Martin Tracey: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16442. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora. Unfortunately for Ms Wilkinson her numbers are somewhat inflated. The reason why there might be about $3 billion outstanding at the moment is not that there is a large number of overseas-based borrowers whose payments have been outstanding for a large period of time; it is that there has been a large number of overseas-based borrowers whose 3-year repayment holiday has just finished. That has upped the numbers as has the fact that the Inland Revenue Department does not recognise these as overdue debts until they are 5 years old. So unfortunately Ms Wilkinson might have wanted to do a little bit more study before she launched into that particular diatribe.We have attempted to talk sense with the National Party over this issue. We have attempted to get a win-win situation out of this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3). We have attempted to get the National Party to see that it makes better sense to stop a citizen on the way into your country when they are on their way in for a period of time when they can provide you with a third party when they can organise to set up automatic payments and when they can perhaps even borrow the money from a family member and pay the debt instead of arresting them on their way out—instead of arresting your citizen on their way out.I think Ms Wilkinson has done the country a favour. She has made it quite clear that this is not about collecting debt; this is about sending a message. This is about sending a message. And the only thing I can say to the New Zealand citizens who are out there overseas listening to the fact that Ms Wilkinson said that this Government is not actually interested in your money is that it wants to send a message by making an example of you. It wants to arrest you at the border. It wants to pull you out of a line-up. It wants to make an example of you in front of your peers in front of other citizens so that other people will be afraid of their Government. There are many many people currently afraid of the National Government but this is just another little niche in thatsort of a chain. All I can say to those overseas-based borrowers is if you get arrested at the border under this legislation our website address is nzfirst.org.nz. Give us a call. Give us a call because we are one of the only parties that will actually come down there and will give you a hand.I guarantee you that when a New Zealand citizen is arrested at the border on their way out for at least one in five there will be an error from the Inland Revenue Department. I will guarantee you that they will be disadvantaged by this Government because it cannot see sense. I mean we do not expect any common sense from the life raft for this Government that is the ACT Party but we certainly tried. We tried to talk sense with the National Government. We tried to come up with a win-win situation but it would not have a bar of it. Now Ms Wilkinson has told us exactly why. It was not about a win-win situation. It was not about clearing debt. It was about sending a message. Well thank you Ms Wilkinson. Thank you very much. What about the message that is being sent?In the House earlier today we had the Minister of Women’s Affairs—I see she is still here—sweating at question time because the Opposition asked her to list the things that her department had done that her Government had done to assist women to minimise that pay equity gap. What this Government has done under recent legislation is take away the ability of 40-year-olds to access higher education. And that goes directly to women. It goes directly to the majority of women who go back in and take a second chance at their education. This sort of policy goes directly to minimising that ability for those women. So no wonder the poor Minister of Women’s Affairs was so inarticulate at question time today because we have not been able to find a common-sense answer for that either apart from sending another message to New Zealand women which is: “Don’t go into higher education. Don’t try to upskill yourself. Don’t try to minimise that gender pay gap because the National Government doesn’t like it.” So those are the two messages we have had today from the National Government.What about the ageism? What about the ageism on those aged 55 plus—the ageism that says: “We’re not going to allow you to borrow for student allowances if you’re 55 because we actually don’t believe in lifelong learning. It is a little bit of a message we put in our brochures but we’re not really keen on it. It’s not a message we want to send.”? Again we have tried to have a conversation with the National Party. What is the purpose of that? What is the purpose of that? We are going to have to make an assumption because we cannot get a sensible answer out of the National Party. All we can assume is that it is actually about the debt not being repaid. That is the message it wants to send. We hate to think that the Government might put in some legislation to arrest 55-year-olds or older if they do not pay back their student allowance.It seems to us again nonsensical when we have laws in this country where let us say the purpose is that if you are 55 or older and you have a student allowance debt the Government does not want you to actually be able to access that just in case you die with a debt. OK. Let us just say that that is its reasoning because we cannot figure it out and it will not tell us. We all know that in this country if you die with a debt your estate goes into probate. So any debt must be paid before any of the estate is then handed out to anybody else. The Government has got a backup plan. We already have it in legislation. If that person had a cent on them the Government would get it because under probate there is a debt there.Again these are things that New Zealand First has tried again and again and again to talk sense with this Government on. But this Government is ideologically directed along this path of—there is a word I was going to use that would not be allowed in this House. The Government is ideologically set on a path to do over its own citizens if it can save abuck. New Zealand First will strongly oppose this and we strongly recommend that if anybody gets arrested at the border they call us. We will help you out.