Mr ABBOTT (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs)(9.50 a.m.) —The member for Werriwa (Mr Latham) is a very clever politician; there is no doubt about that. That is why the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Beazley) is so scared of him. That is why the Leader of the Opposition kicked him upstairs when he took him away from being assistant shadow Treasurer and made him the shadow minister for education.

The fact is that the member for Werriwa has been far too clever by half today. What he is trying to suggest is that the government is taking away large amounts of rent assistance from 78,000 students. You cannot take something away from people which they never had. You cannot take something away from people which the former government never gave them. In all the 13 years of the former government's existence, it never gave students rent assistance.

The important thing to remember in this debate is that this government is paying rent assistance to students for the first time. This is a very important innovation; a very important extension of the principles of social justice. Students now get rent assistance thanks to this government. Seventy thousand students will benefit because of this government's decision to extend rent assistance to students on Austudy.

We are paying rent assistance on the same basis as rent assistance is paid in the Department of Social Security. As we know and as the former government knows, people who are sharing accommodation receive that accommodation in effect at a lower unit cost. That is what the former government always acknowledged when it paid lower rates of rent assistance to married people under DSS. That is what we are doing with rent assistance now. That is what will happen with rent assistance as paid through Austudy.

In 1996, 8,000 Austudy and Abstudy customers received rent assistance. Of these, only 19 per cent of Austudy rent assistance recipients and 18 per cent of Abstudy rent assistance recipients received maximum rent assistance. The average rates of fortnightly rent assistance paid to Austudy and Abstudy clients were $45.20 and $45.10 respectively. That is less than the new lower rate of rent assistance. This measure is estimated to affect only 1,300 Austudy and Abstudy clients receiving the student homeless rate in 1997, with savings of just $240,000 in 1997-98 and the following year.

The simple truth is that this is a good move for students. This is a major innovation for students. This is something which has been given by the government to students for the first time. One can understand why the member for Werriwa and the member for Jagajaga (Ms Macklin) are so upset about it. We are doing something which, if the former government had had any heart, it would have done. This is something which the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Senator Vanstone, can be very proud of. This is something which the government is very proud of.

If the proposal of the member for Werriwa were accepted, we would be spending something like an extra $40 million. The youth allowance which the government is moving to in the middle of next year is not a savings measure. The total cost of the youth allowance will be $25 million more than the total cost of the measures that it replaces. So it is not a savings measure, it is an innovation; it is social reform. If we were to do what the member for Werriwa suggests we should do, we would spend an additional $40 million on student beneficiaries of youth allowance alone.

The member for Werriwa has developed an enormous penchant for spending money over the last couple of months since he has become the shadow minister for education—$40 million extra on rent assistance; if we were to abolish the increases in HECS, I am advised that would cost $257 million up to the year 2001 on a headline basis and $1.449 billion on an underlying basis. The member for Werriwa has become a very expensive addition to the front bench. I wonder whether he has discussed any of these proposals with the shadow Treasurer, that policy genius as he was described in a Glenn Milne column recently before the young and the restless came out and undermined that briefing which had been given by the shadow Treasurer.

The fact is that the member for Werriwa is costing the shadow Treasurer an enormous amount of money—$40 million with this measure alone, $257 million in the removal of the HECS increases and almost $1.5 billion in underlying increases. This is the kind of money that the member for Werriwa wants to cost the shadow Treasurer. It is quite unusual to suddenly see the member for Werriwa reborn as Santa Clause, because in his former incarnation he was always Uncle Scrooge. If you look at the record of the member for Werriwa, you see that in the past he has called for capital gains tax to be extended to the family home, and he has called for tax measures to make the cost of homes in western Sydney more expensive. He is a politician; he is perfectly entitled to change his mind. I suppose, as Lord Keynes says, `When circumstances change, I change my opinions. What do you do, Sir?'

I do not blame him for that as such. I simply say that he needs to offer some kind of an explanation as to why it was right to be Uncle Scrooge just a couple of months ago and why it is right to be Santa Clause now. What we see on the part of the member for Werriwa is something that is quite common in the opposition—it is described as a major backflip. That title of Major Backflip has been awarded by my friend and colleague the Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training (Dr Kemp) to the Leader of the Opposition, so I suppose the member for Werriwa is simply Lieutenant Backflip.