Turia Tariana: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Turia Tariana: Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6598] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker tena tatou katoa. On 31 July this year the working-group on indigenous peoples in Geneva invited Aotearoa to share its views on Maori student debt. Nominated to represent Aotearoa was Potaua Biasiny-Tule of Tuhoe Ngati Pikaio Te Whanau-a-Apanui and Niuean descent. Potaua is a student of the world from anyone’s account. He graduated with a cooking diploma at Wairakei Polytechnic a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Canterbury a postgraduate diploma in Maori and Pacific development from Waikato University and is currently looking towards studying for a masters degree in public policy and administration at Victoria University. Potaua has assisted with research related to sustainable biotechnology and Pacific Island communities and in 1994 was invited to attend the Gallipoli reforestation project in Turkey. 
As the eldest son of eight children Potaua was born in Opotiki in a family that he describes as working class. He was raised in Ford Block Rotorua and nurtured to have big ambitions. It was a dream of his family to benefit from university education and Potaua now shares those same aspirations with his wife Nikolasa that their young son Atutahi may attend a good university a whare wananga and is able to live the life he dreams of. 
Potaua has travelled extensively but not this time to Geneva. For Potaua is saddled with a personal student debt of $75000. He is another statistic faced with the costs of user-pays—the loans incurred from a wish to enter the halls of higher learning. Potaua is one of almost 70000 Maori students who are faced with a cumulative student loan debt which is estimated at $1.225 billion out of a total student loan debt of $9 billion. 
That is the rude context—the reality—with which the Maori Party is able to receive the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2). The key focus of this bill is to remove barriers to student loan scheme borrowers who are living overseas but seek to return home. The bill aims to promote fairness in introducing a 3-year repayment holiday that takes account of the graduate student trend to go on OE. When the 3 years are up students will be able to take up a fairer progressive repayment scheme to support them in meeting their financial responsibilities. 
The student loan scheme is of particular concern to the Maori Party. Maori make up 21 percent of all borrowers who have had to rely on student loans to support their academic aspirations. The cost of repayments are however crippling. In 2000 nearly two-thirds of Maori and Pasifika students had not reduced their debt at all 3 years after study. This compares with 41 percent and 47 percent for European and Asian groups respectively. 
The reasons for this are complex. One key factor reported by the Ministry of Education last year is low income particularly income around the student loan repayment threshold. As the ministry states: “The average income for Maori with level 1-3 certificates is notably lower than for non-Maori with the same level of qualifications.” Does this sound like one law for all or one income level for all? How can one group of graduates be rewarded with an income that is “notably lower” than other students? Is this fairness? Is this equity? 
It gets even worse. The ministry states: “Maori who did not complete have notably lower incomes than non-Maori who studied at the same level without completing. This may in part explain the lower rates of progress in debt repayment for Maori who did not complete diplomas or bachelors degrees.” 
 The conclusions as explicit in the briefing from the Ministry of Education are that whether Maori complete qualifications or do not complete a particular course or study is irrelevant. Maori will still be rewarded with notably lower incomes than non-Maori. The Maori Party therefore comes to the 2006 annual report of the student loan scheme published just last month with a natural curiosity about whether issues of systemic bias or in this instance institutional racism are being tackled by the bureaucracy. 
It looked fine from a quick read of the principles for student support: to ensure equity and fairness; to ensure tertiary education is affordable for students; to ensure consistency with the wider income support system. Yes we thought we could all sign up to that. But hello! Institutional racism was absent from the report. The crisis of Maori earning notably lower incomes than non-Maori must be addressed and it must be addressed now. For what we also know is that Maori students are leaving study with some fairly hefty debts to repay. It does not seem to matter which profession; the student debts are really massive. 
A survey of 841 respondents working as early childhood or primary school teachers found that 70 percent of teachers reported stress because of their student loan and that 48 percent of teacher graduates who leave our shores cite their student loan debt as their main reason why.  
Teachers in Debt: A Report Card 
 stated that the average student loan debt was $19089 for Maori compared with $16035 overall. 
Then there are the medical graduates. Was it not just last week that headlines announced that the pandemic of diabetes was threatening the life chances of Maori? And was it not just yesterday that the Minister of Education agreed in question time in the House that “by Maori of Maori for Maori” is a worthwhile goal although he added some other comments? Yet “by Maori doctors of Maori medicine and for Maori communities” is clearly not something that this Government is investing in. 
It is around this time when the questioning gets uncomfortable that Ministers start saying that the issues are complex. What is so complex about prejudice covered up by words like “fair in the circumstances” which is code for “We are going to continue to deny you justice.”? What is so complex about that? What is so complex about politicians who espouse property rights and then collude in denying Maori in their rights to property rights? What is so complex about a Government that having seen how popular playing the race card can be then goes back on funding “by Maori of Maori for Maori” programmes and in terms of this debate removes the manaaki tauira funding programme for Maori students? That is not complex. That is simple political opportunism of the worst kind. 
The study of the effect of student debt on doctors entitled  
Doctors and Debt 
 recorded that the average debt for Maori graduates was $81250 compared with $68682 for Pakeha and $48180 for Asians. Over $80000 to pay off before one can even walk in the doors of a health clinic! I do not think so. 
The levels of student debt are a blight on this nation. Seven years ago in November 1999 the Prime Minister told the nation: “Tertiary fee rises are crippling our future. Labour is committed to first stabilising and then lowering tertiary fees.” Yet the average fees per student are now grossing $5000 a year. In the New Zealand University Students Association’s 2004 publication  
A Mortgage on the Future 
 it described the concept of free education as being a possibility. Most students in the Czech Republic Germany Norway Sweden Denmark Brazil Poland and Romania pay no fees. Indeed in Finland free education is a constitutionally protected right. The Maori Party wants to take part in a vision where Aotearoa is included in the list of nations where “Everyone has the right to education.” can be interpreted in such a way that there are zero fees that students will not be saddled with outrageous levels of student debts and that debt repayment is achievable because the levels of incomes upon graduation are sufficiently high to do so. 
We will of course support this bill because we believe that any incentive to prevent the brain drain of students leaving for overseas must be supported. But we remain on guard to ensure that the wider context of increasing fees and lack of access to student allowances is also given priority in this Parliament so everyone can truly enjoy the right to education. 
Bill read a first time.