Gilmore Aaron: Student Loan Scheme Bill — First Reading 
Gilmore Aaron: Student Loan Scheme Bill — First Reading 
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AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 Let me just state the fact that National is completely committed to interest-free student loans. I want as I normally do to share a story the story of my student loan which will give one of the reasons why an important aspect of this Student Loan Scheme Bill will help students. 
Most members across the House have had a student loan and have tried to repay it but for a period of time have never really known the balance. When we have tried to pay it back balances have been sent to us monthly saying whether we were in or out of credit whatever the case might be. In my case I spent 3 months trying to repay a dollar but every month I would be out by 3c or 4c. It took 6 months to finally get a balance that said I was 2c in credit. This bill will fix that; this bill will bring about a situation whereby students will be able to go online and work out what their balances are at any one point in time. I think that is a good step in the right direction. 
There are some really interesting things in this bill that I think Opposition members seem to be scaremongering on which has seemed to be their way recently. I will talk particularly about the area they have talked about—that of a full-time student working throughout the holidays and the issue that that person earning $300-odd a week might have his or her pay deducted for their student loan. Clauses 48 to 54 of the bill state that such students can get an exemption. If they believe that their holiday earnings throughout the year will total under $19000 they can apply for an exemption so that deductions would not apply which completely ruins the argument put forward by Labour. 
One of the interesting aspects of this bill—and I am a big fan of information disclosure—is that it exempts students from the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act which is quite an important aspect and requirement of this bill for it to work. The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act requires a whole lot of consents for electronic communication and other niceties. They are there for good reasons but this bill makes student loans exempt from those consents to make information disclosure online which people expect these days to work. I think that is a sensible thing. Some people might believe that it is taking away a few people’s rights but it is actually a good step to give that information to students who in this modern day and age expect not to rely on bits of paper flying back and forth month by month but instead to know their balance online day by day. That will allow those students to have a better understanding of what they owe to pay it back and get out of debt a little bit faster then get back to saving more money for the productive part of society. 
That is what we want to see. We want to get that loan balance to come down a bit both personally and as a group. That is what we want. We want a more accountable higher performing tertiary sector and a lower loan balance in order for these people to get back into the workforce and pay off their loans as soon as possible and that has to be a good thing. Thanks very much.