Woods Megan: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13020. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3). I think that as one of the few members in this House who lists a student loan on her pecuniary interests I would actually like to talk about the generational politics of student support. In the late 1980s and the late 1990s something happened for a generation of young New Zealanders and I and a number of my colleagues on this side of this House had their politics born at this time. My colleagues Andrew Little and Grant Robertson first spoke to your predecessor Mr Speaker Dr The Rt Hon Lockwood Smith down megaphones on university campuses in New Zealand in the late 1990s. It was around this very issue of paying for our education and how we were going to fund that.It is fair to say that for politicians of my generation on this side of the House student loans and student politics have been defining factors for us. What we have in this Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3)—Hon Trevor Mallard: It was for me.Dr MEGAN WOODS: No it was not Mr Mallard. I could talk about the free education that your generation got—a nice part of our history. Mr Mallard will have the right of rebuttal in his speech when he comes to that. But one of the things that we have to think very carefully about is what is actually being done in this piece of legislation. This piece of legislation that we have before us is nothing but a gimmick. It is a headline-grabbing gimmick from a National Government that wants to appear hard on criminals only in this case those criminals are student loan borrowers who might be trying to sneak back into their country through the secret passages of airport terminals. It is going to set up very good border security. Get the beagles out—those criminals might be trying to sneak back in.Let us actually have a look at the kind of advice that the former Minister of Revenue got in regard to this measure when he suggested it as one of his big flagship items in Budget 2013. Well he was told that the police had advised him that very little could be achieved without photos in the crowded area of airports that it would be difficult and that it would be time-consuming. So the very people who are going to be called on to monitor this legislation to enforce this legislation told the Minister who introduced it that it was going to be difficult to do. The officials went on to tell the Minister that the proposal would have cost implications for the courts and that although the number of expected arrest warrants was low and the exact number was unknown the cost to the courts had not been estimated. The full cost of doing this has not even been calculated. Its sole purpose was to create a big headline about how something big was going to be done to create what is in the grand scheme of the student loan scheme a minor problem.Should student loan borrowers who are living overseas be making their repayments? Absolutely. We are not disputing that. But what we are saying is that this is a big gimmick where actually what we could have are far more effective measures to achieve the desired outcome of making it easier for overseas-based borrowers to make their repayments. I will give some credit to this Government. I think this Government has putin place several measures to make the repayment of student loans for those overseas much more simple. I have talked to numerous friends of mine who live overseas who have student loans who are no longer having to try to figure out how through a bank to do a bank transfer. There are much more seamless and integrated ways to do this and this is to be congratulated.But then on the other hand this Government has made it much harder for student loan borrowers who are living overseas. It has reduced the repayment holiday for those who are going out to seek their adventure in the world to gain the experience that we know will make New Zealand a great place. That experience is to be celebrated but by truncating the amount of time you can be overseas without making repayments we are restricting the opportunities of so many of our young people. This is something that we should not be doing. This is not to the benefit of us as a country. This is not what we envision when we think about what our education system can deliver for our 21st century New Zealand. It is just not on.Over the last few months I have had a reasonably steady stream of emails from student loan borrowers who are living overseas who now face really real consequences to their lives. I implore this Government to put in place some more carrots to make it possible for these people. Sometimes life intervenes and people have got themselves into a predicament where they now are so far behind in their student loan repayments they live overseas and the prospect of coming forward is just too daunting. It is not that they do not want to start making their repayments. They are happy to start making repayments and making them regularly but what is absolutely frightening them is the prospect of the size of the back payment they may have to stump up with. Some of these people are in their late 30s and early 40s now if they are like me and they started university in the very first years of the student loan scheme. They have bought a house they have got on with their lives and they are living in fear for their security—that they are going to have to sell their house in order to make these repayments. Why can we not have some period of amnesty where people can come forward they can start their repayment schedule but they are not going to have to rip apart the fabric of their lives in order for them to get their house in order as it were?I urge the Minister to think about this and for members opposite to think about this—that we are not going to destroy the lives of New Zealanders who are living overseas or we are not going to make New Zealanders living overseas make a decision of “Well I’m just not ever going to go back to New Zealand. That’s it. I can’t. We’re not going to darken its doors again because it is just too difficult.” Let us actually make it more easy. Let us take away the difficulties for these people to put everything in place. We know that this works. When Labour was in power it introduced an amnesty for student loan borrowers when Dr Cullen was the Minister of Finance and it was very successful. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people came forward and we actually did see real results. Why is it that we would not think about a measure such as that in relation to this? Members of my generation face very different prospects for their future from those of their predecessors—the people who have gone before them.Another measure—not only is there the big headline “Arrest them at the border.” that was introduced in this bill but also there were measures to speed up the repayments from compliant overseas-based borrowers. One of the important facts to remember is that the rates for student loan borrowers are based on the level of their loan and not their income. So if you have gone to live overseas and you are working as a waitress your repayments are going to be the same as if you were a lawyer. This is not a repayment schedule that is based on income. This is not a progressive repayment schedule. It is based on the balance of your loan. These repayments are going to be increased through this piece of legislation and an even more regressive system is going to be put in place.It is going to make it even more difficult for overseas borrowers and run the risk of more people getting into the situation where it is simply too difficult and they are not compliant with their repayments. This is from a Government that does not believe in fairness. It is from a Government that does not believe in equality. It does not believe in giving young New Zealanders every chance to get ahead and that is what we need to see.I would like to see so many changes to this legislation. Labour is opposing this legislation but we know that it will make its way to the select committee. I implore members opposite to actually have an open mind. Think about what this is doing to a generation of New Zealanders because it is not fair and it is not equitable. Thank you.