Sepuloni Carmel: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Sepuloni Carmel: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9372] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I am very happy to stand and take a call on the Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill. I may be one of the few young members of Parliament who currently still have a student loan and are still paying it off. I am nearly there. It has taken me 9 years but I am nearly there. So I do have a heart for our students out there who are taking out student loans with the best intentions: trying to get ahead in this world and trying to do good things for themselves and their families. 
The Labour members are supporting this bill. I will talk first about aspects of the bill that we support. One of those is the fact that the bill extends interest-free student loans to borrowers who are resident in Niue the Cook Islands Tokelau or the Ross Dependency. I think that is a good idea. One of the things that we came across on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee trip to Niue last year was the fact that Niue is suffering from depopulation. If we can encourage Niueans to go back and work and contribute to their economy there—and it is the same with the Cook Islands and other countries—then that is a good thing that New Zealand can do. Those countries talk about the fact that their Pacific people are contributing here in New Zealand so I think it is important that we allow them the opportunity to go back and contribute to their countries especially given that we have something like 22000 Niueans in this country and there are only 1000 in their homeland. 
Some of the concerns that have been raised in respect of this bill are about the National Government’s future plans for students loans. This kind of bill makes alarm bells go off in our heads. We are concerned about some of the comments that have been made on student loans recently by both the Prime Minister and the new Minister for Tertiary Education Steven Joyce. The fact is that the Prime Minister has recently said the Government will take a careful look at the policy settings around student support. The concern is that—and we do not trust the Government to take this scheme seriously—National members have talked many times about the number of students who are rorting the system apparently. Apparently we have heard from Government members and from the media students are doing things like taking out student loans then saving the money because it is interest-free. That is very much a small small minority of the students who access student loans. The vast majority are people who need the student loan scheme in order to have the opportunity to take up tertiary study in the same way that those who have money do. 
So it is concerning to hear the National members talk about student loans and changing the policy around them because we do not know how far down the track National will go. Of the something like 13 years that I spent living in Auckland I spent 11 years working at the University of Auckland or studying there. I have worked with a large number of students—Maori Pacific single parents—who rely on the fact that they can access student loans. If there are to be any changes down the track that jeopardise the accessibility of student loans then this country will be in huge trouble. 
Mr Key referred to the fact that some students do not take their study seriously or do not get a job quickly after qualifying. One thing that we need to recognise is that research shows that unfortunately Maori and Pacific students often take longer than other students to complete their degrees. The reason for that is not anything to do with their having lesser intelligence or anything like that; unfortunately what we see is that many of the Maori and Pacific students are still the first person from their family to go on to high-level tertiary education. The culture of the environment at universities is very foreign compared with what they have ever experienced in their lives. When they go into that environment many of them struggle to come to terms with being in it. It is completely strange and foreign compared with what they have ever experienced before. So if the Government does go down the track of putting limitations on student loans it will be those Maori and Pacific students and also—I will talk more about this shortly—solo parents who will suffer more than anyone else because of that. 
One of my colleagues has already talked about the fact that the training incentive allowance was cut. We have been receiving emails since that was announced in the May Budget from women who do not know how they will be able to cope with tertiary-level study with degree-level study if they do not have that tertiary incentive allowance. If we put limitations on student loans that will only further serve to marginalise that group. Those are aspects that we are concerned about. It is important that we alert members on the Government side of the House to those concerns so that when they are looking at the policy and when they are looking at further legislation they will take those considerations seriously. 
The Greens brought up their concern about increasing the amount that students who are in arrears will have taken from their earnings under this legislation. The increase will be from 10c in the dollar to 15c in the dollar. The Greens have raised a valid concern. But as my colleague the Hon Maryan Street referred to before we have to make sure that people are using the correct tax codes and are not trying to rort the system in any way. Again the thing that we need to be cautious about and that the Government needs to watch very carefully is that it is not certain groups that are affected by the introduction of this clause. We know that Maori Pacific people and women will earn less once they get out into the workforce after completing their tertiary studies. If they are solo parents with children to raise then increasing the amount from 10c in the dollar to 15c in the dollar may affect their ability to look after their families. Those are some of the things that the Government will need to watch very carefully. We do not want to push through legislation that may marginalise particular groups. That was one of the Green Party’s valid concerns. 
As I said before the direction that the Government seems to be taking with regard to student loans is concerning. As my colleague Chris Hipkins pointed out earlier the National Government does not have a good track record with regard to tertiary education—it does not have a good track record on tertiary education. Fundamentally underneath all the rhetoric National did not and it does not support access to student loans. As I yelled out before to one of the National Party MPs the chances are that the daughter she spoke of did not have to access a student loan. The chances are that anyone who is working here can afford to pay the fees for his or her child. Not everyone has access to that kind of support so we need to make sure as a country that we support those who do not have access to that type of money to go on to tertiary-level education. That is one of the things that we do not trust this Government to do. We do not trust this Government to make sure that every New Zealander has an equal opportunity to access tertiary education. That issue has come up in the past. National voted against policies that the Labour Government put forward in its 9 years. Those policies and legislation were conducive to ensuring that all New Zealanders have access to tertiary education. As we head into the future we are aware of the fact that if given the opportunity the National Government would make changes that would be detrimental to some of the more marginalised groups in New Zealand. 
I also say the Government needs to take aspects of the student loan scheme seriously. I saw many students come into my office over the years while I was working at the university who had been put back or affected negatively by some of the operational matters of student loans: some of the timeliness issues and things like that. When students have to wait for 6 weeks to receive money in the first semester of the year they are severely put back in terms of their ability to go to classes—sometimes they are actually shut out—and their ability to obtain their course outlines and everything else. That can have a detrimental effect on their success in that first semester or even in that first year. So there are other matters related to the student loan scheme that this Government needs to take very seriously and look at in order to make sure that the scheme works successfully and efficiently for students who need to access student loans. 
We have pointed out that at the end of the day if further changes are made to the student loan scheme and accessibility to it is affected by the Government’s ideology on whether student loans should be interest-free or on how accessible they should be it will be Maori Pacific and I think women students as well who will be most affected by any possible changes that the Government may go down the track of making. We are concerned about that. We have discussed it very broadly amongst our caucus. We are keeping our eye very closely on the situation to ensure that the groups that I have discussed are not affected negatively by the Government’s future policy on tertiary education and the student loan scheme.