Ogilvy Bernie: Budget Debate 
Ogilvy Bernie: Budget Debate 
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BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) 
: 
 Today I want to address some of the elements in the Budget relating to education—in particular the areas associated with tertiary students and the debt that that forms in the minds and in the back pockets and bank accounts of many students in this country today. We have to ask whether we are producing through the Budget a millstone for people or a milestone for their education. 
I want to start by congratulating the Hon Steve Maharey on lifting parental income levels for students to obtain allowances from the 1992 levels they have been at all these years. The level has now been lifted from the 1992 level to be equal to the adjusted consumer price index for this year 2004. It is a level that United Future has been suggesting speaking about and asking questions in this House. I thank the Government for ensuring that this milestone event can be and is extended to students throughout the tertiary sector. 
However we do not believe that this was an adequate response to the needs of all the students in this country. Weights still remain that students have to carry and they will create millstones around their necks. In United Future we do not think for a moment that our brightest should be struck down with loads of debt that they cannot take into their lives and their families of the future. United Future continues to challenge the Hon Steve Maharey to move students more to a place where the brightest have the greatest freedom to express and contribute to our society. 
United Future says that students should not be treated worse than for instance those on the dole. If the Minister thinks about it age for age people on the dole over 18 years of age can have their income assessed not their parents’ income assessed for the level of the dole they receive. Therefore if they earn nothing they then have the full benefit of a dole payment. However students have to wait until they are at least 25 years of age before being able to be assessed on their own income. Up until then students are assessed on their parents’ income which sends the wrong message to our young people. 
I ask the Hon Steve Maharey what sort of message is he trying to communicate to our young up and coming and brightest. We are asking them to go into debt to achieve something for their future when others who are not doing anything at all are being looked after by the State. I do not sense and neither does United Future that this is a just matter that has been laid before the student body of New Zealand. 
Secondly I think that Mr Maharey needs to look at some of the discrimination that has been set out against married students. I do not think that New Zealanders—mums and dads—can handle the logic of what the Minister is saying here. These married students who are being discriminated against are once again becoming dependent on their parents’ income when they are capable of earning their own income. They should be assessed on their income for any support. United Future urges the Government to unshackle our brightest students so that our families can look forward to a genuine future.