Robertson Grant: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Robertson Grant: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:1317] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Hello Mr Deputy Speaker. It is good to be back here discussing the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill. What I would say in response to Mr Williamson is that everyone on this side of the House wants to see people who are overseas paying back their loans. In fact when the interest-free student loan scheme was introduced the key element of it was the fact that it was interest-free when you were still in New Zealand. It was a way of incentivising people to stay in New Zealand after they graduated and to contribute to our economy. What we see now is yet more tinkering from the Government—yet more tinkering around the edges trying to achieve the stated goal of the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment of dampening the demand for tertiary education. That was the very first thing Mr Joyce said when he came in to be the tertiary education Minister when Anne Tolley was removed from that post. The very first thing he said was that his goal was to dampen the demand for tertiary education. What “dampening demand” means is taking away the opportunity from New Zealanders to get further education.  
So what we see in this bill that has come back is more of the tinkering. 
Simon Bridges 
: This member’s still got a student loan. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: What was that Mr Bridges? 
Simon Bridges 
: Have you still got a student loan? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: No no. I paid my student loan off—I might add before Labour’s interest-free student loan policy came into place. I was one of those students who suffered under the National Government’s student loan scheme. I paid interest while I was studying. I paid interest while I was studying which meant that I had absolutely no ability to pay that money back. My loan increased. I became what was known as a flat-spotter which meant that I spent a period of time earning when I did not even get close to meeting the interest payments. I did not even get close. But then the Labour Government came along—and I thank Mr Bridges for giving me the opportunity to recite this—and said “No. We will remove interest while you are studying because that is unfair. That is unfair.” Then the Government followed that up by removing interest altogether and saying to people “What you borrow is what you will pay back.” That is a fair system. It is a system that was designed to encourage people to come and stay in New Zealand and make sure that they contribute to the economy.  
What this Government has done since it has been in office is tinker around the edges. I do think it is worth reflecting at this time that the most insidious of the changes that the National Government has brought in is stopping people aged 55 years and over from borrowing for the living cost component of student loans. These people who have been in my electorate office have been laid off from their jobs—laid off from their jobs—and they now want to go and retrain. What is this Government saying to them? It is saying “We are not going to support you to do that. We are not going to support you. We would rather you stayed on a benefit. We are not going to support you to contribute.” That is the kind of change this Government has made a priority when it comes to the student loan scheme. It is not looking at the way in which the loan scheme can be used to support students. It just wants to dampen the demand for tertiary education.  
Well when we look at the bill Mr Williamson did dwell a little bit on this question of the change to the repayment holiday and it disappointed—I am not allowed to say what I am about to say Mr Deputy Speaker. I would have liked to hear from the Minister of Revenue on this matter because just a few years ago when he was also the Minister of Revenue in a previous Government Mr Dunne waxed lyrical about the importance of the repayment holiday. This is what he said: “The reality [faced by students] was a … massive debt upon their return to New Zealand which in some cases would be enough for them to make the decision not to come home at all and our country would be the loser.” Mr Dunne went on to say “We needed to take a pragmatic way through this”—he likes pragmatic ways does Mr Dunne—“and being someone who places great virtue on pragmatism it struck me that the logical course of action was to derive the solution that we have: to extend the repayment holiday period for 3 years”— 
Andrew Little 
: Who said that? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —this is Peter Dunne—“recognising the fact that young New Zealanders take that extended period overseas;”.  
So Mr Dunne thought it was pragmatic in 2007 but now he has changed his tune. Simon Bridges has got to him over there on the National Party side. He said to him “No take that holiday off those people. Take that holiday off those graduates. Reduce it down from 3 years to 1 year.”  
Well this is not going to work. It is completely unnecessary and it is not going to work. Treasury has actually told the Minister in the Budget documents that there is “Little evidence that this will improve repayments. It is likely to increase debt held by overseas borrowers discourage them from returning and therefore increase the annual student loans impairment.” So this wonderful idea from the Government to help improve the loan balance and get more money back actually turns out to increase it. It actually turns out to increase the annual student loan impairment. That is what Treasury told the Government yet the Government has decided to pursue this change. The Ministry of Education has gone on to say as well “This [change] can be expected to have a negative impact at the margin on borrowers’ decisions regarding whether to return to New Zealand.”  
So that is what the Government has managed to do with its tinkering and its changes to the student loan scheme. It has actually pushed students away from coming back to New Zealand and contributing to our economy.  
I want to make it clear again that there are elements of this bill that this side of the House sees as useful. These are changes that will help tidy up what happens when students go away overseas. But to say as Mr Williamson did that the change around the repayment holiday will somehow help with getting money back is absolutely not the case. Treasury has said it is not the case; the Ministry of Education has said it is not the case. 
Andrew Little 
: They know best. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well they are the ones that advise the Government Mr Little and unfortunately on this particular matter the Government has decided not to take that advice. So we have a situation where once again the tinkering the changes that Mr Joyce is making actually is not helping graduates come back to New Zealand and make a contribution.  
The other matter— 
Simon Bridges 
: This sounds like you’re going to vote for it Grant. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: What was that Mr Bridges? 
Simon Bridges 
: Sounds like you’re voting for it. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well no I have already said that we will be voting for the legislation to go through this stage but just wait until the Committee stage Mr Bridges—just wait until then. And then when we get to the Committee stage we can assess whether Mr Dunne will be the Mr Dunne of 2007 or the Mr Dunne of 2012. Which will it be? Clearly— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: He’s in two minds. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: He often is in two minds Mr Williamson. That is right; he often is in two minds. It will be a little bit of back to the future for him to see whether he can cope with the fact that his pragmatism of 2007 is suddenly dispensed with in 2012 in the face of ruthless radicalism from Simon Bridges who says “No I don’t want those graduates coming back to New Zealand. I don’t want to see those New Zealanders contributing to our economy. I would much rather they stayed away seeing their debt increase—no incentive to return to New Zealand.” That was not the pragmatism of Peter Dunne when he was with the Labour Government. It is the hard right-wing attitude of Simon Bridges that is now finding its way into legislation.  
All of the changes that have been made by this Government to the student loan scheme fail to actually contribute to getting more students into tertiary education because that is not its goal. Its goal is the stated goal of the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: to dampen demand. We saw that with the changes around the over-55s that I have already mentioned. I do think it is important to remember that in an environment of high unemployment where people in their 50s are losing their jobs and are expecting to work on into their 60s—and up to 70 for some people—to say to those people “No you cannot have any support for living costs under the student loan scheme.” is effectively to say to those people “We don’t want you to retrain. We don’t want you as part of the workforce.” I know that Grey Power and other groups are very concerned about the impact on their members of these kinds of changes.  
The other changes that have been made again tinker around the edges and do not actually make a substantive difference to the loan balance. I am aware from the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s report to us that in fact the additional revenue that is going to be coming back to the Government from this “represents about 0.12 percent of the total nominal loan balance of approximately $12 billion of which … $2.5 billion is owed by student loan borrowers currently overseas.” That is it—all of this for 0.12 percent of the loan balance. This Government is tinkering at the edges. It is not actually going to be doing anything in this legislation that will support more people going into tertiary education. Although there are some matters in here of merit that will in fact allow more information to be held by the Government about where borrowers are overall it does some minor things and one very non-pragmatic thing around the repayment holiday. We look forward to contributions in the Committee stage where we can in fact see whether we can get Mr Dunne to return to the pragmatic roots that he had in the Labour Government rather than following the radicalism of Simon Bridges.