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:8684. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 In Part 3 of this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) as my colleague the Hon David Cunliffe was saying there is a variety of broader definitions of income descriptions much the same as in Part 2. Here also there are definitions that are about broadening income descriptions. He mentioned the annual gross income and made the point that New Zealanders know a lot about that because it has been dropping in real terms under this Government. Wages in this country are indeed a big issue for New Zealanders in the light of rising costs and a Government that is not growing the economy. 
Clause 65 provides the new definitions of income and they are broader. That is indeed the intention of the legislation—to broaden the definitions of income to collect the extra million dollars per annum of revenue from 2015-16 onwards which is captured in Part 3 of the bill “Amendments to the principal Act that apply for 2014-2015 and later tax years”. That is where we see this really taking effect albeit—again as has been pointed out by numerous members of this Committee—they are very small piecemeal measures. In many ways it is a lost opportunity. 
The other point I have made is that in this bill we see many measures that are repealing earlier decisions taken by this Government measures that in most cases have been repealed because they have proven too difficult to implement or too costly to implement when faced with an aged computer system that was built 20 years ago and for which the Government has not yet outlined a credible plan to rebuild. I am still hoping the Minister in the chair the Minister of Revenue will at some stage address our concerns about the ability of the Government to implement these changes and will outline a credible time line and plan for replacing this aged decrepit system that is proving incapable of implementing Government policy. It is a serious concern that could see billions of dollars in Government revenue not able to be collected in the future. 
 Further on in Part 3 we see also some amendments relating to the repeal of provisions on the 10 percent bonus. This is something that we have seen also debated in the House previously where this Minister having introduced the 10 percent repayment bonus for students has discovered that it was not a very effective policy and has repealed it latterly—yet another U-turn. 
We see in these U-turns—on the car-park tax the upcoming one on cellphones the ones in this bill relating to measures that cannot be implemented and indeed the repealing of provisions around the 10 percent bonus—a pattern emerging of two steps forward three steps backwards. That is no way to run a Government. That is no way to run a Government. We need to see a Government that is taking bold measures in the tax area and instead of debating how we are going to collect the extra million dollars is considering the bigger issues that are facing our economy—for example around the investment signal for export-led growth the kind of change that a capital gains tax would make for the benefit of our economy to see our economy grow and to see it compete with overseas countries whereas right now we are one of very few countries in the OECD that do not have such a measure. 
I come back to the provisions in the bill because I think it is very important to stick to the clauses that are before us in this particular part of the bill. I am sure that you Mr Chairperson will agree with me on that. We see that in clauses 67 and 68 we have clauses relating directly to that repeal of the 10 percent bonus provisions another failure on the Government’s part to implement policy. It is being forced here through this legislation to withdraw it again. 
 All of these measures that are ultimately positive we support. That is why overall Labour will support the bill because we believe that the changes in here that are substantive will make the repayment of student loans fairer. We recognise that it is pretty humiliating for the Government to be having to pass a good deal of measures that are repealing earlier measures that it brought through the House thinking that they were improvements. We of course have made a little sport of that but we have concern that Parliament is wasting time where it could actually be making bigger and better decisions for New Zealand.