Mackey Moana: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9382] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on the Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill. I wanted in particular to ask the Minister in the chair the Minister of Revenue a question about the grace period clause in this bill which is clause 24. This seemingly small and innocuous clause is actually incredibly important. At the moment when student loan borrowers are advised of their outstanding loan balance if they repay that amount within 15 days then the interest over that period is cancelled. This bill extends that grace period out to 30 days. My question to the Minister is: how did that 30-day period came about? I know it is a nice round figure; it is a month. I would like to know what went into deciding that a 30-day period would fix this problem. It can be difficult for ex-students who are overseas to make repayments. I have had people contact me who find it extremely difficult sometimes to get their payment in particularly when they are in a country where they cannot wire money easily. I had a friend who was working in Africa who found it incredibly difficult to work out how to get the money back within the time frame. I am not sure that even 30 days would have been enough for my friend to qualify for this grace period. 
This is an issue that I would like the Minister’s response on. Even though it does not seem like an important issue sometimes it can be the difference between people deciding whether or not to come home. If they cannot send money easily if it is too hard and they will not be able to qualify to have their interest cancelled then that may be the point at which they say that they have all this interest piled up but it has been made a whole lot worse so they will just stay overseas and never come back to New Zealand. Then we would never have the loan paid off but more important we would not get value from the tertiary education that the New Zealand taxpayer has paid for alongside the person as well when he or she studied in New Zealand. I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on that. 
I will also briefly comment on extending this provision to New Zealand territories which I think is important. During the work that I have done with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association I met someone from the Cook Islands who in October last year said to me how desperate they were for this provision to come in. I think we have always been good global citizens. We do not want to pull people away from their homes particularly when their own economic development is so reliant on their best and brightest being able to return home and not having a financial disincentive to doing that. 
I commend the contribution from the new member Gareth Hughes. It was nice to see him getting up on his pins so early in his parliamentary career. I know this has become a bit of a time for telling old war stories and one-upmanship but my colleague Grant Robertson and I went through university at the absolute worst time to go through which was in the 1990s. Mr Hughes and Carmel Sepuloni went through in 2000 which I understand was bad enough. I know how important the incentives are in this legislation for paying back a student loan. A lot of people who jump to their feet have never had a student loan and do not really understand what it is like to have one. They do not understand what it is like for students to feel when they graduate that they will die with this loan because it just gets bigger despite the fact that they are making repayments. The push to leave the country is then very very high. In my case I graduated as a scientist and scientists do not earn a lot of money in this country. Therefore I did not earn a lot of money and I had a loan that was growing day by day with compounding interest. 
That is why this legislation is so important. It is important for our Pacific colleagues and the people in the Ross Dependency which again is very useful for scientists. We do some fantastic climate change work down in the Ross Dependency. This may mean that ACT will vote against this legislation now but it is important that those students are also included in this bill and I am very pleased to support it. But I would appreciate an answer to my question on the grace period so we can be sure that it was arrived at by research and considered thought rather than just being picked because it was a month. 
I will also comment on the hardship clause and commend the Minister for this. I have had people come into my office to say that they have found the current hardship relief clauses which were unintended consequences of the previous changes to the Act very difficult to deal with and inflexible in dealing with their own particular hardship situation. This has become a far more difficult issue in the recession. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments as well around what else will be going on in this area. When people have to pay an extra 10 percent of their income towards a student loan that is a lot of money.