The Lies Abbott Tells - Part Eighteen

THE LIE

“If you start a course under one system you will finish it under one system….. If you start next year your conditions of study won't change. It's only for those who start when these changes kick in in 2016 who will have the different conditions applying to them.” [Tony Abbott quoted in The Daily Telegraph 21 May 2014]

THE FACTS

A spokesman for the Department of Education told Fairfax Media: "Students who enrol in a Commonwealth supported place after 13 May 2014 will be charged under the existing arrangements until 31 December 2015. After this date they will be charged under the new arrangements, as determined by their university or higher education institution." [The Sydney Morning Herald 21 May 2014]

Clarence Valley Privacy Management Plan to be placed on public exhibition

The Daily Examiner 23 May 2014:

CLARENCE Valley Council is asking for public help to review its Privacy Management Plan.

On February 18 the council unanimously approved a plan based on the January 2013 Model Plan from the Division of Local Government.

But after debating a notice of motion from councillor Karen Toms on Tuesday, it has voted to put its Privacy Management Plan on public exhibition for 28 days to gather submissions.

Backgrounding her move, Cr Toms said she found a sentence in the final paragraph of Principle (6) in Section 10, the information protection section of the code, which worried her.

Principle (6) covers how the council should control and grant access to personal information it holds.

She said the words "council is exempt from complying with this principle in situations where compliance is reasonably likely to detrimentally affect council's conduct of an investigation" were at odds with the language in the model plan.

Cr Toms obtained legal advice, which said the clause was beyond the power of the council to deliver.

The advice from solicitor Stephen Nazarian concluded the clause had the potential to contravene the council's obligation to provide procedural fairness to councillors and staff.

"The risk is that the terms of the plan may be relied upon to deny councillors and staff their right to a fair hearing under the code," the advice read.

The council has countered with its own legal advice, which said Mr Nazarian failed to consider a direction from the Privacy Commissioner on December 23, 2013, under section 41(1) of Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act.

The direction gives a relevant agency exemption from compliance under a number of sections, including Section 10….

ACOSS: Under Abbott Government an est. 100,000 people under 30 will have no income support for six months of any year they are unemployed

Excerpt from an Australian Council of Social Service media release dated 21 May 2014:

The budget brings especially dire news for the 12 per cent of workers under 30 years of age who find themselves out of a job. They will have to wait six months for their first income support payment, then survive on no income for six months of every year of unemployment.

Despite talk of exemptions, ACOSS estimates that about 100,000 young people each year will lose income support through this measure. This budget measure risks creating a lost generation by depriving young people of the support they desperately need at precisely the time they need it most to set them on their way in life. We are still waiting to hear how the new rules to deny income support to young people up to 29 years for six months of every year will provide them with opportunity.

A six-month limit on social security for young people is a blunt instrument that is a kick in the guts for people who are simply struggling to survive and find a job. If the government believes that this many people are rorting the benefit system it should provide the evidence, and that must extend beyond anecdotes.

The Abbott Government has decided to make guinea pigs of the under 30s living on the NSW North Coast

According to the Herald Sun on 27 May 2014, from 1 July 2014, jobseekers aged 18 to 30 years of age, living in the Richmond, Tweed, Clarence Valley, Ballina, Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour areas, and who have been receiving Youth Allowance or Newstart for 12 months or more, will be required to undergo approximately 15 hours a week compulsory work for the dole for a period of six months.

After that these job seekers will receive no unemployment benefit for the next six months.

From 1 January 2015 those job seekers on Newstart will be switched to the lesser benefit, Youth Allowance.

Also from that date any person under 30 years of age who becomes unemployed will be unable to apply for Youth Allowance for up to six months depending on their work history.