March 1, 2010

Thousands of tertiary students will today (March 1) commence their studies without financial support because of the Rudd Government’s gross mismanagement of changes to Youth Allowance and Commonwealth sponsored scholarships.

Federal MP Luke Hartsuyker said the government changes would severely impact students from regional areas. “From day one these changes always unfairly targeted students who have to live away from home in order to pursue the course of their choice. That applies to the majority of students from regional Australia. Julia Gillard scrapped the previous scholarships and then announced a new program. However, instead of allowing the Parliament to support the new program she tied these new scholarships to legislation which proposes radical changes to Independent Youth Allowance eligibility.

“As a result thousands of students have been hung out to dry. For those who commence their studies this year there are still no scholarships available. All Julia Gillard has achieved is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety for students and their families,” Mr Hartsuyker said.

“The matter could have been easily resolved if Ms Gillard had separated the new scholarships from the proposed new Youth Allowance changes. The Coalition has made it clear that if the two provisions were separated in legislation we would support the introduction of the new scholarships. But Ms Gillard’s hard line approach has now descended into another Rudd Government stuff up.  Following on the heals of the shambolic home insulation program we are now seeing regional students paying the price for a Rudd Government Minister’s gross mismanagement of their portfolio.”

Mr Hartsuyker said the Rudd Government’s proposed changes to Independent Youth Allowance, whereby students would have to work for 30 hours per week for 18 months in order to be eligible, severely impacted those who take a gap year between their secondary and tertiary studies. “The Rudd Government has taken a cold blooded approach to this issue. Half way through last year they even tried to ram through the changes to make them effective immediately. That meant students who, in good faith, started their gap year last year would not qualify for Independent Youth Allowance this year. We are now seeing a disturbing pattern of behaviour from the Rudd Government. They are predominately all talk and no action – but when they try and do something they botch it completely through poor policy and Ministerial mismanagement.”