COUNTRY students keen to go to uni next year could be forgiven for being impatient with the Federal Parliament's squabbling over party leadership and emissions trading schemes this past week.
While the argy-bargy continued, the legislation that will bring in new scholarships and new rules around accessing tertiary Youth Allowance was delayed, leaving families in limbo.
Will country kids be applying for scholarships proposed under the new rules, or will they be better off taking a gap year under the old rules?
Who knows?
Just weeks short of beginning their hunt for housing and accommodation as they shift from home to cities to start uni, no one knows whether the old or the new rules will be in play next year.
The legislative amendments have been ping-ponging between the Federal Lower House and the Senate.
The latest round saw Family First Senator, Steve Fielding, objecting to Labor's proposed rules concerning the work hours required for students to become eligible for the Independent Youth Allowance.
Previously, they could earn $18,000 in 18 months and be declared independent.
Labor is proposing that students must work, on average, 30 hours a week for at least 18 months, over a two-year period.
Labor's logic is that 30 per cent of students who take a gap year, (and many country students do, specifically to meet the independent Youth Allowance criteria), don't return to uni, so they want to discourage the gap year.
Steve Fielding argues, and correctly so, that 30 hours of paid work is not always available in country areas.
So he's proposing a 100km rule: any tertiary student who has to live 100km away from home to attend uni should be eligible for the independent Youth Allowance under the old rules; that is they earn $18,000 within an 18-month period.
The Liberals say this should apply to anyone who has to move away from home to study.
The National Union of Students says Fielding's proposal will cost a further $750 million.
The Liberals and Labor argue the budget should not be blown further and that to accommodate the latter, some of Labor's proposed new scholarships have to be chopped.
Those scholarships include $2254 for all uni students receiving income support for each year of study.
Country students who have to move away from home for uni could also be eligible for a $4000 relocation scholarship in the first year and $1000 in subsequent years.
Steve Fielding also says the parliamentary bill proposing the scholarships and Youth Allowance criteria changes should be split so the Parliament can pass the scholarships and argue the toss around Youth Allowance eligibility criteria separately.
On Monday this week, the legislation was still not listed for hearing in the Senate.
But it must be finalised this week.
The alternative is to leave country tertiary students and their families, who are about to start making their university arrangements for next year, in a right royal mess. And that's not what our Parliament is about, is it?
