Woods Megan: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8954. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I am happy to make another contribution on Part 3 of this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2)—in particular clauses 63 to 66—because I think there is so much embedded in these clauses that we need a good discussion about them. One of the things that I would like to discuss is broadening the definition of what counts as income to be assessed for the purposes of student loan repayments. Of course this is going to apply not only to those graduates who are in the workforce who are domiciled in New Zealand but also to New Zealanders living overseas who have a student loan. So for New Zealanders living overseas who earn their money from a business or from a trust their income is now going to be assessable for student loan purposes. 
This brings us to another issue—and one of the things I want to talk about—in terms of these definitions and the fact that we are bringing in another whole category of people whose income can be assessed which is the changes that are made in other parts and the interaction with clauses 63 to 66 and the way in which the data of these people can be matched at the border. There were concerns raised at the Finance and Expenditure Committee around whether or not this gelled with the privacy legislation that is going to be coming before this House. These people who are caught under clauses 63 to 66 of this legislation which we think is a good thing will now be eligible for data matching at the border. This new group of people is created by these clauses under Part 3 of the bill. 
We have grave concerns as we have had yet another data breach from this Government. 
David Bennett 
: Oh get over it. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: Only this week we have seen the details—and no Mr Bennett I will not get over it. There are 90000 Cantabrians who have had their details released and put out there when this is a Government that has done nothing to give Christchurch people access to that information despite the fact that they have been asking for it for months. So yes we do have concerns over the data matching that will happen for the new category of people created under clauses 63 to 66 of this legislation because this is a Government that has shown itself to not be trusted with people’s personal information. We would like to put on record that when you do data matching you have an obligation to make sure—not you Mr Chairman not you. The Government has a responsibility an obligation to make sure that it is protecting the information that it holds about New Zealanders and to not have the slapdash approach that we have seen which has led to the very serious breaches we have seen in ACC the Ministry of Social Development and the Earthquake Commission. We do not want to see this happening in terms of the new categories of people that are created under this legislation. 
We ask that Government members take a call and give us a reassurance that these new categories of people will have their data protected and that there will not be mass releases of it as there were with the people whose private information was shared in relation to their Earthquake Commission claims in Christchurch. This is an issue that we take very seriously and we would not like to see the categories of people created under clauses 63 to 66 in Part 3 of this legislation being subjected to their information being shared in this slapdash and haphazard manner. We invite the Minister in the chair the Minister of Immigration and we invite a member opposite to take a call and to give us that reassurance that this information will be protected. It is not good enough for us to just say “Get over it.” as Mr Bennett heckled from the benches opposite. We will not get over it. Labour takes seriously the fact that a Government has a responsibility to deal in a responsible manner with people’s private information. The reaction we have seen from the benches opposite and the Prime Minister’s reaction in question time today show that this is not a Government that thinks this is a serious matter. The fact that we are trusting this Government with more information and the ability to share more of this information under this legislation for the category of people created under clauses 63 64 and 65 of this legislation gives us cause to question it. We would welcome a Government call on this matter.