Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:627;Page:22169] 
4.  
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her reported statement that the student loan policy she announced on 26 July had been properly costed and was affordable; if not why not? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I believe that the policy is affordable and that the costings are based on reasonable assumptions over the forecast period. Labour believes that tackling student debt decisively is a top priority and that is what the policy is about—unlike National’s rather mean one. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Has the Prime Minister asked Treasury to forecast the long-term fiscal impact of her Government’s proposed interest-free student loan policy; if not how can she assure this House and New Zealanders that her gift to students in this election year will not be a noose around the neck of hard-working taxpayers for years to come? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No this is a Labour Party policy not a Government one. Even the most expensive and ill-founded estimates of its cost are significantly less than what Dr Brash thinks he could spend on tax cuts. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Is the Prime Minister seriously telling the House that her Government is so desperate for votes in election year—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I say to members that this is their last warning. I know it is the last day for question time but the member is entitled to have his question heard in silence. The member will please start again. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Has the Prime Minister asked Treasury to forecast the long-term fiscal impact of her Government’s proposed interest-free student loan policy or is she so desperate for votes in election year that the proposed significant new student loan policy will go to the public without any advice from Treasury the Ministry of Education the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet or the Inland Revenue Department; and is this the standard of policy we can now expect from her Government? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: If desperation for votes is measured by the amount of money that parties are prepared to chuck around then the National Party wins that contest hands-down. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Has the Prime Minister received any recent reports about the responsibilities of leadership in relation to costings? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Indeed I did see an extraordinary reference to Dr Brash telling an economist that he had no command of the detail of National Party policy at all. 
Rodney Hide 
: Why will the Prime Minister not simply ask officials to cost the zero interest loans to students and the long-term implications; or is she not prepared to do that because she is scared of the results? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Labour may follow a different practice from those followed by National Party Governments and their allies in the past but we do not expect officials to write Labour Party policies. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: With regard to the costings of the Government’s policy announcements will the Prime Minister tell the House how many of the 50 percent of students who would become eligible for student allowances under another term of a Labour Government will be eligible for a full allowance and how many of them will have to be satisfied with $10 or $20 a week? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It might be the last day for question time but one would think that after 6 years everyone would know the rules. That question is a mile wide of the wicket and it is a waste of the House’s time. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: It is because eligibility for borrowing is the difference between the actual student allowance paid and the $150 a week. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the Prime Minister please address the question. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Obviously not all the students who have eligibility for an allowance will get a full one. What I can say is that the Labour Party’s policy is immensely more affordable than paying a universal student allowance—estimates of which come rather closer to the billion-dollar-a-year mark than the costings for this policy. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Is the Prime Minister aware of the predicted consequences of her Government’s student loan policy—the one not assessed by officials—that would see $1.7 billion written off the Government’s balance sheet on account of the loans already made which is equivalent to some $400 for every man woman and child in the country; if she is not aware of that what does that tell us about the dangers of making policy on the hoof? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member may well want to reflect on making policy on the hoof when he tries to reconcile his sad offering due in a couple of weeks with promises that every New Zealander would get a significant tax cut. 
Dr Don Brash 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister in no sense attempted to answer the question. I asked whether she was aware of the $1.7 billion to be written off the Crown balance sheet on account of her interest-free student loan policy. She did not answer that question at all. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The difficulty for the member is that by his adding the last bit to his question technically the Prime Minister did address it. Maybe she would like to expand on it for us. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Of course I am aware that there are balance-sheet implications. But I am also aware that if the National Party is assuming that people will want to borrow a whole lot more under this policy then one assumes that that party is also aware that its own tax policy on the same assumption could lead to more borrowing—something that the National Party has not been very keen on emphasising.