Clark David: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clark David: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8678. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Part 2. I am delighted to speak directly to Part 2 of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) and in particular the broadening of the definition of “revenue” which is so crucial to the actual measurable impacts of this bill. I mentioned earlier the excellent work done by officials in servicing the Finance and Expenditure Committee. One of the pieces of work that they did was bringing back to us some figures that I have mentioned earlier around what might be collected from overseas borrowers if obligations were met. 
The definition of “revenue” is touched upon in many of the clauses in Part 2. I note for example in clause 51 there are a number of additional definitions inserted that describe the meaning of an unpaid amount: “an amount that must be paid by a borrower in accordance with a written notification under section 52;” is new paragraph (f) “a late filing penalty:” is new paragraph (g) “a student loan shortfall penalty:” is new paragraph (h) and “an underestimation penalty” is new paragraph (i). These are all broadening the definition of “revenue” presumably in response to some tricky situations or some technical situations that have been faced where a borrower has disputed whether indeed the revenue was appropriate to be collected. 
The officials gave us an estimate of the additional revenue that would be collected through the broadening of the definition of “revenue” and that estimate was $1 million a year from 2015-16. We know that putting legislation through this Parliament costs more than that so some of us in the committee were quite concerned and those of us who were concerned raised concerns that we did not have clear estimates of how much additional revenue would be collected as a result of this bill. I raised earlier my concern that some of the substantive parts of the bill might not be able to be implemented because of challenges with the computer system. So we are left with the definition of “revenue” being the substantive and substantial amount that can be quantified and it has to be said in tax terms and in terms of the time of this House and in terms of the priority of the Government that a $1 million tax grab is actually a little on the small side. 
The Minister in recent days canned a car-park tax that was aimed at gathering $17 million which is 17 times the amount that we know for sure will be collected by this tax. We have had the paper boy tax and there is talk of an iPad tax although that looks like it will be hit on the head as well. We have a Government that is trying to through small measures broaden the tax base. The general effort to broaden the tax base we of course support because we believe that everyone should pay their fair share. But it does seem that a lot of these measures could be brought together in one bill rather than being debated over a lengthy period of time when we know that these are small measures and also the ones that look more substantial are not yet certainties for implementation and certainly on past record may not be possible. 
The broadening of the definition of “revenue” goes into much detail in this provision and I will not debate all of that simply to say that a lot of it is around small matters of wording. We also have some discussion around late payment interest and the ability of the commissioner to grant relief. Look we support those kinds of things because as my colleague David Cunliffe has previously pointed out the intent to specify every single case where relief may be granted goes a step too far and indeed in some cases it is appropriate that there is discretion for the commissioner. 
In closing this short contribution I want to say that Labour supports the bill as a whole. We have already outlined our concerns with the “Henry VIII” clauses. We are concerned that there really is not a clear picture about how much revenue this will collect and it is not even clear to us and became increasingly worrisome in the committee that this could not already be accurately collected through the Customs Service compulsorily requiring some details to be provided. Thank you.