Clark David: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 18 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16025. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I look forward to making this contribution on the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3). I am pleased to have received the call so soon although I also look forward to hearing what my colleagues around the Chamber have to say and indeed the possibility of the Government defending this particularly indefensible piece of legislation. As Mr Robertson has alluded to this bill is a distasteful gimmick on behalf of the Government which has no real plan to effect any change other than one of perception and even then it is skating on thin ice.We did look at this issue in depth in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We asked questions about whether overseas payments would increase would be likely to increase and what kinds of estimates the Inland Revenue Department might be able to make about the increase in payments as a result of putting in an arrest at the border clause. It was very very hard to get chunky useful information because of course the department has been put in a very difficult position by the Minister of Revenue with this political posturing. The department to its credit acknowledges that it is very difficult to try to draw any sensible conclusions from this piece of literature we have in front of us in the form of a bill where it talks about the nature of arrest at the border.Specifically we are talking about new sections 162A and 162B inserted by clause 8. The new sections describe how the arrest might happen and what kind of conviction might apply including fines and who might issue such arrest warrants—a District Court judge we read in section 162B. New section 162B(1) states: “A District Court Judge or if a District Court Judge is not available and the case appears to be urgent a Registrar may on an application in writing by the Commissioner issue a warrant for the arrest of a person (the liable person) if the Judge or Registrar (as the case may be) is satisfied that the person has committed the offence in section 162A and is about to leave or attempt to leave New Zealand.”That is where this is activated and we debated vigorously in the select committee whether this was a useful addition to the legislation. I think that the argument was strongly in favour of it not being useful. It really makes no describable change other than giving the commissioner discretion to act presumably at the Minister’s behest for political posturing. That seems unprincipled and without real merit.On this side of the Chamber we are keen to support the notion that people be encouraged in practical ways to repay their debts. We very much support the collection of what is owed in terms of the borrowed money because we believe in paying forward. We understand that those who have benefited from the scheme and have themselves bettered their own lot the lives of their families and communities should be paying back what they owe so that other families and communities can benefit likewise. Unfortunately this Government does not particularly like this scheme and it struggles to come to grips with it and is constantly putting forward such things as this distasteful gimmick.We know that a National Government put in place the loan scheme in the first place. Labour made it interest-free which has benefited a generation of students. Then National sought to introduce punitive fees on top of the interest-free segment calling it an administration fee. You can see which direction the National Government wants totake this. It wants to make it a more punitive scheme and make it less available to people of certain age groups. Here we have punishments designed to create headlines so that people will realise that National is being as stingy as it possibly can be about sharing the love when it comes to the future education of our people.Labour members think that this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) with its punitive measures should be opposed and so we are opposing it. We are very much distressed that the police also have indicated that they do not think they have the resources necessary to even implement the changes as proposed. This bill is a distasteful gimmick and therefore wasteful because we are using parliamentary time to pass something that is merely posturing and can never be implemented we were told or if it is implemented will be implemented on a purely discretionary basis with few principles outlined or able to be outlined in the select committee process. We got told that it would probably be for more significant cases or cases where the commissioner felt there were other factors involved and so on. It was very difficult to hear through the noise any real principle that lay behind it. It is certainly not going to be effective. It just is political posturing.Meaningful change from improved student loan repayments from overseas borrowers in our view requires looking at options such as repayments based on earnings and negotiated payment agreements including with third-party involvement—parents in particular—but unfortunately the Government is not considering these as part of the legislation. What we have is a situation where some young New Zealanders are effectively exiled as enemies of the State because often they have got themselves into a position where they cannot pay back their loan.If they have been overseas in order to better themselves or to get a view of the world that is broader and they find instead that they have spent some time working in a pub and have not earned the kind of money that might be owed they are stuck overseas. They are stuck overseas; they cannot return. If there is a family funeral or tragic personal circumstances they are now living in fear that they will be that one person who is picked off at the discretion of the commissioner at the beckoning of the Minister in order to make a distasteful example of their situation. It is a kind of draconian measure—an impractical one and an unprincipled one.It is also worth noting that we do not have any real idea—as a select committee we were left none the wiser—as to how much money was likely to be retrieved. There is a lot of information we do not know about overseas borrowers. That is part of the real issue. There are information-sharing provisions that are being looked at. I understand the Privacy Commissioner has had some issues with the sharing of data on compliant borrowers. It seems to be where the focus has gone. The Big Brother approach to things has predominated under this Government and in fact those who are not compliant about whom we know very little are not being captured with this information. We know only that they are going to be more wary about returning to New Zealand to share their skills and to meet with their loved ones.We also know obviously that there are 200000 of them in Australia—over that number since this Government came to office. They are not all students admittedly but they have left this country because this Government has not given them hope. How this bill will give them more hope is very difficult to see. This is a Government that is intent on clamping down politically on anything it sees as an easy target. It is not interested in constructive ways of supporting the betterment of New Zealanders. New Zealanders are recognising more and more that this is a Government that is out of touch and has really not understood the benefits of an interest-free student loan scheme that will accrue to a generation pay forward to a future generation and mean that we have a better tomorrow.I hope that the Minister in the chair the Minister for Primary Industries does take a call to try to explain this populist policy and the benefits that might accrue from it but I fear that instead we will have David Bennett on a rant about how the Labour Party is soft on borrowers and is not constructive and so on and so forth. Look I would hate to steal his thunder but we do support constructive measures to get those loans back and we support the scheme unlike the National members who do it through gritted teeth. We support it wholeheartedly because we see the benefit in education as an investment for future generations for the betterment of this country.So I do look forward to Mr Bennett’s contribution. I hope it is more constructive than what occasionally he is tempted to deliver and more than just a closure motion because these are important issues that New Zealanders need to discuss and need to understand. We want to have a student loan system that works we want people to pay forward we want better education for our children for the next generation and we want a better society and we are saddened to see that this Government is intent on creating a few tragic examples in order to make a political gimmick stick.