Totally agree with everyone's opinions.

We live on clink alone since DH hurt his back [apart from the odd occassion I have to take $ from the business acc when we are desperate].

It is very hard, you get just enough to live off. If you have any debt it's really tight - we were paying off our car + 3x credit cards for the first 18mths after DH hurt his back. Now I only have the cc's left. It is doable, but coming off your income it would be a real shock to the system. It was a huge change for us even though DH only earnt about 10K more a year than what we get now.

Austudy would be worse. AFAIK & as the PP have said it is alot less that Newstart+Parenting Payment.