Little Andrew: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16447. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk about student loans once again. It is the first time in about 20 years I might add and I had a lot to say then usually at the end of a megaphone in the front of this great building or on the streets of Wellington.The point is that this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) is about enacting the same powers for our Inland Revenue Department as the Russian tax department has for its tax defaulters. We know how it treats its tax defaulters. Its equivalent of our Inland Revenue Department turn up in full camouflage gear fully blacked out armed with AK-47stommy knockers and all the rest of it and they go smashing down and smashing people up when they do not pay their taxes.This is a bill that is completely over the top when it comes to enforcing the obligations of student loan defaulters. The student loan scheme was introduced and has been in place in various forms to enable people to get access to education. It is unfortunate that over the last 20 or 30 years the state of the economy for whatever reason has been such that the State cannot afford access to education for those who need it and who are capable of taking it up. We have moved to more of a user-pays system and so the student loan scheme has come in to facilitate that. But we need to make sure that we do not introduce a mechanism and a scheme that becomes so punitive and ugly in its implementation that it puts people off.There are a number of reasons as previous speakers in this House have alluded to why those who have taken out student loans and gone out into the great wide world once they have completed their studies—which is something that we encourage young New Zealanders to do—can find it difficult to commence or recommence their student loan repayments. The last thing we need is to have in place a scheme that intimidates bullies and conjures up fear for New Zealanders when they are overseas encouraging them not to return.You know what we most want in this country? We want educated young people. For those who undertake a form of tertiary education and are required to take out a loan in order to get access to it—whether it is education in our tertiary institutions in the trades or in any other form of training—we do not want to create a disincentive for them to use those skills and deploy themselves in a way that is for the benefit of New Zealand. That is what this bill will do. That is why we are so fiercely opposed to it—it is just not good for the long-term interests of young New Zealanders who take up the opportunity of tertiary education or for New Zealand itself when it comes to harnessing the skills the learning and the talents that they have developed. That is why this bill is so wrong.All the National Party members opposite have left to fall back on is the tired old rhetoric about irresponsible young people—SimonOConnor: This is ironic as well.ANDREW LITTLE: And here is the irresponsible young Mr O’Connor—the youngest oldfogey of them all—who sits there bleating out the tired old rhetoric of the tired old fogies of the National Party saying: “We don’t want irresponsible youth.” Well it is not about that. It is actually about our brightest and best who because of everything else the National Government has done race off overseas because that is the best they can do for themselves. We want to make sure that the conditions are right for them to come back. They know that when the next Labour-led Government comes inin a few months’ time they will be flooding back because that is when they will see opportunity.We do not want a law on the books that tells them that when it is time for them to come back if they have not been able to repay their loans for reasons beyond their control they are going to be harassed and harangued at the border clapped in handcuffs and frogmarched off to the nearest prison before they can enjoy their freedom. We do not want that. That is not what a responsible education system does that is not what a responsible inland revenue system does and that is not what a responsible piece of legislation does when it comes to enforcing student loans but this bill is the opposite of that.This bill is irresponsible it is nasty and it is petty—everything that the National Party is characterised by and stands for. Nastiness and pettiness are reflected in this bill and that is why we are opposed to it. We are in favour of education we are in favour of responsible students and we are in favour of responsible lending. That is why we will oppose this bill.