English Bill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
English Bill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22147] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 Probably the worst report I have ever seen on the public sector is the June 2005 report called  
Education Sector Review 
. Those who take an interest in education will find it a very useful summary of the stewardship of the current Minister of Education. The report has been done by the three top civil servants in New Zealand. It is a 64-page saga of a leaderless confused demoralised and chaotic bureaucracy—and not a cheap bureaucracy I might add; it is one on which the Government spends over $100 million a year. After 5 years of this Government the leading civil servants of New Zealand have said that this bureaucracy is in such bad shape that we should not do anything to it because it will make it worse. They say we will make things worse if we try to fix it. I invite anyone with an interest in education to read  
Education Sector Review 
. 
I also invite anyone interested in the effect of interest-free student loans to visit two websites. One is the Labour Party website which has a calculator on it that tells people what their overall savings will be. The other is the Inland Revenue Department website which has a calculator that tells people about loan repayments. One would think that if people went to the Inland Revenue Department website and used its calculator then went to the Labour website and used its calculator they would get the same answer. But they do not. They do not get the same answer. [ 
Interruption 
] No they do not. They get a completely different answer. I do not know why people get completely different answers depending on whether they use the calculator on the Inland Revenue Department website or the one on the Labour Party website. I am asking the Minister in the chair Trevor Mallard to explain it to us because 78000 students have been to the Labour Party calculator to work out what they will save with interest-free student loans. Unfortunately some of those students also went to the Inland Revenue Department calculator and tried to compare like with like. 
These people are not economists with degrees in econometrics; they are not accountants. They are just normal graduates who are trying to work out what they will save with an interest-free student loan. If they have the average loan of $15000—that is the average; not $60000 as the Labour Party official who appeared on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald  
said; the  
New Zealand Herald 
 did not say he was a Labour Party official and nor did he I understand—and are on an average income of $35000 and they put those numbers into the two respective calculators they get completely different answers. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Do you know why? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Minister has a chance to take a call and tell us why. All I am saying to the Minister is that any student who goes to the websites and tries to compare the results gets a big difference. The Labour Party website tells him or her that it takes 18 years and 4 months to pay off the $15000 loan and the Inland Revenue Department website says it takes 11 years and 11 months. That is a big difference. Clearly someone is misleading the people who use the calculators. 
I do not know how Labour’s calculator is set up and I do not know how the Inland Revenue Department calculator is set up. All I know is that there is public interest in what one can save from having an interest-free student loan just as I think there would be public interest in what one could save with an interest-free mortgage on one’s house. I suggest that if Labour members genuinely believe that removing interest from student loans means students will borrow less why do they not try legislating against interest on mortgages because then we will all borrow less and we will be better off? So why do they not do that? This is Social Credit recharged with 21st century atomic energy. The Minister should explain why those numbers are so different.