Street Maryan: General Debate 
Street Maryan: General Debate 
[Volume:663;Page:10981] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It is said there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. Two additional certainties arise from National’s Budget tomorrow. The first certainty is that it will not be fair and the second certainty is that it will not work to give decent jobs and better incomes. How can National Government members sit there and talk about fairness and equity when their own leader just a day or two ago was cautioning New Zealanders not to be envious or jealous? How does that possibly square with an idea of fairness or equity? It does not. It asks all New Zealanders to let the rich off the hook and say yes the rich may be getting hundreds of dollars a week more in a tax cut but they will not be cross with them about that because of course the rich are the wealth producers of the country. I remind members opposite that the wealth producers of this country who may well be amongst the most wealthy have not done that—not achieved that—on their own. They have typically achieved it with the work and effort and cooperation of people who earn a lot less than them. So let us see where fairness and equity fall tomorrow in this Budget. 
I will pick up where the last inadequate speaker David Bennett left off and that was in the area of education. 
David Bennett 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That member is an established member of the House and I find offence in her last comment. I would like her to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am very grateful to the honourable member for saying that although really I think we are getting a bit too sensitive altogether if we consider “inadequate” to be highly offensive. But I am grateful for the honourable member’s goodwill. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: The inadequate speech of the member who spoke previously is where I wish to pick up from. I am concerned about the signals or the policies that have already come out and been announced depending on the extent to which one wishes to trust Mr Joyce that apply to tertiary education. Where is the fairness in making it harder to get into tertiary education? It will be harder to get in because some of the institutions’ funding will be pegged to their pass rates. That will create a disincentive for institutions to enrol the very students who need to be better equipped to cope with the recession and our emergence from it. 
But my concern relates not only to the recession but also to the plan that is needed for the next 10 20 and 30 years. That is what I will be looking for in the Budget tomorrow. Already Mr Joyce has shut down the options. It will be not only harder to get into an institution of tertiary education but also harder to stay there. There will be time limits on student loans. There will be fees applied by the lifting of the cap to those institutions so it will cost more to stay there. It will cost more to pay off a student loan because a little administration fee will go to everybody who has a loan. So whom does this hit the hardest? The thing that is important which this Government continues to overlook is that the number of Maori and Pasifika people in this country will double between now and 2050. Maori and Pasifika combined have the highest youth population. 
Last year this Government took $638.5 million out of tertiary education funding. That does not bode well for tomorrow’s Budget because everybody including the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand anticipates that the cuts will be just as severe again. That provides us with no hope no future no fairness and no equity in this country. If that comes to pass then this country will reap a decade two decades and three decades of unfairness and inequity as we see Maori and Pasifika young people piling up in unemployment and being unable and unassisted to succeed in tertiary education. Therefore when those members opposite have retired there will be nobody to support them.