Mr SECKER (Barker—Opposition Whip) (20:36): I rise tonight to speak on this motion on behalf of all students in my electorate who are being unfairly discriminated against by this government. This is the government's fifth chance to change the criteria for youth allowance so that all students have a fair chance of furthering their education. The coalition has been pushing for the government to make the criteria fairer for inner regional students because the maps currently used are ridiculous and do not reflect the difficulties students from some areas have in getting to university. I note the member for Makin's comments, where he suggested we are ignoring the government's announcement last week about the increased numbers going to university. We actually do not have a problem with that; we support that. But there is still this problem, and what we are trying to do is address the problem caused by the criteria for the so-called inner regional students. To understand this, in South Australia we actually have the perfect example: Mount Gambier. Mount Gambier is about 450 kilometres away from Melbourne or Adelaide universities. So it is a long way, and there is no way they can actually go to university every day from home. Under the old criteria they had the opportunity of getting youth allowance if they were away from the workforce for 1½ years. But what we now have is that, in Mount Gambier, if you live in the city, 450 kilometres away from Adelaide or Melbourne, you are treated like a student in Adelaide or Melbourne, but if you live outside the town boundaries, you are treated as you were under the old Howard government conditions. So you have this stupid decision, which is based not on educational criteria but medical criteria relating to the availability of doctors—and, as a result of that, being in a city area like Mount Gambier, a reasonable sized city of about 23,000-24,000 people, you are treated differently. Of course, if you have doctors operating from within the city of Mount Gambier, people from outside the boundary can go to those doctors; it does not really affect them. It is really only about the funding that goes to doctors in that metropolitan area of Mount Gambier. But in this situation, they have used those criteria to have two different standards of students. So, if you live inside the town, you are treated like someone who lives in Adelaide or Melbourne, but if you live outside the town limits, that line on the road, you are treated differently. This is obviously a stupid situation, based on criteria which are not related to education. So all we are trying to do is point out to the government, for the fifth time, that they do not get it, they do not understand that people in Mount Gambier are obviously very angry, on the basis that they are treated differently from those who live outside the township. And if you understood Mount Gambier at all you would know that outside the town boundaries is still part of the urban area, which is the District Council of Grant. So we have these two classes of students. Inner regional students are currently forced to find 30 hours of work. Anyone who has any idea about regional communities would know that this is very difficult. I have received a huge amount of letters, calls and emails from concerned students and parents, over the length of this debate, because this is a genuine problem that needs to be fixed. As a representative of a large rural electorate, where parents are faced with huge costs to fund their children's university studies hundreds of kilometres away, I remain extremely concerned by the government's arrogant dismissal of the very sincere problems caused by the changes to the support arrangements for rural and regional students. This is an opportunity for the government to stop the inequity and get it fixed. (Time expired)