Williams Poto: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 18 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16030. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I rise to take a call on the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3). I want to assist my colleagues on this side of the Chamber to point out something that I find very troubling about this bill—specifically clause 8 in particular new sections 162A and 162B. I speak of course of the criminalising of people who have student loans and of arresting them at the border for a problem if they have defaults on their loans. Although I fully support the taxpayers of this country requiring us to repay what is clearly owed to them for the benefit of having a loan to support our study I think that we should be making it easier for students to repay this loan. It appears to me that we have missed several steps in this process in order to achieve a heavy-handed big-gun populist approach—a gimmick that sounds like it will achieve the objective but really it will achieve very little.Specifically in terms of clause 8 who is going to enforce these arrests at the borders? And I wonder how stretched our border authorities already are. Will it be the police then? Well I hear that they have already stated quite clearly that they do not have the resources to enforce it in the way that this bill is proposing. The bill and this clause in particular is punitive and basically takes what should be a matter for civil jurisdiction and turns it into a criminal matter. But that is not the only point that I want to make.The point I want to make is that this would not be required as an enforcement tool if we looked at intervening in this pathway a lot sooner in the process. If we are serious about ensuring that our students repay their student loans we need to be prepared to facilitate it by making it as easy as possible and without the threats potentially hanging over their heads. What kind of message do we send to our students? The potential for being criminalised for taking advantage of a student loan scheme—an interest-free scheme that I am proud to say was part of a Labour-led initiative and one that despite the fact that the National Party does not really like it National is currently not prepared to ditch because the scheme does a great job of supporting people into education.Many Pacific students have taken advantage of this very scheme. It is vital for our Pacific communities that they have the opportunity to access the student loan scheme and it is a great opportunity for Pacific students to attend higher learning and for those younger Pacific students to see that it is possible to hold tertiary qualifications. However as we have heard spoken about when the provisions are to arrest at the borders and we see Pacific people who are likely to be moving around our borders in that regard does it not then beg the question of who might be potentially most at risk?I worry about the message that we are sending to our students when we say: “If you get into trouble with your loan watch out. You will have to provide security you will have to surrender your travel documents or you will be arrested at the border.” What a massive disincentive to our student population and why would you even consider studying in this environment of threat and retribution? It goes to the very heart of the very Kiwi institution of the great OE whereby many of our young people have taken it directly after their study and travelled overseas. Like many Kiwis they have taken up employment in other countries and as Kiwis have a reputation for being conscientious and hard-working folk innovative and clever so our people are sought after. What do we do with this knowledge and experience that they have picked up in the overseas working environment? Do we bring this knowledge and experience back home to benefit the local businesses the academic institutions and the research organisations? Well we should but only if we welcome our people home rather than disincentivising them to return with their skills and experience. Let us face it. We are not the biggest country in the world and bringing ideas and knowledge home after testing it on the world stage is only going to be good for this country.So we are in effect making refugees of our own people because they are in fact exiled overseas unsupported and are not helped to return home to repay the loans as they should. Do we need any more evidence of a Government that does not understand the needs of its own citizens and that could permit a section of its citizens to become criminals rather than taking a rational approach to the issue?