Faafoi Kris: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Faafoi Kris: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill. As has been said on this side of the House a number of times during this debate Labour supports the overall intent of this bill but there is some concern around the reduction of the repayment holiday from 3 years down to 1 year. But we should not take away from the overall thrust of the bill—that it seeks to encourage the quicker repayment of student loans. I think it was Gareth Hughes who alluded to the fact that he was still repaying his. I am still repaying mine. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Finished mine. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Carmel Sepuloni has just finished paying hers. We should encourage all New Zealanders who have a student loan to make sure they can repay it as fast as they can because when those students enter a contract with the Crown to take out a loan to enter tertiary education there is an obligation on their behalf to make sure they do pay it back. I take the point of the member who spoke before me Michael Woodhouse that there are a large number of people who take out a loan who may in fact have no intent of paying it back at any stage whatsoever. Nonetheless we do support the efforts to recoup loans and ensure that the commitments and obligations that students make when they do take out a student loan are met. 
But Labour wants to ensure that any changes that are made to the laws around student loan repayments are fair for all students. We think it is fair that borrowers provide a contact for the Inland Revenue Department if they go overseas to make sure that there is somebody in New Zealand who can be contacted if a borrower is overseas. I know that in my situation when I went overseas I did not have that kind of contact here and it would have been beneficial for the Inland Revenue Department to have had that contact person here. I think it is also a common-sense move that borrowers cannot offset any business or investment loss to reduce their repayment obligations. I think it is a good move in the fact that it will make sure all New Zealanders regardless of their ability to change or influence their own income pay their fair share of their student loan repayments. 
I want to reiterate our opposition to the change from 3 years to 1 year for the repayment holiday. I think Chris Hipkins has already alluded to that fact that Treasury thinks this will not increase the improvement rate for people repaying their student loans. In fact it did say in some Budget documents that this will encourage people to stay away from New Zealand and that may be unfair and it also may discourage people from going on their OE at all. As I said those Treasury documents did say that there would be little evidence that this will improve repayment rates so we on this side of the House will support this bill going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee but we do that only because we are hoping to have that particular part of the bill removed. That is why I stand before the House in support of the bill so far but only to select committee stage.