Delahunty Catherine: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Delahunty Catherine: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9423] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou katoa. The Green Party will be voting against the Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill. As the only party opposing it at the third reading I think it is important that we try to explain to others the reasons rationale and analysis behind that decision. 
Firstly I acknowledge what Kelvin Davis just said about unintended consequences although he did not refer to it like that; he talked about recent education bills. The Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill is a good example. We were lobbied only yesterday by the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations about the consequences of that bill in terms of reducing the number of students who anecdotally are not getting elected to the new polytech councils. Obviously the jury is still out and the elections are not all over but already we can see the effects of that bill and that more and more students are reporting back to that organisation that their campuses have no students on their councils. That is why we take a very precautionary view on any legislation that impacts on students because we believe that we must take the big picture into account. 
We are voting against this bill because of our consistent belief that despite the positive technical tinkering in parts of the bill and the good intentions within the narrow definitions of the bill the original student loan scheme itself remains one of the most oppressive pieces of legislation in the history of this House. It cannot compete with some of the mean-spirited colonising laws from our history such as the Maori Prisoners Act or the Tohunga Suppression Act but elements of this bill fit well with the retrogressive punitive pieces of law that have been selected recently from the ballot such as the Minimum Wage (Mitigation of Youth Unemployment) Amendment Bill and the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. We are talking about punishing people who are already in debt. 
The student loan scheme was designed to make education a commodity and individuals responsible for the costs. Now the country has a $10 billion student debt which is absolutely no surprise to anybody. The scheme has worked to silence collective student political power and to stop people from even objecting to it because they are too busy paying for it. It has led to a generation of people who believe that the common good is a fairytale and that being in serious debt is the normal financial status of a young person. The idea of health and education being available for minimal cost is a foreign language to most young people. So big ups to the free-marketeers who have achieved their goal. No one saw it coming. 
Coincidentally or perhaps conveniently the global free market has promoted credit to young people and their right to new clothes and cheap travel all paid for on the plastic. Many middle-class younger people would feel deprived if they had to dress out of op shops and sleep on mattresses on the floor which was the norm in my student days. They have been sold materialism as a reward for debt. Other speakers have referred to many who are struggling to survive as students or are too intimidated even to start. That is why we look at the bigger picture in terms of this bill. 
Many students have been persuaded to borrow against their future freedom to build a life beyond working to pay back that debt. However it is now 2010 and the headless chickens who failed to stop the student loan scheme in the 1980s have sewn their heads back on and started to deconstruct what happened to tertiary education. Many of us have figured out that the credit and debt cycle distorts the opportunities of young people and gives them a burden that has been so normalised that they cannot really believe it when my generation talks about paying $150 a year for university fees and books. If members believe that the quality of what students are paying for is so much better than our free education they cannot have been in a tertiary institution lately. 
Our children and older learners do not need an increase in the repayment rate of their loans especially if those children or older learners are already unable to pay. That is why we stand alone against this bill. It is a popular tactic to make the broke pay more. In this brave new world anyone who can pay up front is automatically privileged be it a parking ticket a dog licence or a university education. If you can pay now you are automatically better off. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member is bringing the Chair into the debate. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY 
: I beg your pardon Mr Deputy Speaker—a person is automatically better off. 
So the Green Party rejects new section 20A(2)(a) in clause 7 which allows for a 15c in the dollar repayment fee to be taken from a person’s wages if that person is a late payer of his or her student loan. That provision alone undoes all the positives in this bill that we would very much like to support. It does not feel great to vote against the common-sense parts of the bill but we clearly need to uphold the principles that few other parties even bother to mention any more. Those principles are that education is a human right and that our young people are taonga to be nurtured rather than an economic resource to be captured. 
If we are to start the work of restoring social equity and building a fair society we have to include the student loan scheme and the broader economic context especially when 72000 young people are out of work or out of training. We have to listen to the stories and struggles of “Generation Debt”. We have to assess in every single bill before this House the quality of the so-called commodity we are selling at this price. We must do that assessment. Does the bill help students and people who are no longer students and have families to support to do better? In what context is this bill being proposed? The debates are raging outside this House about access to education. Despite all the Government’s rhetoric about education there are worrying signals. Student organisations are telling the Green Party that that even if we save the interest-free aspect of the loan scheme entry levels and additional-year entry levels are under threat and fee caps are under threat and there is now even a suggestion that the Government may be dropping the open entry to university at the age of 20. 
We cannot ignore the signals or the context in which we are operating. It is not paranoid to ask where we go from here. In considering any changes to things like open entry at age 20 there are many many stories. We heard the story of Dr Liz Gordon who was a chair of the Education and Science Committee as one example of someone who went to university aged 20. I have family members who did the same thing. Many of us were wayward adolescents who did not know what we wanted to do and we left school despite our parents’ concerns. Many of us returned to education older and wiser and because of open entry we were able to access education and do well with it. 
We are very concerned about where the whole picture is going. We oppose the changes in this bill because we are very nervous that they add to the burden and we do not support the increase in repayments to 15c in the dollar for people who are already behind. We are watching the changes in the weather in the student loan policy arena and it is certainly getting rough. Followers of the political machinations and the student loan scheme will notice the role of the Green Party and the “careful look” to quote the Prime Minister that we will take at any changes to the student loan scheme in terms of who will benefit and who will pay more. We stand here to be consistent about the bad parts of this bill and to vote against it because of our consistent advocacy for the vulnerable and the marginalised instead of the people who already have their wealth.