August 8, 2010
The Nationals in Government will amend the controversial Youth Allowance legislation to allow all Gippsland students to achieve the independent rate under relaxed workforce participation rules.
Federal Member for Gippsland Darren Chester has hailed the policy announcement as a ‘breakthrough for common sense’ and an opportunity to help more Gippsland students attend university in the future.
“This is great news for Gippsland and Latrobe Valley students,” Mr Chester said.
“Under the Rudd-Gillard Government, we have the ridiculous system of lines on a map discriminating against students in Gippsland. If the Coalition wins government on August 21, we will implement a fairer system where all students in our region will have the same rules applied in terms of the workforce participation requirements for achieving the independent rate of Youth Allowance.”
Under the policy put forward by The Nationals, young people will be able to qualify for independence from the beginning of the 2011 academic year if they undertake a gap year and achieve the relaxed work test of approximately $19,500 over an 18 month period.
As Education Minister, Julia Gillard introduced a scheme which meant many regional students had to work for 30 hours per week over two years to achieve the independent rate of Youth Allowance.
“Under Labor’s scheme, we have students in the same classroom forced to comply with different schemes because of lines on a map that divided parts of Gippsland into ‘inner’ regional and ‘outer’ regional,” Mr Chester said.
“The Gillard system is fundamentally flawed because students who live in towns like Sale, Maffra, Traralgon, Morwell and Yarram are treated differently to students in towns like Port Albert, Stratford and Bairnsdale.
“The only way to change the system is to change the government.”
Mr Chester said he would continue to work with students and their families to overhaul the system of student income support.
“Our policy position is a huge step in the right direction but we will need to do more in the future to fix the fundamental inequity for students from regional areas who leave home to attend university,” Mr Chester said.