It is 3:40am when teenager Emily Robinson starts her day.
The 19-year-old is heading off to butcher meat at an abattoir in Albany on Western Australia's south coast.
It is one of five jobs she is working on her gap year before moving to Perth to study biomedicine next year.
"At the moment, I'm working seven days a week," she said.
Like many regional young people, Ms Robinson is working so she can get the Youth Allowance payments she needs to help survive her move to the city.
According to the National Union for Students, the maximum amount Youth Allowance pays is $13,790 per year.
But unless they work an average of 30 hours weekly for 18 months, most students must wait until they are 22 to be classed as independent from their parents, and therefore eligible for the payment — even if they are living out of home.
There are exceptions for those whose parents meet certain income thresholds.
A new report from the union shows 450,000 young people are "locked out" of Centrelink by these rules.
Union president Georgie Beatty said many more like Ms Robinson were forced into a gap year, especially in country areas.
"This policy doesn't affect students from metropolitan areas as much because for a lot of them it means they can just stay at home with their parents," she said.
"This program disproportionately affects regional students because so many of them are doing that gap year, they don't get the luxury of just going straight into university from high school."
Sitting in her own rental, between her five jobs, Ms Robinson is frustrated she has to go so far to prove she does not rely on her parents.
"I'm definitely not dependent on them at all; I feel like I'm very independent," she said.
Confusing rules add to stress
Ms Beatty said even after their gap year, many students from country areas still had to navigate confusing bureaucracy to get their payments.
"I went down to the University of Wollongong and there was a student there that was still waiting to get approved for Centrelink after he'd worked for a year," she said,
"He had moved to go to university, and he was still waiting for all the forms and everything to come through — and that was a terrifying wait for him to know that he hadn't mucked anything up."
Call for independence at 18
The union wants the age of independence lowered to 18 in line with legal adulthood.
At 21, Ms Beatty said she was personally impacted by the rules.
"I've lived out of home for two years, and I'm still not considered independent from my parents, despite them not financially supporting me in any way."
"I don't know anyone that lives out of home that isn't working multiple jobs, I can't think of any of my friends that are managing to do uni full time while living out of home."
Ms Beatty conceded there were plenty of 18 to 21-year-olds who were not independent, but she argued the rules still needed to change to help those who were, especially those from the country.
"[Being classed as independent at 18] means they don't have to go through a year of working in a crappy job … they can make a choice to go straight to university, which is realistically just a choice they don't have right now," she said.
"And it's a choice that they deserve."
'We can't fund every good idea'
In a statement, Federal Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth gave no indication the rules would change.
She said the current rules were aimed to "strike the right balance" between encouraging young people to study and encouraging them to work.
"The challenge is that there are many competing priorities right now and maintaining a strong Australian economy … means that we're faced with making some difficult choices," she said.
"So, unfortunately, we simply can't fund every good idea that has merit right now."
For Emily Robinson, a gap year in her home town is not all bad.
"I have really enjoyed my year this year," she said.
"I'm watching a kangaroo jump across my paddock right now — I'm probably not going to get to do that in Perth. It's nice to kind of sit back from the study and kind of get to know myself a little bit more as an adult."
