Turei Metiria: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Turei Metiria: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8163] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Greens are supporting the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2). We have supported it from the beginning and we will continue to do so through its remaining stages. I am pleased to hear that National is supporting the bill as well though I just mention to Mr Peachey that we can really do without those kinds of anachronistic and patronising attitudes. I think that that really was beneath him. 
It is certainly true that although the Green Party supports the bill we have from the start been very dissatisfied with the whole student loan scheme. I thank my colleague Nandor Tanczos who in our view set out a very clear critique of the scheme as a whole in his first reading speech on the legislation. Some interesting issues have been raised about that. Mr Brian Donnelly talked about the original loan scheme and how easy it was for people to get into huge amounts of debt get lots and lots of money and not really understand the process they were going through. It is still a concern for me as I travel around universities and particularly around polytechs and other kinds of institutions that people who are still quite young are getting loans to study. 
Those people are doing very well and wanting to achieve in their studies but they still do not truly understand the future implications of getting student loans. They do not have access to the information that would mean they really knew what they were getting into. Sometimes when we talk to them about what the implications might be and how long it might take them to pay off their student loans it can be a real shock for them. That is still a very serious concern particularly for those under 18 who have left school for what are probably very good reasons and are trying to make sure they stay educated and get a skill—without realising the implications of the effect of the student loan scheme. 
I heard the argument about fairness in respect of the bill when it was first introduced. From the Green Party’s perspective the scheme has never been fair and never will be fair; it is deeply and fundamentally unfair. What we have in this country is the first generation of students who have to pay a considerable amount for their own education. When they finish their tertiary education they have to pay for their parents’ superannuation which they have to do through their taxes; they have to save up and pay for their children’s education and some of us who have student loans have children who are now teenagers and for those people that is now a serious concern; and additionally they have to save for their own superannuation so they can be assured of some kind of reasonable income at the end. This is the first generation of New Zealanders that has to pay for all of those costs all at once out of one lifetime’s worth of work. 
Additional to that are the issues that Moana Mackey raised around the difficulty with housing and the fact that people may not have freehold homes by the time they retire because of the impact of the student loan scheme. It is a massive social experiment. It will have huge detrimental effects well into the future and those effects will be intergenerational. This cannot be underestimated when one looks at the impacts of the loan. 
Unfortunately we make the changes only as they arise. As we see the problems happening we will be continually making changes to this loan scheme for decades to come unless we find a more suitable way of enabling New Zealanders—in particular young New Zealanders—to gain an education that does not require them to go into such massive levels of debt for such little social and fiscal support that we find through the student allowances scheme. 
We agreed with the provisions of the bill at the time it was introduced. The Education and Science Committee has done a very good job of working through the legislation and I confess that I somewhat miss being involved with that select committee having been a member of it during my first term of Parliament. I am very pleased with the changes that the select committee has made. I noticed that it raised some good issues in terms of data matching. It has always been a concern for the Greens that if there were an excess of data matching that could be abused. I note that the select committee report refers to the committee believing as a principle that the information collected on individual student-loan borrowers should be permanently deleted when the purpose for which the information is obtained is no longer required. We think that that is a very sound proposition from the select committee and we are pleased to see it there. 
We are also pleased with the new provisions that the select committee has put in concerning charitable organisations. It is really important that New Zealanders have the chance to participate in the social well-being of other nations and other communities. That is in part what a lot of people do when they go overseas and get involved in charitable organisations and we are pleased to see that provision in the bill. We are also very pleased to see the application of care and management issues which Brian Donnelly has also raised because people should not be unfairly affected by errors made by the agencies. It is quite responsible and reasonable that these provisions should be in the bill. Also the repayment obligations around raising the threshold level from $250 to $330 makes perfect sense and we are very pleased to see such sensible provisions in the bill. Presumably the Committee stage and the third reading will pass quite swiftly as there is such good support for the bill from the various parties in the House. We would be very pleased to see that happen. 
We do not look forward though to the continual changes that we believe will have to happen to this student loan scheme as these issues arise year after year. At some point we will have to bite the bullet and realise that the student loan scheme in the long term is a failure. It is not doing well particularly for Maori students and for other students so we will have to address that specifically bite the bullet and make the hard decision that a new system is required. I would prefer that we did that sooner rather than later and not allow further generations of New Zealanders—my own children and the children of other members—to have to suffer and go through this process again for no good reason. Kia ora.