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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Wednesday, 31 March 2004) . . Page.. 1391 ..

to Canberra life. They contribute to our society, to our community and to our economy. They pay rates and land tax through their rent, they contribute in terms of all the goods and services that they pay for here in the ACT and when they graduate they will pay for their education, including government support, at over two times more than they got.

Clearly, the federal government is not doing enough to help struggling young people in the ACT, but the ACT government is not doing enough, either, and it would be a positive step for the ACT government to take the initiative and set about helping make the lives of students in the ACT more liveable and more affordable, as opposed to continually saying that this is just a federal government issue.

MS TUCKER (10.52): The Greens believe that a responsible government should foster a strong, vibrant, top-quality public education system that is free from preschool to university. That is the kind of vision that the Greens bring to the debate today about support for vocational and higher education. It is an affordable and responsible vision. We believe that higher education should be funded by the government rather than by individual students. We believe that it should be funded through progressive taxation, whereby people contribute, depending on what they earn, to pay for a service that is provided based on the willingness of people to want to learn and engage in higher education.

The question of student income support is fundamental to the debate about postsecondary education in Australia. Students must continually decide whether to prioritise their time earning money or spend their time ensuring that they can study and get a quality educational outcome. This is a trade-off that students face every day and it leaves us socially, culturally and economically sold short.

The Australian Council of Social Service in their submission to the government on the higher education proposal said:

…the package will contribute to growing divides in three areas: a divide between those people able to attend university and those who do not; inequality between the universities that poorer and wealthier students attend; and a disparity in the capacity of universities to deliver quality education.

They are concerned that adult students over 25 years of age receive only $155 a week from Austudy, around 36 per cent below the Henderson poverty line, and are not eligible for rent assistance; that young students from poor backgrounds living away from home receive slightly more than students aged over 25—$192 a week, including rent assistance—but this amount is still about 17 per cent below the Henderson poverty line; that adult unemployed people receive $71 a week more than Austudy recipients, which creates a disincentive for people to improve their qualifications and job prospects; that high HECS debts already put off many prospective students from attending university, yet this barrier is likely to worsen under the government’s plans to allow universities to increase HECS fees; and that inequality between universities will worsen as prestigious campuses become resource rich from higher HECS fees and more full-fee enrolments, while universities catering to lower and middle income students, such as those in regional areas, will have fewer resources.

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