Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor has welcomed more generous youth payment means testing which will benefit regional families with tertiary students.

As families prepare for students to start or resume away-from-home study or training, Mr Taylor said changes passed by parliament late last year would make youth payments fairer and simpler.

“From January 1 this year, the Family Assets Test and the Family Actual Means Test have been removed from the Youth Allowance Personal Test.

“Removing the assets test means that thousands more people will qualify for an average annual youth payment of more than $7,000 a year. Removing the means test means that thousands more students will either receive the Youth Allowance for the first time or if they’re already receiving it, they will benefit from an additional $2,000 a year,” Mr Taylor said.

“Regional and rural families often face higher costs when their children are studying or training because the students have to move away from home. These new changes mean those families will no longer have their farm assets counted toward the means test.”

Link to video discussing these changes.

Transcript: “If you are 18 or 19, wanting to go off to university, and you live in rural Australia, the biggest barrier to you getting in there is not university fees, it’s actually the cost of accommodation and living in a new place, in a new city often, whilst you go off to university. The youth allowance is all about helping people with that, but it has still had too many barriers for country people. What this does, is knock down an important barrier which is the assets test, which makes it easier for country kids to get off to university. That’s a real imperative; it’s been a focus for me and I’m very excited that this development, this initiative is going into place.”