Mackey Moana: Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:628;Page:775] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very happy to rise to support Part 3 which deals with the amendments to the student loan scheme. Are not all the arguments we have heard very familiar? As I sit here listening to National Party members rise to their feet and say that this measure will mean doom and gloom for the country that young people will be ripping off Treasury to the tune of billions and billions of dollars and that it will send us right down the gurgler I am thinking: where have I heard all this before? I heard all this before when in 1999 Labour said it would abolish interest on student loans while students were studying. We heard all this before and did students act like the National Party members would? Did parents tell their children to go out and rort the scheme like all the National Party members would tell their children? No they did not. It is nice to know that the National members have so little faith in the future of this country that they think that whenever students see an opportunity to take out money to pay for their education their instant thoughts will be about how they can rort this scheme. 
I do not think that National members know anything about the incentives of paying back a student loan. I wonder how many in the National Party currently have a student loan or have had a loan of say $20000 or $25000 that they have had to pay back. I wonder how many of them have found—as I did and as my colleague Darren Hughes does as we both still have student loans although my student loan will be gone by the time this policy comes into place—that the biggest disincentive to repaying a student loan was the interest charged on it. When I left university my student loan was much much higher than the amount I had borrowed because of the interest while I was studying. Dr Smith was very very proud of that policy—so proud that he did not turn up to our university to talk to students about it when he was invited to. 
Darren Hughes 
: The window wasn’t big enough. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Exactly. This measure in this bill provides a real incentive because the biggest incentive to getting rid of one’s student loan and to be able to plan for the future buy a home and have a family is to see a light at the end of the tunnel for a debt that one has carried on one’s shoulders for a long time. 
Students do not have any choice about paying their loans back. It is not as though they can suddenly finish university get a job and think: “Well I’m not being charged any interest so I’m not going to pay anything back.” They are compulsorily paying back at the rate of 10c in every dollar they earn. So since I started working in 1996 when I left university I have been paying 10c more in every dollar than every other member in this House and I can tell members that it is a huge huge incentive to pay off my student loan and see that go. 
I do not think we will see the incredible rort that the National Party members think we will see. Of course they will go out there and try to convince students to rort it. They will be on the campuses with their National Party and their “Young Nationals—Blumsky’s Team” T-shirts and saying: “Come on rort it rort it rort it.” But I do not think students will do that because when I went around campuses during the campaign students were actually really grateful for this policy. They were sick of politicians like Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith who went around signing pledges that he was going to get rid of a $1200 tertiary tuition fee then got into Government and said: “Well I did but I replaced it with a $3000 one.” Students are sick of those kinds of politicians and sick of being the political football that they have been for a very long time. 
We need to do something bold with student debt. Student debt is a huge problem. We all know that. We can all pretend that it is not a problem. We can all pretend that grandparents and parents are not worried or concerned about their children’s student debt. Parents will still be worried when their children graduate from university with a $20000 student loan even though it is interest-free. They will still be concerned about the fact that their son or their daughter owes $20000 and will have to put on hold a lot of decisions they would otherwise have been able to make a lot more easily if they did not have a debt to repay first. 
We would not even be having this huge debate if the National Party were not incredibly worried about this policy. National members know how much this appeals to students parents and grandparents who have seen the real effects and to families who have not been able to afford to put their kids through university. They have seen the effects—the way it drives people overseas the way they have not made the repayments while they are over there and the fact that they have decided not to come back. Members should go overseas and ask anybody over there with a student loan: “What is the No. 1 issue you consider when you consider returning to New Zealand?”. 
Hon Members 
: Tax! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Come on! Oh please! The No. 1 issue is student loans every single time. This is why National members are still sitting on the Opposition benches—they have never understood what matters to the young people of this country—and they will continue to stay there as long as they continue to be as arrogant as they have been about this policy.