The Youth Allowance independence test

Independence in Youth Allowance policy

The primary issue for those accessing Youth Allowance (YA), the payment for full-time tertiary students, is the outdated and discriminatory definition of ‘independence’. ² An applicant will either be classified as ‘dependent’ or ‘independent’ of their family, depending on whether the applicant is assumed to be receiving financial familial support. By default, a person aged 21 or younger is considered dependent unless proven otherwise. ³ A dependent applicant is required to report both their own income and assets and those of their parents or guardian. ⁴ The YA payment amount is then adjusted on this basis. It is assumed that any parent with the means to do so will be supporting their child through tertiary education.

To be classified as ‘independent’, an applicant must have: worked full-time for 12 months or more consecutively, be married, have a dependent child, be an orphan or refugee, be in state care, or have parents who ‘cannot exercise their responsibilities because they are in prison, are mentally incapacitated, living in a nursing home or missing’. ⁵ If the applicant does not fall into one of these categories, one additional way exists to prove independence – that is on the basis it is ‘unreasonable to live at home’. ⁶ According to the Social Security Guide (‘SSG’), this situation includes cases where it would be unreasonable to expect the person to do so as there would be a serious risk to his or her physical or mental well-being due to violence including family violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, neglect or other similar unreasonable circumstances, OR their parents are unable to provide the young person with a home because they lack stable accommodation. ⁷

An applicant may also claim that it is ‘unreasonable to live at home’ due to ‘extreme family breakdown or other similar exceptional circumstances’. This is extremely difficult to prove. Centrelink must verify with a parent that ‘extreme family breakdown’ has occurred as well as a third party. ⁸ One Centrelink case manager explained this requirement as necessitating the report of a doctor, counsellor, psychologist or social worker who has spoken to both the parent and child.

The level of severity required is also very high. No set criteria are provided however the examples given include criminal activity by the parents, severe neglect or forced ‘extreme’ cultural/religious practices which are ‘generally illegal’ such as arranged marriage or female circumcision. ⁹ It is specifically ‘NOT sufficient that parents disapprove of relationships or lifestyle choices made by the young person’. ¹⁰ They are also intended to be applied uniformly, ‘even for older young people who may have had no dealings with their family for several years’. ¹¹ Years of estrangement are insufficient to prove extreme family breakdown.

The need for reform

Young people – rejected, ostracised or otherwise out of contact with their biological families – are placed in an impossible position by these policies. Such a person hoping to pursue tertiary education or an apprenticeship must either attempt to remain on sufficiently good terms with their family to procure sufficient financial information to satisfy a means test, ¹² or else go without government financial support while they study. The third option, filing for extreme family breakdown, is so unrealistic in its requirements as to be functionally useless. An estranged parent who refuses to provide their financial information is unlikely to happily share the details of their family dysfunction with a stranger at Centrelink, as well as speak to a medical professional at their request.

Placing so much power in the hands of parents also risks (further) abuse for the child. An applicant who needs their parent’s co-operation to receive YA may feel compelled to retain or restore a harmful relationship. A parent’s power over their child’s income may also be a weapon of coercive control, used to threaten or persuade their child to act according to their wishes. In the context of abusive parent-child relationships, there is little incentive for a parent to tell the truth in an extreme family breakdown assessment. Withholding information or pretending that no problem exists, in order to punish their child or save face, is anecdotally common. ¹³ The YA requirements can be seen, in this light, to neglect those who most require assistance – applicants whose parental care is not only insufficient to materially sustain them, but whose parents’ care does not even extend to filling out a form.

This issue is particularly acute for young LGBTQIA+ Australians who are much more likely than their cisgender heterosexual peers to be rejected by their families, usually for their sexuality or gender identity. ¹⁴ The SSG’s specific exclusion of disapproval ‘of relationships or lifestyle choices’ as a qualifying basis of extreme family breakdown excludes parental queerphobia which does not reach the threshold of, or is not described by the applicant as, abuse. ¹⁵ Excluding queerphobia disregards the serious and often lifelong psychological and other consequences of living in such an environment. ¹⁶

While no qualitative research has yet been undertaken on the effects of the YA independence policy, it is likely relevant to the considerably higher rates of queer homelessness and poverty. ¹⁷ In Victoria, nearly a third of queer respondents to a 2017 survey reported having experienced homelessness, compared to 13 per cent of cisgender heterosexuals. ¹⁸ This is fuelled by the same factors that make YA inaccessible: 82.4 per cent of queer respondents named ‘relationship breakdown and family conflict’ as the cause of their first experience of homelessness. ¹⁹ The faith placed in the stability and safety of the nuclear biological family to care for young people is misplaced and harmful.

The inaccessibility of YA to queer young people risks reinforcing the structural disadvantage faced by the LGBTQIA+ community. Queer people already earn less than their cisgender heterosexual counterparts, despite higher average educational achievement, likely due to the myriad effects of discrimination and harassment. ²⁰ By limiting access to tertiary education to those with good parental relationships, the YA structure further disadvantages those who already lack the material and emotional resources that a nuclear family can provide. ²¹

Potential reform

Lowering to 18 the age of presumed independence for YA would ensure access for all applicants who need it – not just those with supportive parents. This would bring YA into line with our common cultural and legal notion of 18 marking the transition from child to adult. An 18-year-old can vote, drink, drive, enlist in the army, take out a mortgage and much more besides. In the current political environment, however, the political and fiscal cost of widening eligibility for the highest tier of YA payment is likely too high for either major party. More modest reforms could still go some way to alleviating the current burden on marginalised young people.

The UK equivalent to YA is a means-tested part of a student loan, rather than welfare, however it provides similarly for ‘estranged students’ out of contact with their parents for at least a year. ²² Evidence of estrangement is required and the following examples of suitable sources are provided:

• letter from your social worker

Evidence of estrangement coming from parents is specifically not accepted as it demonstrates recent contact with the child. ²⁴ This approach includes substantial barriers to fraud in its evidentiary requirements and also recognises the inherent contradiction of requiring evidence of estrangement from the estranged.

In Australia, adopting a similar approach of accepting a binding legal declaration from the applicant alongside third-party evidence would improve accessibility and help YA fulfil its purpose of supporting young people to study, to grow and to flourish.