Tolley Anne: Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2628. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development):I thank the members for the comments that they have made particularly around the accommodation supplement and the changes that we are making on that. I want to take just a short call and perhaps explain as requested the policy behind it. I think it is very important that we understand there is actually a major difference between the support that we give to students in tertiary education and the support that we give through the accommodation supplement to largely low and middle income people mainly families.New Zealand actually has a very generous support system for students. We did not always have that but now I would think about 74 percent of the fees are funded by the taxpayer and that is right and proper. We know as a nation that it is critical to our development that we have highly educated skilled people living in New Zealand and it is of benefit to the whole community. There is also an individual benefit from tertiary education. There is plenty of research that backs that up and shows the advantages that someone who has been through tertiary education can earn over their lifetime.What you are doing by providing support to students is creating a shared form of assistance. It is shared between the taxpayers in the country the individual students and their families. So the policy intent is quite clear that that is a different level of assistance from that given to those whom the Government supports through the accommodation supplement who are getting no other form of Government support and who may not be getting any other type of Government support and recognising that they have needs. Of course we had a debate in this Chamber earlier about housing. People in the country do actually need help from the community to help them with those housing needs.That is the policy behind why we have two different types of support and what we are doing in the Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3) is saying that actually we have got some very smart students out there who have worked this out and they are coming off the student allowance in order to be eligible for the accommodation allowance. They quite rightly under the policy guidelines should be receiving their support as a student rather than through the accommodation allowance. The question that that member from New Zealand First raised about the adequacy then of the support that we give to students is completely beyond the scope of this bill. It is a completely different debate and that is a right and proper debate to have at that time. I have been a Minister for Tertiary Education and students never think they get enough support. And that is right. That is their ability to argue that but as I say the taxpayer does support them very generously because it is recognised that—Carmel Sepuloni: And then they go on to be taxpayers.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: That is right. They go on to be taxpayers. There is a community benefit and that is why we do it. But there is a very distinct policy difference between the support for the two different groups.