Nationals to press for income support

THE Nationals are calling for changes to income support for regional students.

THE Nationals are calling for changes to income support for regional students, before an overhaul of the system if they get their way in a Coalition government after the September 14 election.

Last weekend the party's federal council passed a motion to scrap a $150,000 parental income test applied to students seeking independent Youth Allowance.

Opposition regional education spokeswoman Fiona Nash said the test was contradictory. "(It) defeats the purpose of students having to prove they're independent of their parents," she said.

The council also supported a motion to cut the time students must work to qualify under the "soft" workforce test for independent Youth Allowance, which requires them to earn at least three-quarters of a training wage across 18 months.

The Nationals want this reduced to 12 months, meaning students would need to earn only about $14,400 - down from $21,600 - to demonstrate their independence. They also would be able to access support earlier.

The changes would affect only students from regional areas. Metropolitan students lost their eligibility for this stream of Youth Allowance following the Bradley review.

Senator Nash said she understood the view that high-earning parents should pay for their children to go to university.

But she said the real issue was the $20,000 to $30,000 that families in regional areas had to pay to relocate students to study in the cities.

"That cost burden sits with the regional family, not with the city family," she said.

"You might have a doctor working in regional Australia. The regional doctor's got to cough up $20,000; the city doctor doesn't. That's the inequity."

Senator Nash said the problem was starting to deplete regional workforces. "A lot of these professionals are going back to the city," she said.

"They say, now my kids have hit university age, I'm going to move back to the city. I can probably earn more and my children can live at home."

Notwithstanding the proposals to tinker with Youth Allowance, the Nationals still want a $10,000 tertiary access allowance introduced for regional students facing more than 90 minutes of travel to study.

Senator Nash said she would push for it to become part of the Coalition's overall education policy.

Independent Youth Allowance has become a de facto form of income support in the absence of such an allowance. Senator Nash said this was inappropriate because it used a welfare measure to address an issue of geographical inequity.

Regional communities also say it is forcing school-leavers to take gap years as a matter of course, even though many would prefer to go straight to university.