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Student plan is `hush money’

News Clippings Maria Moscaritolo, Adelaide Advertiser, December 02 2009

THE Federal Government has failed to broker a deal to get its controversial youth allowance legislation changes through Parliament this year, despite offering a $20 million rural tertiary hardship fund as a compromise.

Education Minister Julia Gillard approached Family First Senator Steve Fielding - who had sided with the Opposition to reject the Income Support for Students Bill - to offer the olive branch deal.

However, Senator Fielding rejected the proposed fund, calling it ``hush money’‘.

He said it would not fairly compensate the 26,000 rural and regional students the Opposition estimated would face a tougher hurdle to qualify for the youth allowance independent rate.

The new criteria requires students to work an average of 30 hours a week for 18 months to qualify for the independent rate, which critics say is unrealistic in rural areas.

The stalemate means the current youth allowance system will remain in place unless the Government can hurry through its changes in early February, before the new university year in March. The old costs and accommodation scholarships have been scrapped and without the Bill’s passage, students will not have access to their replacements.

The National Union of Students, which joined university vice-chancellors to lobby for the Bill to be passed, said the decision would leave students in limbo. The fund would have kicked in from 2011, once ``transitional arrangements’’ to qualify for the independent rate ended for students on a gap year.

Ms Gillard said a rural and regional taskforce, which would assess the impact of the changes on students, would have decided how to allocate the fund.

A spokesman for Ms Gillard said Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne had not been approached to discuss the proposal. Mr Pyne called for negotiation but said the fund ``highlights there is a problem but doesn’t fix the fundamentals’‘.