Robertson Grant: Student Loan Scheme Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Student Loan Scheme Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
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GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I will talk about two specific elements of Part 1 of the Student Loan Scheme Bill. I have a question for the Minister in the chair the Minister of Revenue in relation to the first of those elements. Essentially a large part of what Part 1 does is increase the obligations on borrowers to do certain things. They are actually things that I support. For instance if someone is going to be away from New Zealand they have an obligation to tell the Commissioner of Inland Revenue where they are going to be how to contact them and how they can work on the loan scheme with the Inland Revenue Department. That is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think it is quite useful. 
Clause 14 is an example of a provision relating to changes to residency. But in particular I ask the Minister about clause 23 which is about the question of notifying the commissioner of absence from New Zealand of 184 or more days. The language here has changed. It very much talks about what a borrower must do. That is important. 
One of my concerns over a period of time has been the awareness of borrowers of their obligations when they leave the country. As somebody with a background in working on these issues both as a student politician working for a university and now as a constituency MP I ask the Minister about the intent around advertising of obligations. Will any more work be done to ensure that borrowers who leave New Zealand actually know what their obligations are? I agree regardless of whatever concerns I might have about the cost of tertiary education or the amount of debt that students have that once a borrower leaves New Zealand we want to make sure that that borrower is aware of their obligations and is meeting their obligations. It is not fair for someone to leave New Zealand disappear off the radar screen and not have to make repayments when somebody who stays in New Zealand and works hard is making those repayments. I would like to hear from the Minister about what is envisaged in terms of new ways of letting people know about their obligations which have been enhanced. There are already obligations—I acknowledge that—but this bill enhances those obligations and I think it is important that borrowers are made aware of them. I would like the Minister to let us know what happens there. 
I congratulate the Minister and the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the way in which some changes have been made not just in this bill but previously as well around the treatment of borrowers who are not in New Zealand but for the purposes of the law are treated as if they are—in particular people who work for the Government of New Zealand overseas which has always been the case. But the question of their partners is an important one and I think that is really useful. It is important to say today that if somebody is working overseas in the service of New Zealand is undertaking postgraduate study overseas or is undertaking voluntary work—and in schedule 1 there is now an explanation of what constitutes acceptable voluntary work for the purposes of this bill—for all of those people it is now possible for their partners to be treated as if they are in New Zealand. I think that is a very good thing. It is important that when people are overseas in the service of New Zealand they do not have to worry about things like interest on student loans. Clause 20 deals with that in particular as does schedule 1. Both of those are very good things. That is my question to the Minister around the advertising of borrowers’ obligations. 
The only other point I really want to make on Part 1 is about clause 10D “Student loan establishment fee”. As I said in my contribution to the second reading we are looking at a situation now where we are told in the regulatory impact statement that there will not be additional costs on the Inland Revenue Department. We are told that the computer system that the department is bringing in will in fact reduce costs. We are told that the electronic arrangements for borrowers to communicate with the department will in fact reduce costs. Yet in clause 10D the establishment fee for students goes up from $50 to $60. Later in Part 5 we will come to the new $40 management fee. So we are actually talking about a $50 increase in total in costs to borrowers on an annual basis. That seems to me to be a pretty big cost increase relative to a system that we are told will actually reduce the cost to the Government. 
That is why we on this side of the House are suspicious of this change as essentially being a revenue grab by the Government. We think that this looks like the reintroduction of interest by stealth. It looks to us as if a Government that wanted to bring in interest on student loans— 
Chris Tremain 
: Well why are you voting for it then? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I say to Mr Tremain that as an Opposition we will vote for things that are good and useful like the electronic management— 
Chris Tremain 
: You just said that it looked like we’re introducing interest. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Clearly Mr Tremain has not been listening to the second reading debate or to the Committee stage. Labour is supporting this bill because it brings in important changes around electronic management of student loans but just because we are supporting the overall intent of the bill that does not mean we have to support every single clause. Mr Tremain might like to take a call on clause 10D and tell us why the administration fee is going up to 60 bucks. Then when we get to Part 5 he might like to take a call on why a new fee of $40 is being introduced at a time when we are told the loan scheme itself will become more affordable to the Government because of the other changes in the bill that we do support. 
It really does look like the introduction of interest by stealth because this is a National Government that will not go through on what it said earlier: that it wanted to reintroduce interest to the student loan scheme. Mr Finlayson wants to introduce interest to the student loan scheme; I know that. Lots of members on the other side of the Chamber do but they have decided for political reasons that they are not going to so something has been brought in by the back door to increase the establishment fee to $60 and Part 5 will bring in the new fee of $40. Members on this side of the Chamber have real concerns about that. 
Although there are some very good elements to Part 1 in this bill clause 10D is one that members on this side of the Chamber find very difficult to support because it looks like it is the National Government trying to reintroduce interest by stealth.