Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Well that is quite rich is it not—a lecture on economic illiteracy coming from the party that has driven trickle-down economics down the throats of New Zealanders since the mid-1990s despite its demonstrable failure the fact that it has increased inequality and the fact that we have got huge debt in this country. David Seymour is the person who can tell us about a flawed economic ideology that he and 0.1 percent of the population are clinging on to. That is what David Seymour can tell us about.I am from Generation X. Kris Faafoi cruelly suggested that you may be from Generation A Mr Assistant Speaker which I think is very unfair. As a representative here of Generation X I can say that Generation X was the generation that copped the beginning of having to deal with user-pays education. We are the generation that copped the beginning of that and now if the National Government has its way we are the generation that cops the beginning of having to increase the age at which we are eligible for New Zealand superannuation. Generation X and Y do find themselves in the unique position in New Zealand of actually having enormous debt saddled on them simply for going on and getting their education.I want to say to David Seymour that his criticism of the bill around whom it is helping shows just how out of touch he is. If he thinks that the only people with student loans are some kind of rich medical graduates or dental graduates he is wrong. People with student loans include plumbers. People with student loans include carpenters. These are people who go and get their certificates at polytechnics and they have student loans. So Mr Seymour might like to think that every student in New Zealand is a university student but they are not; they are actually people who are trying to contribute to New Zealand and contribute to their own further advancement through education.This bill is the intersection of the National Government's failure. It is the intersection of a housing market completely out of control with the worst homeownership rates since 1961 and with average house prices around New Zealand increasing by 15 and 20 percent. That is why it says in the title for the benefit of Mr Muller First Home Repayment"; it is both—student loans and housing.This is the intersection of the failure of National to address the housing crisis and its complete disinterest in the importance of education and training to New Zealand's future development because that is an investment. Everyone on that side of the House wants to call it a cost. That is the only way they can conceive of education—as a cost. It is not; it is an investment for all New Zealanders and that is why the Labour Party is proposing 3 years' free post-secondary school training and education because we believe that every New Zealander should have the right to be able to take their education on and do the learning for life that we need in the future of work that we are facing up to. The current Government has sat on its hands in this area. It has not increased the amount of support that is available for students it has let fees increase and it has put more costs on to students. Those graduates are now coming out with massive loans and are facing a housing market that the National Government has let go out of control. It is the intersection of failure of this Government.I congratulate Gareth Hughes on having drafted this bill. As my colleague Phil Twyford said there are some issues with it and it is a similar issue to the one with—[Interruption] There are some issues with it. It is similar to the one with KiwiSaver where actually we are moving an ambulance around at the bottom of the cliff. That is what we are doing. We are saying to those young people: "This is how we are going to support you to be able to afford your entry to a first home." But we think it is worthy of consideration. We think it is worthy of discussion; otherwise all we have is David Seymour criticising—not a constructive idea not a proposal to actually say: "How will we make housing more affordable? How will we reduce the cost of education?".So we welcome the opportunity to have this discussion to openly and honestly say to Generations X and Y that we realise they have been hard done by and we want to do something about it. From the Labour Party's point of view our priority is to address the structural issues in the housing market to make sure that we both increase the supply of affordable housing through the KiwiBuild programme and crack down on speculators and on the education side of this message make sure that we reduce the debt burden on students and graduates by getting 3 years' free tertiary education and training. If we get that package up we will make housing more affordable but in the meantime we can support this bill to facilitate a good discussion."