Hipkins Chris: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I congratulate the previous speaker Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga on a very profound contribution to this particular debate on the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill. I will respond briefly to some of the comments that Gareth Hughes from the Green Party made in his speech. It was quite a good speech from Gareth Hughes in which he pointed out some of the inconsistencies in the position of the Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne and quoted back to him comments that he had made during the term of a previous Parliament. I simply note that Mr Dunne is very consistent when it comes to all matters in that he supports the Government. I think he has been relatively consistent over quite a long period of time with that. We probably do not need to say any more about that. 
The Labour Party is very proud of our track record when it comes to student loans. We introduced interest-free student loans and we stand by that policy. We are very proud of the policy of interest-free student loans. It has made it a lot easier for hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders to repay their student loans. All of the doomsday predictions made by the National Party when that policy was introduced when John Key stood up and said that it was the biggest bribe in New Zealand’s electoral history and he would fight it with every bone in his body—well that is kind of interesting— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: No bones. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Obviously there are not many bones there. 
Hon Nanaia Mahuta 
: Spineless. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It is pretty spineless. But in fact the doomsday predictions that John Key and his colleagues made have not come true. The policy did not result in a massive increase in borrowing. It did not result in a massive increase in the amount of time students take to pay back their loans. In fact the average repayment time for a student loan since interest-free loans came in has halved. Students are paying back their loans a heck of a lot quicker than they were when they were being charged interest. It has actually done the opposite of what National said it would. 
I note that John Key said before the last election that National would not reintroduce interest on student loans in its first term. I notice that National members have made no such unequivocal commitment for their second or third terms should they get them. In fact I understand that Steven Joyce is very keen to introduce interest back on to student loans if National is re-elected. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: And who will that hurt? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: We know who that will hurt. That will hurt the people who are already struggling with the rising cost of living whom this Government is not interested in hearing about. It wants to reintroduce interest on student loans. If the Government is going to do that then it should come clean with the people of New Zealand front up and say that that is what it will do. We know that in National’s heart of hearts that is what it actually believes in. 
The Labour Party will support most of the provisions in this bill because we believe that students should pay back their student loans. They should not take off overseas and not meet their repayment obligations because ultimately that penalises the people who do pay back their loans and we do not think that is fair. However we do have some concerns about this bill. In particular I am concerned about the shortening of the repayment holiday that someone can apply for from 3 years to 1 year. Treasury says it will not work and the Ministry of Education says it will not work. For once they agree with each other and for once I agree with both of them. The Government has been told that shortening the repayment holiday will not have the effect that it wants it to have—in fact it is likely to have the opposite effect. It is likely to lead to more people defaulting and creating more problems. I agree with Treasury and the Ministry of Education on that and I think this is a very short-sighted move. The Government should actually listen to the advice of its officials in this particular instance and not do it. 
We also have some concerns about some of the technical details of the bill which we will canvass during the select committee process on the bill. But overall I think it seems to be a reasonably good bill. It builds on some of the positive changes made earlier on and some of the changes that we opposed earlier on but the overall intent of the bill is good. It is to make the repayment of student loans quicker easier and more efficient. I think we should support that.