sofa
You probably think you understand. But you don’t.
If I don’t get one of these I will kill somebody. Anybody. Most likely you.
you probably wish you had a shark card
New Youth allowance laws.
The first measure in the Bill outlines the changes to the independence criteria for Youth Allowance.
The age at which a person is automatically independent is changing. It will be phased down from 25 now to 22 by 2012 – at a rate of one year per year. This change means that more young people will be eligible for youth allowance, and many existing youth allowance recipients will receive a higher rate of payment.
The Howard Government increased the age of independence from 22 years to 25 years in 1998 – though at the time they put a commitment in the legislation to progressively reduce the age back down over time. After 11 years, this Government is delivering where the previous Government could not and did not.
As recommended by the Bradley Review, our reforms will be largely funded by tightening the workforce participation criteria for independence under Youth Allowance and ABSTUDY to ensure that it is a test of whether a student is independent of their parents by having worked at least 30 hours per week for 18 months.
Working part-time will not be considered sufficient to establish independence from parental support.
Under the previous system, the parental income test was so low that many students sought to gain access to student income support as independent Youth Allowance recipients.
Many of students took a gap year to meet this criterion – and we know for a fact that around 30 per cent of students did not return to study.
Under the Government’s new arrangements many students who previously had to prove ‘independence’ will now be able to access support automatically as ‘dependants’ through the raised parental income test. Those who have worked full-time and are independent of their parents can still access support in this way.
No person who is currently independent because of workforce participation will be affected by this change.
Of course we can’t be independant from parental support, because you just made it quite impossible. If 30% of students didn’t return to study after ONE year, how many do you expect to return if we have to work longer than that just to be eligible for whatever shitty amount you decide is sufficient.
