Bishop Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8942. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): Well it has been a great start to the year for the Government but it has clearly been a very bad start to the year for the Green Party. I have heard some poor speeches in this House in the short time I have been in the House but I have never seen or heard such a spite-filled hate-filled pile of bile like we just heard from Gareth Hughes. It is that speech that demonstrates precisely why the Green Party is going nowhere in politics.It has been a great start to the year for the Government and indeed a great start to the year for the country because the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal was signed just a few days ago—hugely significant for New Zealand and its future a proud day for New Zealand and the apex of trade and foreign policy in New Zealand. The National Government knows that the former leader of the Labour Party Phil Goff knows that and former leaders I should say in this House Phil Goff Helen Clark Mike Moore and David Shearer—they all know that. The only person it seems in New Zealand who does not seem to know that is Andrew Little.So the question really has to be asked: who are we going to trust to tell us the truth about the Trans-Pacific Partnership? Is it the doyenne of the liberal left Helen Clark? Is it Phil Goff? Is it Mike Moore? Is it David Shearer whom we are going to trust along with credible people like the neutral and independent public servants who work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade? Are we going to place our faith and reliance upon former Labour leaders and Prime Ministers including our own or are we going to place our trust in Jane Kelsey who does not support any free-trade deal New Zealand has ever signed? She does not support the Korean deal she does not support CER and she does not support the China free-trade agreement. Are we going to trust her? My answer to that is no. Are we going to trust the noted “independent commentator” Barry Coates who has been going around representing Oxfam New Zealand and putting out economic commentary on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement? He keeps being reported by the media as being an independent commentator even though he is next on the Green Party list. Are we going to trust him? I do not think so.It has been a great start to the year for the Government but the Labour Party has also released some policy. You could be forgiven for not really noticing it. In keeping with its stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal Labour has released a policy that is regressive and back to the future—right back to the 1970s—and is it not revealing about those members’ political priorities? They come down here to the House every day and they talk about child poverty and then they suddenly invent $1.3 billion. And what do they spend their $1.3 billion on which they have just materialised out of thin air—what do they spend it on? What does the Labour Party spend it on? Not child poverty—no. Those members come in and they say “No the real problem facing this country is that people who leave school”—who leave Auckland Grammar School and go to Auckland University—“have to borrow $5000 per year for a law degree. That is the real issue. I know we’ll give them 3 free years’ tertiary education.” even though people who leave university with a tertiary education earn far more than people who do not go to university and they pay those loans back and they contribute to the economy. There are private and public benefits—Carmel Sepuloni: Not just university—any tertiary education Chris.CHRIS BISHOP: —from tertiary education and it is only fair that people make a contribution. I hear Carmel Sepuloni bleating away over there. She has said some really silly things on this topic. Her point is that people in the 1970s got free tertiary education. Yes that is true. It was not completely free; it was very cheap to go to university in the 1970s. But as I have pointed out to her via Twitter the reality is that very few people went to university. So yes kids from white middle-class families who got their bursaries went to university. Guess who did not go? Māori children Pasifika children and kids from poor backgrounds.What has the student loan scheme done? The student loan scheme is one of the most progressive equitable policies ever implemented by any Government in New Zealand history. And guess who started it? Phil Goff. Student fees and student loans are a legacy of the reforming progressive administration of the fourth Labour Government because it shares the cost burden of tertiary education. It recognises that there are not just public benefits from tertiary education; there are private benefits. And not only are there private benefits where you ask people to make a contribution; then we wipe the interest from their loans. So it is an extremely generous system and it has massively expanded access. That is why there are more Māori at university that is why there are more Pasifika at university and that is why they are succeeding under this Government. The student loan scheme is something Labour should be proud of. It should not try to dismantle it through back-to-the-future 1970s policies.