Martin Tracey: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Martin Tracey: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in favour of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill. I do so because there is common sense in this bill. This is about debt reduction. This is about people actually facing their responsibilities no matter where they are on the planet and saying: “We owe this money to the New Zealand public and we will repay it.” However it disappoints us that there are wider mechanisms—and for a short moment there I was very afraid that I was going to actually agree with the Hon John Banks but I am pleased to say that no I do not—that could be used to actually reduce the $12 billion worth of student debt here and they are not all punitive.  
However to start with let us just take the repayment holiday in this bill. I want to address some of the comments that my colleague the member from the Green Party has made. Let us not forget that the New Zealand overseas-based borrowers in the current repayment holiday do not get an interest-free period; they just do not have to make a repayment. But New Zealand graduates who stay in New Zealand do not get the benefit of any break from their repayments. If they are working and they are earning above the threshold no matter what happens in their daily lives they cannot apply for a break from that repayment whether it be 1 year or whether it be 3 years. Considering that 56 percent of the people affected by the student loan scheme are women I have already outlined instances where we believe that it would be beneficial for the repayment holiday to apply to New Zealand - based graduates just as much as it applies to overseas-based graduates.  
I will note the other part of the bill that we find very interesting and I have to say that it is the bit that surprises me so let us just touch on that first. I am new here and I realise that I am new here but I certainly did not come into the House thinking that we would pass legislation after it had already been implemented by a Government department. I find that particularly interesting and somewhat disturbing. I hope it is an anomaly but I am picking up that possibly there is a trend here. It is certainly something that New Zealand First will be keeping its eye on. We seem to be pushing through legislation in this House to meet predetermined time lines that suit other people and we heard about Fonterra earlier this evening.  
I want to quote the Hon Maurice Williamson from the second reading of this bill and at that time he said: “The main purpose of this bill is to improve efficiency and the fairness of the student loan scheme”. I have just touched on the fact that actually overseas-based New Zealand graduates have something that New Zealanders who stay here and work here and keep their skills here do not get. But the next part is around the situation where the repayment holiday is attached to the individual. Again I touched on that at the Committee stage of this bill. New Zealand First believes that the repayment holiday should be attached to the loan. What happens if you gain the loan and you do what we ask of you which is to repay it and if you have had to take a repayment holiday during that period because of your circumstances? I used the example of a woman in her 20s who has gone and got a student loan has graduated has gone and got employment has got married has had her first child has had a year’s break there while the new family sorts out its finances—she does not stop working necessarily; they just need to re-sort their finances—and over time after that year’s repayment holiday she picks up comes back and pays off that loan. It is quite common in this day and age that a woman in her 40s who has raised her family goes back for further or higher education to improve her own circumstances the circumstances of her family or whatever. Let us say that that woman in her 40s has now got a student loan. She is back out working but perhaps her husband gets ill. Perhaps she needs to take a repayment holiday again. She has proved herself to be a good debtor. She has already proved herself to be a responsible New Zealand citizen. Surely by paying off that loan and proving herself to us she should have the benefit of being able to in those circumstances take another repayment holiday. I believe that this legislation will be back in the House. I believe that there will be further amendments and at that time New Zealand First will actually cast its eye and put forward some contributions towards those sorts of thoughts.  
The other part we need to remember is that there is $12 billion worth of student debt. My understanding is that it is not all overdue debt and it is not all debt of people who happen to be overseas. It is just $12 billion worth of debt in total. If this bill and the amendments to this bill had considered how we could reduce that debt in a wider context and if it had looked at the New Zealand First dollar for dollar debt repayment scheme that would have brought in $6 billion—the same amount of money we are selling assets for; the same amount of money between $5 billion and $7 billion we will get by putting up for sale our State-owned assets. If the New Zealand First dollar for dollar debt reduction scheme was applied now to this $12 billion worth of debt we could keep our power stations. Not only that we would have those skills back here in New Zealand. They would be retained in New Zealand because to gain that dollar for dollar student reduction those graduates keep their skills here. They work for this country they pay PAYE they pay GST they pay fringe benefit tax if they are lucky enough to get a car in their job and they pay resident withholding tax if they are lucky enough to save any money.  
New Zealand First is supporting this bill because it is a bill of responsibility that all people with debt must face. But we are saddened that it has not thought wider. It is a shame we were not here to participate in the select committee process because we could have brought these concepts and possibly improved this amendment bill at that time. But for now we support this responsible bill and we will be looking to the bill in the future. Thank you.