I rise today to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Simplifying Student Payments) Bill 2016. I would like to commend my colleague the member for Bass for his forensic and excellent contribution to this debate. I speak in support of the bill and in support of the most recent amendment, 'regional and remote student access to education—additional support'. These changes will improve the administration of payments to students and ensure consistency with other payments. Ensuring consistency across income support is a sound rationale and one that Labor supports.
It is also an important feature of this bill that all recipients of youth allowance and Austudy will automatically receive a healthcare card. This acknowledges that young people have limited earning potential while undertaking their studies. I am also pleased to note that the amendment, 'regional and remote student access to education—additional support', recognises the disadvantage faced by young people in regional and remote areas. This amendment will make it easier for young people from regional and remote areas to qualify as independent for youth allowance purposes. This change is expected to benefit about 3,700 regional and remote students, and that is good news. This will particularly help students who want to take a gap year straight after school. They can work for that year and still qualify for youth allowance as an independent in time to commence study the following year. It is also important that this bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 to provide that the most up-to-date 'remoteness structure' will be automatically used when a youth allowance recipient or applicant's family home is in a remote area. That is of particular importance to country kids who move away and need that extra bit of support—kids in the area that I represent, Paterson.
So I do support this bill, but I wonder if it is any more than a token effort by the government to feign support for students and young people when, really, it could not care two hoots about them. Some of the large structural changes it is putting into place erode some of the most important supports we can provide for our young people. If this government really did care about young people and about students, it would not have before the parliament other measures that will cause them hardship and force them into poverty. It would not be pushing jobseekers under the age of 24 onto youth allowance—a cut of at least $48 a week, almost $2,500 a year. If the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, really wanted to support young people, he would not have reintroduced into the new parliament measures that will push them into poverty. The Prime Minister is continuing Mr Abbott's attack on young people, in my opinion. He is knowingly pushing them into poverty. Young people need support to finish their studies or to find a job, not savage attacks that make it harder for them to find work.
If this government truly supported young people and students, it would not be talking about introducing $100,000 degrees. Who in this chamber would have paid $100,000 for their degree? We were part of the lucky generations. For some in this place, higher education was free—thank you, Labor! For others it was a manageable debt we repaid through HECS. I was one of those people who started uni in 1989, when HECS was introduced, and we had the earning capacity that allowed us to pay it once we graduated. How on earth will these young people ever get on top of a $100,000 bill for their degree? Labor believes access to higher education should be based on merit, not on wealth. Deregulation of university fees and $100,000 degrees shut the door on our students and Australia's future economic prosperity.
Also, $100,000 degrees put up a barrier to young people entering the housing market. As if it is not hard enough, with first home buyers pitched in bitter battle against seasoned, cashed-up investors, this government wants to saddle young people with an education debt that could be the deposit for their first home. One hundred thousand dollars is nothing to be sneezed at, and it could be the changing, pivotal point in someone's life. There are two things this government could do to address this diabolical situation. It could axe forevermore any talk of $100,000 degrees and it could listen to Labor when it comes to reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax. That would go some significant way towards ensuring young people can get the education they need and afford their first home. These issues are not new, and they are on the table. All we need is this government to listen.
We are relatively lucky in the electorate of Paterson that our house prices have not gone crazy like those of the capital cities. But I want to turn to today's ABS property price data. It is the latest sign that the Australian housing market is moving beyond the reach of young first home buyers. Today's release shows that the average home price is $656,800, after rising at its fastest pace in at least the last five years. The December quarterly increase of four per cent is the largest increase since the data series began in 2011 and is a gross increase in average prices of $25,400. The Reserve Bank of Australia has today reiterated concerns around recent increases in investor lending and growth in household debt outstripping growth in household income. So, there you have it, straight from the ABS today. We know that houses are becoming exponentially more expensive, and we are pricing out young people.
Our young people also earn lower wages, and that is part of the conundrum. Their struggle is the same. In Paterson, house prices have not risen as quickly and as steeply, but people in my electorate earn less money—that is why this struggle is the same. They are competing with investors, some who are onto their sixth and seventh investment property. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has also found that finance to housing investors has rocketed by more than 27 per cent over the last 12 months. So the last quarter had the highest rise, but looking at the last 12 months the annual increase has been the largest since 2014. In New South Wales investors make up more than half of new mortgages. At the same time, the proportion of first home buyers in the market fell and remains at near-record lows. Don't these stats speak volumes about what is really going on? We have to do more to help young people buy their first homes.
