Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for the opportunity to again speak on the Education Amendment Bill. This Supplementary Order Paper I'd like to talk about is No. 127 which is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name that amends clause 15 which is in regards to the offence which is being created for those who take fees-free without reasonable excuse and make a false representation for the purpose of receiving or continuing to receive free tertiary education from a tertiary education organisation. This clause in the bill is a direct response to the Government's policy that they implemented at the beginning of this year which was fees-free for the first year and will eventually under their proposal if they wish continue that to three years. And it does the right thing: it puts in place an offence for the amount of $5000 for someone who commits the offence of making a false representation. Now we dispute the amount here. We do think it should be higher and I'd like the Minister to explain to the committee why he believes that amount should remain that amount and not have it as a higher amount because the amount which could be taken by a student who makes a false representation could be greater than $5000 under this policy. But my Supplementary Order Paper seeks to remove the words without reasonable excuse" and the argument for doing so is that we do not think the court should have discretion to decide whether or not a person who has committed the offence of false representation has a reasonable excuse or not. Essentially we believe this should be strict liability. If someone has made a false representation then they are guilty of that and they should face the consequences because this is public money this is Government money taxpayers' money—and the hard-working people in my electorate in Pakuranga don't want people to be able to just get free cash from the Government making false representations and then being able to drag it through the court and try and come up with a reasonable excuse. That is completely unfair and slaps them in the face. What a waste of money that would be if we don't change this. So I ask the Minister in the chair to explain to the committee why and what he thinks a reasonable excuse could be and how he justifies the range of reasonable excuses that could be made up. Is it "because I forgot"? Is it "because my dog ate my lunch"? Is it "because I left it at home"? You know there's a whole range of excuses which could become—from the absurd to the more reasonable. But what does "reasonable" actually mean in the context of making a false representation? A false representation is something which is a very serious thing to do and I guess the question here is in making that false representation where does the bar get made? I'd like the Minister to seriously address that issue in the backdrop of the fact that this is potentially incredibly costly to New Zealanders. I think it's important also for the committee and those listening to remember that when the Government actually set this scheme up in a huge rush they didn't even have the ability to actually check whether someone has enrolled previously and actually had tertiary education prior to now getting free education. And so I would ask the Minister to potentially take the opportunity to explain to the committee what the situation was when this policy was implemented the actions they have taken since then and whether the Minister is satisfied that there has been none or very little in terms of taxpayers' money going to those people who shouldn't be getting it under the policy that he has set up. The fees-free eligibility criteria are easily outlined as part of the application process. When students go and enrol and they are trying to seek to have their education paid for under the fees-free process the information is very clear on the website and in our view there is significant information available for those students to know that they have an obligation to make a true declaration as to what their position has been. And that's not a high expectation; that's just asking those students to tell the truth. So what we're proposing is saying well actually it's not a hard obligation there is actually no real excuse for this and what these students need to do is tell the truth and if not pay the fine."