Browning Steffan: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 18 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16035. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak to the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3). I want to focus on the border aspect as well as on the fantastic bright young people who have moved away for better wages and better conditions and to get a broader experience so that they can come back to New Zealand some time. There is a whole range of scenarios for the people who have left. We know that economics have driven a lot out. It seems to be unusual that here we are putting something up to discourage some young people from coming back—but it is not “we”; it is National. National is discouraging our best and brightest from possibly come back. They will possibly end up paying amounts of money that are just not fair because the ones back here are paying something different—or maybe that is the incentive. It is a little bit hard to work it out.At the same time the elite of National are keeping wages down in New Zealand by making it easy to bring in more and more temporary migrant workers and to keep wages down in order to look after its elitist farms and its elitist businesses to make money and to hold wages down for New Zealanders. It then keeps our brightest young people overseas or makes them pay money in a wholly disproportionate way. It is a damned mess and it keeps—[Interruption]Tracey Martin: Ignore him.STEFFAN BROWNING: —yes—the inequity of repayments for New Zealanders overseas compared with those at home. Then we keep wages right down and conditions right down—disgusting situations. We bring people in by the truckload for our horticulture and our agriculture and we keep our New Zealanders overseas or we penalise them.It is very interesting because this is a gimmick in another way and yet it is holding back a batch of good Kiwis as well. It is holding them down. It is going to be penalising them inappropriately. The figure I am told is that this will target 3.2 percent of the $13 billion student debt. This is all about that 3.2 percent. We will have police acting as debt collectors at the border to discourage or to catch young New Zealanders—and older New Zealanders as well as we have heard.I think this Government needs to have a deep look at itself and ask what it is doing.John Hayes: Oh nonsense.STEFFAN BROWNING: Oh yes! We have seen the big line-up and the multimillionaires splattered across here. They can send their kids overseas. They do not have to worry about student debt. But the others—the real New Zealanders the ones doing the grunt and the work—have to pay bloody heaps of interest. This lot does not. No no—they can send their kids through because they are just all right thanks mate. So that is the issue. That is the issue [Interruption] The members making the noise over here—continual noise—do not have a real idea of what it is like for a lot of people. They do not care because they have got the money. So we need to look at some positive incentives for decent wages and conditions and not use these punitive methods to try to address a very very small amount of the student debt. Thank you.