Another thing that this government could do if it truly cared about young people is stop the cuts to penalty rates. I know one family who live in my electorate whose daughter studies at uni in Sydney and works part-time in retail. She works Sundays and public holidays specifically so that she can make the most money she can in the shortest possible time, because she is studying a double degree. When these cuts to penalty rates come in, her weekly pay will drop by $50. That $50 buys her food for the entire week. So what will she do about food when the cuts to penalty rates come in? Work more? Maybe, if the hours are there and if her study commitments allow it. Eat less? I know the two-minute noodle staple of the student diet is the thing that a lot of kids rely on, but she cannot reduce her food bill to much under $50.
If this government cared about students, it would also end the Medicare freeze so that more students could access doctors that bulk-bill. It would properly fund our hospitals so that the health of our young people is looked after. It would fully roll out Gonski so that our schools are properly funded and our students are given the very best start to their education that we can provide and so they learn in the best possible environment. In fact, they learn to learn, to go on learning for the rest of their lives, as our ever-increasing economy will require. The government would sort out the second-rate NBN as well—that is a diabolical situation. In my electorate—in fact, in my own family—we do not have the internet. The federal member for Hunter does not have the NBN. We are too far from the exchange to get ADSL. So, yes, I buy dongles, and I have children in high school. My girl in year 12 this year regularly rings me and says: 'Mum, we're out of internet. We need to get some more.' It is happening right across all of our electorates. It is disgraceful to think that, in this connected age, so many people are not connected. Further, if this government cared about Indigenous young people, it would be more than a little concerned that so many of our young Indigenous men end up in jail rather than in higher education.
This government has cut billions from schools and from universities. It has cut billions from vocational education and from TAFE, and our apprenticeship numbers have plummeted by 40 per cent. It has cut training and employment programs and group training organisations that were getting young unemployed people into jobs, particularly in country areas.
Yesterday I read a story in my local newspaper, The Maitland Mercury, about the apprenticeship shortage in the Hunter Valley. The Hunter Valley Training Company's CEO, Sharon Smith, said the company had experienced a 40 per cent decline in the numbers of apprentices over the past four years—forty per cent in four years; that is just extraordinary. This was, in part, due to the downtown in mining, but equally to blame were the removal of some federal government programs, such as the apprentice tool allowance, and increases in TAFE fees—which, again, have been exponential. This will likely lead to shortages of trades-qualified people, particularly in the mechanical engineering and fabrication and construction sectors. Hopes are being pinned on an increase in apprenticeships and traineeships in service industries, such as aged care, youth work and business administration—but there are still going to be skills gaps.
On a national level, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Australian Industry Group have all said the number of apprentices and trainees in Australia more than halved between June 2012 and June 2016. About 299,000 people were in vocational training in 2012, and that figure dropped to 106,000 in the June quarter last year. I want to say that again: there were almost 300,000 people in vocational training in 2012, and in June last year that dropped to 106,000. That is not sustainable for an innovative country.
Gen Y is Australia's most educated generation, yet it faces the worst job prospects in decades. Our young people are living in a world of uncertainty. They are worried about how they will afford their education and even whether an education is worth it—will it lead to a job, and will that job be permanent and full time? Or will they be part of an increasingly insecure, casualised workforce in which people work fewer hours than they want and fewer hours than they need?
This simplifying student payments legislation does, in some small way, improve the lot of our young people. It recognises regional disadvantage and it recognises students need help with healthcare costs, but it does not go far enough. Students need choice, they need education they can afford, they need skills that are relevant to the jobs of today and tomorrow and, most importantly, they need the financial backing of their government to help them on their way. Australia offers many opportunities for young people, but the outlook is not at all rosy.
Our young people are worried about their futures, they are drowning in debt and they are living in poverty. This government needs to do much more to support our young people, our students, who are the very backbone, the very future, of what we are trying to build in this great nation. If there is anyone who needs our support it is the young people. I implore this government: please, get on board; you are at the steering wheel of our country at the moment. Time and time again in question time I hear the government saying, 'What about what you did when you were in government?' Here is the breaking news for the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and all of those men on the front bench: they are at the steering wheel now. It is time for them to put the pedal to the metal and get on with supporting our young people—making some real, positive structural changes that this country sorely needs and not abandoning our young people, and, therefore, abandoning the future of this country.
