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Hornery, Sonia to the
Minister for Transport
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- Why are international students not allowed to take advantage of transport
concessions available to all domestic students?
- Why is the Government discouraging international students from studying
here by such discrimination?
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Answer -
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I am advised:
- and (2) Transport concessions are not available to full-fee paying overseas
tertiary students because, when obtaining their visas, they attest that they
are fully self sufficient and able to meet their own living
expenses. These restrictions are not new. No NSW Government has ever
made transport concessions available to full-fee paying overseas students,
including the previous government of 16 years.
It should be noted that
international students are also ineligible for Commonwealth Government benefits
such as Newstart Allowance, Austudy and free and subsidised health services
under Medicare.
Even though concessionary travel is not available to
international students, they do have access to a range of discounted fare
products including off-peak tickets, rail weeklies, TravelTens and MyMulti
tickets. Information on these ticketing products is available from the
Transport Infoline at www.131500.com.au/ and through the websites of
individual transport operators.
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Question asked on 4 August 2011 (session 55-1)
and printed in
Questions & Answers Paper No. 28
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Answer received on 7 September 2011
and printed in
Questions & Answers Paper No. 39
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