000 and still qualifying for youth allowance. And, if you do qualify for youth allowance, then you will
also qualify for the relocation scholarship—$4,000 in the first year and $1,000 each year thereafter—and you
will qualify for the Student Start-up Scholarship of $2,254 a year.
Mr Pyne — Mr Speaker, on a point of order, the minister was asked specifically about young people in their
gap year. We simply ask her: will she fix the problem that she has created for young people in their gap year?
The SPEAKER — Order! The Deputy Prime Minister is responding to the question.
Ms GILLARD — Our changes will deliver greater benefits to the sons and daughters of lower and middle income Australians
without requiring them to take a gap year.
Mr Chester — We have got a gap year right now.
Ms GILLARD — The other problem with a gap year, and I am sure the member for Gippsland would
be concerned about this, is that if you set up a whole system which requires people to take a gap year in order
to qualify, many people who go on that gap year actually never go back into education. We should regret
the loss of those children from Australian universities.
The system that we are putting forward is one that will make a difference to precisely the families that you are
talking about. That stands in stark contrast to the opposition who, in government, did nothing to address the
student financing system that was seeing regional and rural participation go down. The National Party was
complicit in that, watching regional and rural participation go down. We believe in it.