Swarbrick ChlöeGENERAL DEBATECHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. In 1996 the co-president of the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations (NZUSA) stood by tertiary students performing sham marriages so that they could access student allowances. He said—and I quote—We do not encourage these marriages for allowances but for many it is the only viable option that they have." going on to say "Only 37 percent of full-time students get any kind of allowance. The main culprit here is the National Government's absurd means-testing programme." That student president of course grew up to become the Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson. In 1996 he was worried that just 37 percent of full-time students were getting any kind of allowance and in 2021 under his Government it's even fewer at 27 percent. He was concerned specifically about students being means tested on their parents' combined gross income until they were 25 years old. His historic Labour Government majority keeps that rule in place to this day.Minister Robertson however is not alone in once arguing that the Government was forcing and keeping students in poverty. In mid-2001 then Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association president Chris Hipkins sent out a press release titled "Student Debt Sets to Cripple New Zealand". Figures had been released under the Official Information Act showing Government estimates for student loans had nearly doubled from a 1999 projection of hitting $11.6 billion in 2020 to $19.4 billion. In fact in 2020 student debt landed between those projections at $16.1 billion. That student advocate would go on to become our Minister of Education. But at the time he lamented—and I quote—"The current generation of politicians are mortgaging the future of our country. The burden of this will not only be felt by students who graduate with large debts but also by the future taxpayers of New Zealand who will be left to clean up the mess … If we are to get this debt under control fees must come down and access to living allowances will have to increase". Yet in the final Budget of his first ministerial term Labour would break their election promise of reinstating post-graduate student allowance and extending fees-free citing the need to tighten the fiscal belt; the Government at the same time signing off an historic Budget nearly 10 times larger and tens of billions of dollars more than they had anticipated pre - COVID-19.Once upon a time in a galaxy not all too far far away tertiary education was recognised as a public good. Students were supported to study because their education was our education; their success was the progress of this country. Those who ended up making more money on the other side paid it back through higher tax settings; in turn investing in education and support for those who came afterwards to flourish. All of this of course changed in the 1980s and 1990s an era of slash-and-burn economic reforms intent on instilling corporate sensibility and cost cutting in our supposedly public institutions. These were political decisions. Political decisions keep these rules in place and political decisions can change these rules once again.Last week the Greens NZUSA Te Mana Ākonga Tauira Pasifika and the National Disabled Students' Association released the findings of our People's Inquiry into Student Wellbeing along with 30 other student associations across Aotearoa. It's grim. Two-thirds of students regularly do not have enough money to buy food clothing pay bills buy groceries access healthcare or other basics. They are spending nearly 60 percent of their weekly income on rent—double the accepted affordable housing ballpark of 30 percent. These are the strained learning conditions of the New Zealanders that we so desperately need to become our teachers our social workers our health professionals our researchers and more. As VUWSA president Andrew Little put it back in his 1996 op-ed for Salient—and I quote—"Neither the Labour Party nor the National Party have yet made decisions about the future of tertiary education and education funding and it's important to maintain the pressure on both sides to influence their decisions." As Otago University student president Ayesha Verrall stated in 2001 "This [Labour] government [has] a mandate to remedy a tertiary sector education in crisis. Instead the barriers to education continue to mount". Or as VUWSA president Chris Hipkins warned that same year "We've had enough of broken promises by politicians. It's time for the Labour Government to put their money where their mouth was before the election. Ministers the buck stops here and 400000 students are standing by.""