Sepuloni Carmel: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Sepuloni Carmel: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9427] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill. I go back to something that Louise Upston the member on the other side of the House just said. She pointed out that she feels that members on this side of the House have gone way off the topic of the bill and in respect of the issues we have at hand. I think it is really important to note that this side of the House looks at these issues broadly in respect of public statements that have been made by the Government and past actions in tertiary education. We do not take just a narrow view when looking at legislation like that side of the House. I thought that was a really important point to make before I get into what I would like to discuss about this bill. 
This bill is largely technical and Labour will support it. We agree with some things in this bill. We agree with them to such an extent that we actually support this bill. I want to discuss those things but I will also discuss during this speech some of the concerns that we have with the direction that the Government is taking this country with the actions it has already exercised and with some of the statements its members have made about tertiary education. 
One of the main things this bill does is amend the Student Loan Scheme Act 1992 by extending interest-free student loans to borrowers who are present in Niue Cook Islands Tokelau or the Ross Dependency for 183 or more consecutive days in order to encourage borrowers from those countries or that territory to return to their countries and contribute to their development. We on this side of the House support that amendment. We think it is very important that our Pacific people from the territories of New Zealand have the opportunity to return to their homelands if they wish in order to contribute to the social and the economic development of those countries particularly Niue Tokelau and the Cook Islands. It has been mentioned that the population of the Ross Dependency is probably very small and we are probably talking about scientists wanting to come here to train rather than a population of people. We support that amendment. 
Some issues arose during the Committee stage and I have to say that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Revenue responded well to some of the questions that came up. One of them was on what mechanisms the Government might put in place to ensure that those who return to their territories have the mechanisms to pay back those student loans. I think the Minister addressed those concerns. There are still a few concerns. One that I was thinking about but did not get the chance to discuss in full during the Committee stage on Part 1 of the bill was about the Tokelauans. I was thinking of the large number of Tokelauans who work as public servants and who are based in Samoa for long periods of time. We know that Tokelau is very difficult to access. In terms of the public service that Tokelauans have many of their workers are based in Samoa. So I wondered about the provision in the bill that states that students cannot be outside of New Zealand or any of the territory countries for more than 31 days. Samoa is not one of our territory countries and that could affect Tokelauans down the track. I guess that issue will need to be discussed at a later date. We support that aspect of the bill and we commend the Minister for putting it forward. We support it wholeheartedly. 
We are concerned about not necessarily the aspects of this bill but the general direction that the Government is taking tertiary education in this country. We have been disturbed by the lack of attention the National Government has paid to tertiary education. In our minds on this side of the House it would have made absolute sense to invest and to put a focus on tertiary education given the recession and given the high levels of unemployment in this country. Instead we saw as Maurice Williamson likes to refer to a slash-and-burn mentality. We saw cuts to adult and community education; we saw in a concerning way statements put out by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Tertiary Education that student loans will be looked at more closely. A number of other things have been very disturbing to this side of the House and we are watching very closely. 
With regard to what is happening in this bill the irony is that we on this side of the House know that National does not believe in interest-free student loans. We know that in 2005 when the Labour Government introduced interest-free loans the attitude of members opposite including the current Prime Minister—who was National’s spokesperson on finance at the time I believe—was that it was corrupt and it was irresponsible of the Labour Government to do it. I am sure that all those thousands of students out there would disagree with the opinions of the spokesperson on finance at the time and the Prime Minister now John Key on making student loans interest-free. For those of us who—and this has been discussed broadly across the debate as well—have had to access student loans the fact that interest was taken off those student loans and we were not charged interest along the way was a relief to us. It was an issue for those of us who were out working. All we saw every 2 months—or whenever it was when we got the statements—was increasing interest and very little paid off despite the fact that money was coming out of our pay weekly or fortnightly. We have to commend the previous Labour Government for that change; we need to remind the National Government of it. Government members fundamentally do not believe in interest-free student loans. 
This weekend just gone we heard Steven Joyce admit that it was a political call to endorse the interest-free student loan policy in 2008. The members opposite know that if they had made any changes they would have had big trouble with support moving forward. Last year they started to soften the ground for the removal of interest-free student loans with the introduction of the Student Loan Scheme (Repayment Bonus) Amendment Bill. The 10 percent top-up scheme favours high earners who can afford voluntary repayments although they might game the system and decide to invest their spare cash elsewhere and keep the interest-free loans. They are doubly advantaged as the Government assists them to game the system. 
The Prime Minister recently said the Government was going to take a careful look at the policy settings around student support. In our minds the question we straight away think of is what that means. Will the Government make access to student loans and allowances harder? Will it make tertiary education opportunities in universities and polytechs available for the few and not the many? I guess it goes back to what Hone Harawira said when he spoke on this bill: at the end of the day it comes down to access and affordability. We on this side of the House are definitely concerned with those things. 
John Key has referred to students who do not take their studies seriously and who do not get a job quickly after qualifying. Who will determine who those students are? It has been discussed across the course of this debate that unfortunately the research shows that Maori and Pacific students take longer to complete their degrees. As I have discussed earlier and as other people have also said it is not due to lesser intelligence; for many it comes down to their having come from backgrounds where university education or higher-level tertiary education has not been the norm in the family. Many of them are going through university—and I know this from having worked with many Maori and Pacific students—as the first in their families to undertake university study. It is a very foreign environment for many of our students who are going through. Why should they be the ones— 
David Garrett 
: Same speech—heard this. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: —I ask Mr Garrett who I know disagrees with everything I am saying—who have their lives placed in jeopardy and who have their futures put at risk because this Government does not understand the need to make sure that tertiary education is kept affordable and accessible for a wide range of people not just for those who have the money to pay for tertiary education? 
Those are some of the concerns that have been raised. Labour members support this bill but it brings to light some of the wider issues we have with the tertiary education system and with the direction that this Government is taking it. In light of the high levels of unemployment particularly for our youth—and particularly for our Maori and Pacific youth where the unemployment rate is sitting at around 30 percent—it is very important that the Government takes tertiary education seriously. It is important that alongside creating jobs for this country and for those groups of people the Government is also providing quality tertiary educational opportunities. Thank you very much.