Page 1485 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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Mrs Dunne: I know.
MR HARGREAVES: Trivia time. Mrs Dunne always wins trivia. Where is it? It is near Bulli. Plainly this is why Mrs Dunne got it right, because it is Bull-I. I got that from, and thank you very much to, Mr Mallett upstairs about Coalcliff.
I ask members to support the students and therefore I commend this motion to the Assembly.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.37): The Canberra Liberals support Mr Hargreaves’s motion as brought forward today. It is simple, it is straightforward, it makes a point that I think is worthy of the support of this Assembly. I endorse all that he said, except the bit about Bull-I.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (5.38): I thank Mr Hargreaves for bringing forward this motion. It raises an important equity issue for young people who want to be able to travel around our cities. The Greens absolutely support the key ask in Mr Hargreaves’s motion that the government move forward on establishing a national concession card for students.
In fact, this has been a very public Greens policy for a number of years. Indeed, it was one of the Greens policies that we took to the last federal election. We have been very vocal in calling for federal and state governments to move to establish a national student card through the COAG process. Whilst not strictly a federal issue, implementing a nationwide Australian student card would need to be addressed and agreed to at COAG when federal, state and territory ministers have the opportunity to meet. So we agree with Mr Hargreaves’s suggestion to take this issue to the meeting of state, federal and territory ministers. The Greens are very pleased that Mr Hargreaves and Ms Burch are advocating and going into bat for our students to ensure that they are treated fairly all around the country.
As we all know, student disadvantage does not just stop when you get to the border of a state or territory. States and territories should provide consistent concessions to all students across the country. It really is quite absurd to think that a student from the ACT would not be recognised as a concession holder when they travel interstate. We endorse any attempt to get this issue on the agenda. Considering the Greens have been arguing for this scheme for a number of years, it has been disappointing to see there has been a lack of action. We need to move on. We need to get this in place.
This motion does not contain a lot of detail on how this new card should work. That will obviously need to go through a process of agreement through COAG. However, I do want to ask that Ms Burch make a strong case to her state and federal counterparts that the card should be granted to all students—undergraduate, postgraduate, domestic and international—and it must allow concession rates for public transport in every state and territory.
It is interesting to note that the ACT is not currently leading on this issue when it comes to offering concessions. This title actually goes to the Northern Territory. The
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