Clark David: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clark David: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8665. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I want to start with a small correction if indeed I heard correctly Tracey Martin from New Zealand First—normally an incredibly scrupulous and careful MP—say that both the Greens and Labour were moving away from the goal of collecting moneys from students. I want to say that that is not true. Certainly in our case we are supporting the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2). 
Tracey Martin 
: No that’s not what I said Mr Clark. I said you’re moving away from a free education for all. You’re moving away from that goal. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: “Moving away from the goal of a free education for all.” says Ms Martin. That I would also dispute. I do not think that is true. Labour certainly wishes to have free education for all and that is something that we intend to move towards over time as it is an affordable policy. That is something we certainly will not rescind from. 
We have concerns about the bill although we will be supporting it because we support the effort to collect these moneys that are due to the taxpayer. When money is given in good faith to support an education it is right that the Government collects it back. That is the principle that we start from. 
In one of my previous lives I had the privilege of being the warden of Selwyn College in Dunedin— 
Tim Macindoe 
: Not a bad college. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: —which I am proud to say is regarded by many and rightly so as New Zealand’s finest college. The member opposite may beg to differ but I credit him certainly with having attended New Zealand’s second-finest college and that is saying something. In that role I had the opportunity to see many students who were striving earnestly to study and to make the most of their opportunities. I have to observe that since I was a student myself times have become more difficult. It is a lot harder for students to pay their way through their studies. They now either require a generous benefactor or must work every hour and more of a 40-hour week through the summer holidays beforehand as well as some time during term time in order to pay their fees in an establishment that feeds them and provides accommodation. That is not a good state of affairs because it can distract from the efforts of study. Many students are not reaching their potential at university now because they are forced to work to supplement their studies to a level that was not the case certainly when people of my generation were students. The student support scheme in those days was far more generous. Unfortunately inflation has eaten that away. 
The point that I am wanting to develop through my discussion as you will hear is about the sustainability of the scheme which is a point that goes to the heart of this bill—part of the reason why we support it and part of the concerns we have with the bill. The preservation of the scheme was touched on also by Mr Goldsmith who made some claims about it costing 50c in the dollar and patting his Government counterparts on the back for drawing that cost in. I want to point out to the Committee and to those watching at home that much of the so-called reduction in cost is in fact based upon accounting tricks. The fact that moneys are written off and then later re-included is a strange treatment in the student loan scheme that is not seen in other loan schemes so one must be very careful with the statistics that are used. They are used for convenience in my observation by the Government when it wants to make it sound a far more expensive scheme than it actually is because it is not in favour of this scheme. 
We know that National introduced the loan scheme. Labour later followed up with an interest-free scheme because we believed in reducing the costs of education moving towards that free education system that Ms Martin also spoke of. We took a step in that direction. National of course subsequently has introduced interest again on that loan scheme and that tells you the direction that it wishes to take it. Certainly Mr Goldsmith is advocating for an understanding of the scheme that it is far more expensive than the reality and that probably also hints at where he would like to go with the scheme—if one did not get that from his maiden speech in Parliament. 
One of the things that is challenging in this bill certainly for the Government is the fact that it contains a good deal of U-turns. It is a bill that pulls back from policy previously passed through this House. Mr Dunne in the chair may be becoming more accustomed to U-turns as recent days would illustrate. However there is—