Joyce Steven: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJoyce Steven: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18557. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment):I just want to make a short contribution in terms of some of the comments made by the honourable member Hone Harawira. Firstly it is important to note that funding has not been cut to the tertiary education sector. In fact the increase in investment in public tertiary institutions since 2008 is 14 percent and the increase in the university sector since 2008 is 18.6 percent. It is also important for him to note that the number of qualifications granted by the New Zealand system has been growing very strongly as a result of our focus on results. We are now up to 162000 qualifications achieved in the 2012 year and also significantly the highest level of qualifications at the degree level and above at around 25000. The other good news given his references to struggles for young Māori and Pasifika is that the numbers of young Māori and Pasifika people studying at university have gone up by around 3000 each from memory. That is good news as well; it is a significant increase.In terms of the cost of student loans to individuals they are currently paying them back if they stay in the country in around 6 to 7 years on average. I think the member pretty much nailed a multibillion-dollar increase in expenditure in the tertiary sector in that short speech including writing off student loans a much larger student allowance and free tertiary education for all so he might need to cuddle up with the Greens and their money-printing machine but at least it will be a 3-D printer and I suppose that is positive.The New Zealand tertiary education system is very high performing. It does a very good job for students. It actually covers 70 percent of the cost of their tuition. It provides student loans which are then written off because there is no interest—of around 40 percent—on student loans if you stay in the country and of course there are also student allowances available for many students as well. It is a very generous student support system given the private benefits that are obtained from tertiary education for example. The slight irony of Mr Harawira commenting about this is that tertiary graduates achieve an income roughly about 50 percent of premium over those who never go to university. The irony of making those who never go to university pay for those who do seems a little bit strange. But of course this is a contest of ideas and that is appropriate.The other point that I would make in closing is that as I say we have a very strongly performing tertiary sector that is delivering great results and we are working to improve it further with a particular interest in some of the skilled areas like information and communications technology engineering science and agriculture where we definitely need more people and that is a programme that is continuing. I think that the Tertiary Education Commission is doing a good job. It is always a work in progress but I think Mr Harawira needs to go and look at some of the facts about the performance that we are achieving in the sector. Thank you.Report noted.