Davis Kelvin: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Davis Kelvin: Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9421] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 The Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill amends the Student Loan Scheme Act 1992 by extending interest-free loans to borrowers who are present in Niue the Cook Islands Tokelau or the Ross Dependency for 183 or more consecutive days in order to encourage borrowers from those countries or that territory to return to their country and contribute to its development. It also covers students who enrol with a New Zealand education provider and engage in full-time study overseas under either a formal exchange programme approved by the New Zealand Government or a formal agreement between a New Zealand tertiary provider and an overseas tertiary provider. The bill also makes eight minor or technical amendments to the principal Act. 
As has been mentioned numerous times this is largely a technical bill but that does not diminish its significance for those whom it affects. They are the students who have taken up interest-free student loans in order to support their decision to better themselves personally and professionally. It is a big call to choose to study. It involves time money and opportunity costs. I say make no bones about it the decision to study is the right decision for many young and old New Zealanders to make and New Zealand benefits through having an educated highly skilled workforce. That is why I say the interest-free student loan programme is one of the most progressive pieces of economic development legislation passed in this House. It helps to drive New Zealand’s economic development. An educated workforce is imperative in this day and age as we will never compete—nor do we want to—with low-wage economies. That is why I am astounded that the National Government is making noises about cutting the scheme. How will the 75 percent of people who earn under $40000 per year be able to afford to send their children to university and polytech when they can barely afford to pay their power bills? They cannot and that is why access to the funds those students need in order to further themselves is so important. In fact it is vital. Education needs to be accessible to all Kiwis who wish to access it. 
Why did the Prime Minister say recently he would take a careful look at the policy settings around student support? Why did Louise Upston in her second reading speech spend a few minutes telling members about how expensive the student loan scheme is for New Zealand taxpayers? Society bears this cost in the knowledge that the benefits to the country and to communities far outweigh those costs. Why did Amy Adams stand up to talk about the tax debt relating to student loans? I will tell the House why. It is because National is priming the public for the removal of interest-free student loans. Steven Joyce has told the  
Weekend Press 
 that the student loan policy is in his sights. The Government’s intention is clearly to make it more difficult for tertiary students to get a loan to cover their fees in the first place. 
If the Government starts to pick winners in the tertiary education system before people enrol then those who have not done well at school for a variety of reasons and who want to have a second chance at learning should beware. I have a friend who is a doctor and she said that when Labour introduced the interest-free student loan legislation it removed a weight from around her neck as she was struggling to pay even the interest on her loan and was beginning to conclude that a move offshore was the only way to kill off her debt. She is now working at Wellington Regional Hospital and she sees light at the end of the tunnel. 
I will go back to the Prime Minister’s comments about taking a careful look at the policy settings around student support. What does he mean? The Government will make access to student loans and allowances more difficult. I suspect it will make tertiary education opportunities in universities and polytechs available for the few not the many. Once again legislating for the few at the expense of the many is simply not fair and it takes away the aspirations that Labour works to foster in our communities. The Prime Minister referred to students who do not take their studies seriously or who do not get a job quickly after qualifying. Who will determine which students those ones are especially when there are students who go to a university or polytech and then find that the first course of study that they take is not exactly what they want? They can find that out only by going to university in the first place. As I said earlier on in the day my brother was one of those students. He initially took business studies when he went to Waikato University only to find that was not right for him. He then went on to get a BA in Maori then after that he decided that a degree in law was what he after. He is now a very successful lawyer up north. 
Will student support stop after students graduate with a degree preventing them from choosing to do postgraduate study? What about the students who need more support to succeed because they have started further back from the starting line than others? I refer to many Maori students whom I have seen go through the schools I have been involved with who take time who do not succeed to the same extent initially as many other students but who have the ability to go on to university. The problem is just that they start from a little further back than other students especially financially. Most of the family and friends I know from up north are not financially well off so it is a lot harder for young people to make the decision to head off to university knowing that that will be a big strain on their family and on finances. A number of those family members and friends who go to university do really well in the first year but they find that the financial struggle for their families is too much to bear and many tend to drop out. That is supported by the research of the Starpath project based at the University of Auckland. We all know students who work at their studies and at part-time paid work often for low wages and who struggle to make ends meet. Setting out criteria for discontinuing student loans or allowances is dangerous and elitist territory. Again I say it is about providing more of the same for the few at the expense of the many. 
John Key is threatening students who put up with a low income now so they can study and contribute to the country’s well-being in the future. Right now it looks as though he will punish them for doing that but first he will hit them with a higher rate of GST just to make things even harder. What will happen if there are not enough jobs for graduates to go into? What about the redundant workers who want to enrol in courses in order to improve their skills and who need allowances and loans to do that? What about students with disabilities who find it difficult to get employment so continue to study in order to improve their quality of life? Over 45000 Kiwi 15 to 19-year-olds are now unemployed; that is over 12000 more than for the same period a year ago. That number increases to over 72000 Kiwis once we include those aged 20 to 24. The danger now is that many of these young people will stay jobless for a long period of time as the National Government takes away the opportunity for them to aspire to better themselves. 
There is also the veiled threat of lifting the cap on the fees that institutions can charge students contained in Mr Key’s reference to “an inflexible and bureaucratic funding and policy framework”. It looks as though tertiary education will soon become the sole domain of the rich but New Zealand’s crying need is for the upskilling of the many not the few. If Mr Key wants to see a step change in the New Zealand economy where does he think it will come from if not from post-compulsory education and training? He should be nurturing and investing in it not threatening it. 
The fact is that National in its short time in office has already proven it is no supporter of students. Here are just two examples of that. Firstly the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand revealed that about 6000 aspiring students could be turned away from polytechnics as a result of the Government’s refusal to waive financial penalties if polytechs exceed their enrolment caps. This is another short-sighted decision by the Government which clearly prefers to see people being stuck on the dole rather than engaged in the study and training required to ensure we emerge from the recession with a work-ready and productive workforce. Secondly the Government has passed legislation that reduced the number of seats on polytech councils from a maximum of 20 to just eight. The legislation allows the Minister to appoint nominees to half the council positions. Requirements that Maori staff students and the community must have a representative on polytech councils have been cut. This will enable the Government to take a much more dominant role and disappointingly will remove the existing provisions for almost all student community and academic staff representatives to sit on the councils.