McClay Todd: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
McClay Todd: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise to speak on this bill the second reading of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill and I want to do so pledging that without reservation without additional questions and without complaining I will be supporting this bill. We continue to hear these sorts of things from the Opposition: all the reasons why we should not do things in New Zealand yet they are going to support it none the less. I will be supporting this bill and I say so at the beginning because I believe it is an important piece of legislation. I note that with the exception of the last speaker Ms Mahuta for whom I have a huge amount of respect it is good to see that the Opposition has got the B team out today for such an important piece of legislation. 
Can I say a couple of points here. We have heard from the Opposition that this is about another cap on student places. I can say without any doubt at all that the National Government is focused on more opportunity for students so that they can do more and they can learn more. We have funded more core student places in universities polytechs and private training providers than at any time before. It is a very positive and important thing. But this legislation is about saying to New Zealanders that they have an obligation to each other and to themselves to repay. This is around the rules of how they will repay. 
The reason it is important is that $1.6 billion was lent by the Government in student loans in 2010-11 and $690 million was repaid in that period of time. So our commitment to New Zealanders who study is absolutely clear. That cannot be called into question. But what must be called into question is the ability for a Government to continue to find more money to pay into a system so that people can study and go overseas and enjoy themselves learn and come back again and the burden that that places upon the taxpayer. This is one degree; we will take another step forward in making sure that those who study who are supported not by the Government but by the taxpayer—because this is taxpayers’ money that is borrowed on behalf of the taxpayer and it is the taxpayer who therefore has the obligation—that they must meet an obligation to the taxpayer to be productive and to pay that money back. 
I want to finish here because there will be opportunities later on to go into some of the greater detail. I think it is not too much to ask that when people go overseas they provide good contact details for somebody whom the ministry or the Inland Revenue Department can correspond with to make sure that they can be involved with them and pay their money back. 
But I want to give an example of a time when the Opposition party—the Labour Party—when in Government was in favour of only a 1-year repayment holiday. Now it is saying that there are lots of reasons for it to be longer than a 1-year repayment holiday. Cast your mind back to just after 2005 when all of New Zealand said to the Labour Government of the time: “You have used almost a million dollars of our money to put a pledge card out there to get re-elected.” and Labour took a 1-year repayment holiday before it changed the law so that what it had done was not illegal any more and paid the money back anyway. So when it suits Labour to have only a 1-year repayment holiday that is fine. That was the taxpayers’ money it used. In the case when we lend money to New Zealanders to study it is a good use of money; back then for Labour to borrow from New Zealanders for 1 year was not. But I commend this bill to the House and I look forward to more from the B team on the other side. Thank you.