Robertson Grant: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Robertson Grant: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9410] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I want to talk a little about the title clause of the Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill. We were advised earlier on by Louise Upston I think when she was speaking in the second reading that we were not focusing enough on the importance of some of the provisions in this bill. Putting some of them under the title “Miscellaneous Provisions” probably does not adequately reflect the importance of what we are doing here. In particular I think the clause that increases the deduction rate from 10c in the dollar to 15c in the dollar is potentially a very serious thing for the people who will end up having to pay that additional rate. I would not necessarily see that as a miscellaneous provision. 
I think it would be better for us to look at the reality of the bill and then work out what it should be called especially given the present environment which we have already discussed recently. Steven Joyce has come in as the Minister for Tertiary Education and we know that Mr Joyce has already told us that the support for the interest-free student loan scheme by the National Government is a political call. It has nothing to do with principle nothing to do with what National thinks is good for education in New Zealand and nothing to do with what it thinks is right for the economy of New Zealand in ensuring that our graduates stay here and contribute to the economy rather than go overseas—there is nothing about that. He said it was a straight-out political call. 
Therefore I think this bill could aptly be renamed the “Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Political Call Bill”. That is what is going on here. The National Party members do not want us to really focus on the fact that Steven Joyce has taken over the tertiary education portfolio with a clear instruction from John Key to look at it and look at tightening up the eligibility for student support. That is what Mr Key said in his Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament in early February this year. He said the Government would look at the issue of those people who spent too long in tertiary study and at whether there should be restrictions on their eligibility for student support. He said perhaps there would be something introduced around people having to pass their courses sufficiently quickly. 
On this side of the Chamber we are concerned about those potential developments. We see a bill in front of us now that makes some reasonably important but minor changes and they are useful. But at the same time we face a situation where the Government is hanging on to its belief in interest-free student loans only because it is a political call not because it thinks they are a good idea and they are delivering for New Zealand. Therefore I think the bill could easily be retitled in that way. 
Perhaps another title though that would pick up the overall essence of the Government’s policy around interest-free student loans would be the “Student Loan Scheme (Missing Bones) Bill”. This may be confusing for some people who have not been following the story so far. But when Labour introduced interest-free student loans in 2005 John Key was the finance spokesperson for the National Party and he stood in this Chamber and said the interest-free student loan policy that Labour was bringing in was ridiculous. He said it would be opposed by the National Party members with every bone in their bodies. Well here we are in 2010 and following on from the 2008 election when the political call that Steven Joyce mentioned was made we do not see much in the way of every bone being used. In fact the bones are missing. There is no attempt by National to turn this scheme round because politically it knows it cannot. But National is not committed to the scheme. In the long term we know that National would rather roll back the interest-free student loan scheme. The introduction of Steven Joyce as the Minister for Tertiary Education is a clear sign that National wants to get at interest-free student loans. It wants to restrict the number of people who can take out student loans and restrict the ability of people to take them out over a period of time. 
We believe that is a very dangerous path to go down. There is nothing more important as we come out of the recession than to have people increase their skills so that they can contribute to the economy. Earlier in the debate I mentioned the fact that the Australian Government responded to the recession by moving quickly to ensure that people who lost their jobs had access to training and tertiary study. It made sure that there were incentives for them to be able to do that so that they could contribute to the economy when Australia came out of recession. In New Zealand we saw none of that. We saw a continuation of the cap that sees tertiary institutions turning people away particularly at the polytechnic level where polytechnics face budget cuts from the National Government. Therefore we do not see New Zealanders being trained and upskilled to be able to contribute to the economy as we come out of the recession. That is a great shame. This bill and the activity of the National Government around tertiary education could be so much more than they are. We could be sitting here today to work out how to increase the skill level of New Zealanders but unfortunately we are not doing that. This bill is misnamed; it is actually about National wishing us to look elsewhere.