August 19, 2009
Victorian regional Labor MPs have been accused of failing to stand up for country students after voting to gag debate on Youth Allowance in Federal Parliament.
Federal Labor MPs in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong today voted with the government to avoid a debate on the impact of the proposed changes to Youth Allowance which discriminate against students currently on their gap year.
The Nationals Member for Gippsland Darren Chester seconded a motion that was put by Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne but both MPs were prevented from speaking on the issue.
“This is a betrayal of regional students by Labor MPs who pretend to represent rural and regional communities across Victoria,” Mr Chester said.
“They travel here every sitting week and simply parrot the party lines rather than having the courage to stand up and fight for a fair go for their constituents.
“My office has been inundated with calls from gap year students, parents and teachers who are angry about how they are being treated under these proposed changes.
“These regional Labor MPs need to explain why they are happy to sit back and let regional students on their gap year suffer the consequences of the Rudd Government’s policies.”
Mr Chester said the Opposition was continuing to pursue the issue in Federal Parliament and had asked questions of the Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard over the past two days.
“On Monday, the Minister couldn’t even bring herself to say ‘gap year’ when she was asked to justify the fairness of her decision to change the rules on students who have deferred their university studies for one year,” Mr Chester said.
“Yesterday when I asked her another question on the topic, she floundered around and pretended that everything would be alright. Today she just laughed when her colleagues voted to gag the debate on Youth Allowance.
“These students on their gap year did nothing wrong. They followed the advice of principals, careers advisers and Centrelink officers and now Julia Gillard and all regional Labor MPs are pulling the rug out from under their feet.
“It is a question of fairness and a question of doing the decent thing by young people who have followed the rules as they existed at the end of the last school year.”