Yates Dianne: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
Yates Dianne: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8285] 
DIANNE YATES (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak in the third reading of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) and note that most of it comes into effect on 1 April 2008. I thank the previous speakers for their support for this bill and I thank members for the unanimous support for this bill throughout the Parliament. I feel somewhat concerned about some of the content of the speech of Mr Allan Peachey. I think perhaps he feels somewhat frustrated and maybe wants to get his previous job back because he tended to speak more about schools and his previous job than he did about this bill which is about the student loan scheme. I suspect Mr Peachey is not the only person in the National Party who feels frustrated at the moment. He talked about taxes and about schools but not about the tertiary student loan scheme. This bill is about a 3-year repayment holiday for students who go overseas and it is about non-penalty clauses; it is not about relief from interest. 
I notice that the previous speaker Hone Harawira also talked about people running away overseas yet the commentary on the bill talks about the tradition of young New Zealanders going overseas once they have finished their tertiary education. It used to be called OE. People would say: “Have you done your OE yet?”. So this is not something that has come about since the establishment of the student loan scheme; it has gone on from before the student loan scheme. It is not new but is a tradition and for people to want to go overseas and get that experience has very little to do with the student loan scheme. 
The people who come back with overseas experience contribute greatly to New Zealand. In some cases they have to go overseas. I think of people like eye surgeons and so on. In order to become registered as an eye surgeon in New Zealand someone has to have had some experience and qualifications from overseas. For some people it is a requirement of their job. It is not something that is new. What is new and is in this policy is that young people are to be enabled to have that overseas experience without being penalised. 
Mr Peachey talked about an election bribe. I do not think that Mr Peachey understands what policy is because his party does not have any. I say to him that policy is what one goes to voters with before an election and it says what one is going to do. It is extremely cynical on the part of someone like Mr Peachey to think of policy as a bribe but no doubt if he is here in the House for long enough and if the National Party is creative at some particular stage it may come up with something called policy and he may then understand what it is. If he is around long enough he may understand that policy is important and that if one is going to stand for election one has to have policy to put before electors. Mr Peachey talked a great deal about tax cuts but I notice that National’s deputy leader Bill English has said that a National Government could not afford tax cuts. So that is another flip-flop by National. 
When we talk about this bill it is important to note that Mr Peachey said that people would not be going to university. For someone of his age he needs his memory to be jogged a little. Maybe I am a bit older than he is but when I was younger—if one can talk about the old days—only 2 percent of people went to university. I remind Mr Peachey that a large number of people now go to university or into tertiary education. In 2005 around 76000 young people went to universities in New Zealand—that is New Zealand - born New Zealanders—nearly 50000 went to polytechs and institutes of tertiary education 2000 went into teachers’ colleges and 6500 went into wananga without including other forms of tertiary education. That is an amazing improvement and I am proud to be part of a Labour Government that puts a great deal of emphasis on education and the fact that large numbers of people are now accessing tertiary education. 
What has enabled so many people to access tertiary education is the student loan scheme. Children from working-class families who many many years ago gave away the whole idea of going to university especially if they lived in country areas are now able to go to university because of the student loan scheme that we are amending. That is a tremendous improvement. I think the member opposite is so involved with his own little foibles and his own little hobby horse about schools that he may be better employed if he goes back to a school and makes some of the improvements he thinks should be done within his own school and if he also encourages people to access the scheme that is there. 
As we have said with regard to this bill the loan scheme enables people to have a holiday from repayments. It also has some aspects that allow those who hold loans to be exempted while they are studying at an undergraduate level overseas as well as at a graduate level so that is a change. 
Another point that I think is very very important has not been mentioned. Some young people do not want to go overseas to take on employment but they want to work for a charity. Many young people do that. They want to work in another country—to volunteer their services through Volunteer Service Abroad or whatever other organisation they choose. There is a clause in the bill that allows young people to have interest-free loans while working overseas for a charitable organisation. The bill puts in the conditions that need to be met by those who do that. I remind people that if they are going overseas and working for a charity as a young person proof has to be provided that the work done as a volunteer for or for token payment from a charitable organisation was for one or more of the following purposes: to relieve poverty hunger sickness or the ravages of war or natural disaster—so that would include people wanting to work in tsunami relief—or to improve the economy or raise the educational standards of a country that is recognised by the United Nations as a developing country. People who wish to do that need to provide the commissioner with the information prescribed in the bill. 
I think that provision is very very important. We have talked a lot about young people going overseas to make money yet we have forgotten that many young people are much more altruistic than we give them credit for. Many of them do want to go overseas while they are young to work for a charitable organisation. That opportunity is a very very important part of the bill and I know that many young people will be relieved to be able to take it up. 
I hear a lot of people talk too about young people going overseas and say what a great advantage that is etc. As we know most young people go overseas for a period of 3 years. They go for experience and that is not new. It happened before the student loan scheme was established and it has happened since then. It is not a new thing. Those people do come back to New Zealand. They want to live here they want to settle here they want to have their children here and they bring back with them valuable information and experience. 
I thank the chair of the Education and Science Committee Brian Donnelly for his good work in chairing the committee. I thank the submitters particularly the young students who came to submit. I think it is very important that young people make submissions to select committees so I thank the student organisations the teacher organisations and all those who made submissions. I thank the select committee staff for the good work they did and I thank my colleagues on the select committee. We all worked together and there was unanimous support for the bill. Some of the people who made submissions made them on a number of things that were not to do with the bill but they used the opportunity provided by the bill to raise them. Generally those who made submissions focused on the content of the loan scheme. I think all the submitters were in favour of the bill. The select committee is in favour of the bill and we look forward to its final reading and adoption into law.