English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:627;Page:22056] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 Well that member summarises the problems of the Labour Government. He is in the process of turning a majority of 7000 or 8000 in his own seat into a loss on election night. And how has he managed to do that I wonder? He has managed to do it because he has run out of energy he has run out of ideas and he gets tired and scratchy dealing with people who criticise the arrogance that he and his Government have. That is why he is going to lose the safe seat of Aoraki on election night and Labour knows it. That member wishes he had retired as quite a few members of the Labour Cabinet are wishing they had retired. The announcements of yesterday— 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: I’ll send you this postcard—no interest on student loans. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I will talk about student loans. I went up to Victoria University at lunchtime today and talked to a large number of students about student loans. The Labour Government ought to be worried about what a good hearing I got. I put it to those students pretty straight. I told them that interest-free loans are cheese in the mousetrap. Of course they will have a go at the cheese but they need to understand the trap. The trap is greater debt than they would otherwise have and higher— 
Jill Pettis 
: Greater? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it is greater debt. [ 
Interruption 
] This is Labour. Labour does not understand that people do respond to basic incentives. If the loan is free if there is no interest more people will borrow and the ones who can will borrow more. So the total sum of student loans will go through the roof. But I can tell members the question that really got the students exercised. I asked them whether they could tell me why the taxi-driver who took me up the hill— 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: This is the Treasury man speaking. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Now listen to this because the students listened. I asked them whether they could tell me why Kevin the taxi-driver who took me up the hill should pay all the interest on their student loans. They could not tell me why he should pay all the interest on their student loans. Kevin the taxi-driver thinks there is a case for doing something to help students with their burden of debt. That is why we have done something—tax deductibility of the interest. But Trevor the taxi-driver— 
Jill Pettis 
: He’s called in! I’ve got the call here. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The quality of the interjections has been very low but they have been consistent since I stood up. Interjections are meant to be rare and to the point. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Yes you are absolutely right and I was just about to intervene. There will be no repetition of that please from the senior whip. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Trevor the taxi-driver is already paying a fair bit. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Kevin! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes Kevin. Well there is one called Trevor as well. He is already—[ 
Interruption 
] 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You just made a ruling and the Government took no notice of it. So I ask that you now rule that the rest of my speech be heard in silence. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Mr Speaker— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: No I do not need any assistance. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No he just ruled. The member should stop questioning the Speaker. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I am not questioning the Speaker. I am referring to the point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: No I know what happened and they were not interjections at all. There was laughter and mirth and I cannot stop that. But the member has requested that his speech be heard in silence and I think we can do that. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Nothing has changed. Labour will tax the middle-income New Zealander as much as it can get away with so that it can recycle the money to pick off some sector groups. So Kevin the taxi-driver is paying a subsidy for the fees. He is paying all the student allowance that any student gets. Now Labour says to that voter—who is probably a Labour voter—that he now has to pay all the interest on the loan as well. Not only that—he has to pay a lot more to the highest-income graduates because having interest-free student loans means that the medical students get the most. The people with the biggest loans and the biggest qualifications with the highest incomes get by far the largest benefit. So interest-free student loans are a transfer from the taxi-drivers the construction workers and the members of the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union to the most qualified graduates in New Zealand. 
Labour has lost all its moral claim to be redistributing to lower-income people. The civil service is angry with this policy because it was never asked about it and it knows how stupid the policy is. Labour has decided to keep taxing as high and as hard as it can and to recycle our money so that it goes to particular sector groups that it has tried to pick off. There will be another one. The next group will probably be general practitioners for whom Labour will announce higher health subsidies. Well we know what has happened to the $400 million it has already put in. Most of it has ended up in the pockets of general practitioners. They are not exactly the oppressed the marginalised and the poor but that is where we are heading. Average hard-working mainstream New Zealanders pay more and more tax so that Labour can recycle the money to its own sector groups.