FED:Gillard faces battle over student bill

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-2011
FED:Gillard faces battle over student bill

By Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer

CANBERRA, Feb 14 AAP - Prime Minister Julia Gillard faces a battle in her bid to prevent
parliament passing a coalition draft law boosting regional student support.

The Senate has passed a bill, proposed by Nationals senator Fiona Nash, to make youth
allowance more widely available to regional students.

The government says the draft laws, which will cost about $274 million until 2013/14,
breach section 53 of the Constitution.

This section of the Constitution specifies that: "proposed laws appropriating revenue
or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate."

But Senate President John Hogg, a Queensland Labor senator, allowed the bill to proceed
in the upper house.

"The bill in question does not appropriate money," he said in making his decision.

"It doesn't need to do so because any funds required to support the measures in the
bill have already been appropriated by the parliament."

House of Representatives Speaker Harry Jenkins will publicly reveal his thinking on
the matter, advised by Clerk of the House Bernard Wright, as early as Monday's parliamentary
sittings.

It is understood he won't rule the bill out of order, but will leave it to the parliament
to put it to the test.

The last time such a bill came from the Senate to the House was in September 2008 when
draft laws were introduced to boost the single-aged pension. The Speaker no sooner had
presented the clerk's advice when Leader of the House Anthony Albanese jumped in to successfully
move that the bill was unconstitutional and the house should decline to consider it.

The government rubbed salt into the wound by gagging debate.

Since the 2010 election, the Labor minority government has relied on the support of
independents and the Australian Greens to get motions and bills passed.

The Greens have called for the government and opposition to find a compromise to deliver
extra allowances for students.

Independents Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Andrew Wilkie, and WA Nationals MP Tony
Crook, are on the public record as being sympathetic to boosting regional student allowances.

Mr Windsor has raised the prospect of a compromise with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott,
but he said at the weekend the issue of money bills needed a broader examination, given
their potential impact on the federal budget if more start coming through.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland has written to Mr Jenkins drawing his attention
to the government's view, a spokesman said.

"The government will continue to oppose the bill as it is unconstitutional," the spokesman
for Mr McClelland said.

The other option for Labor will be to delay the bill by a member of the selection committee
referring the bill to an inquiry.

It only takes a single member of that committee to initiate an inquiry.

AAP pjo/rl/vg

KEYWORD: YOUTH

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