Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2)

I want to continue talking about Part 3 of this bill and, in particular, about clauses 63 to 66 of this legislation, and that is around the definition of income for student loan repayment purposes that is contained in this bill. This is one of the reasons why Labour is supporting this bill. We support the fairness that is enshrined in broadening out the definition of what counts as income that can be assessed for the repayment of student loans. What this bill does in clauses 63 to 66 in Part 3 of this bill is make changes to the definition of “adjusted net income” for student loan repayment purposes, to ensure that a borrower’s repayment obligation accurately reflects their ability to repay their loan. Amendments make further adjustments to net income to broaden out that definition of income to include any other type of income not currently captured.

So what this bill does is it actually tidies up and makes it much fairer, where you have the definition of income now including business profits and income from trusts. Labour certainly supports measures that do move beyond looking just at wages and salaries as income for which student loan repayments should be made.

In fact, Labour supports fairer approaches to taxation and taxing wealth where it occurs across the board, and an analogy would be our support for a capital gains tax and how this ties into that. So this is a loophole in this scheme that Labour is happy to see closed.

💬 Mike Sabin: What about GST on fresh fruit and veges?

And I can hear from Mr Sabin’s calling across the way that he is overjoyed with our support for this bill and with the fact that we are supporting it. Actually, broadening out this definition of income will save the Crown approximately $7.5 million over the next 5 years, according to Treasury advice that was given.

But what I want to do is juxtapose the fairness that is enshrined in these clauses 63 to 66, in this broadening of the definition of income, with the fact that this bill does not address some of the other unfair decisions that this Government has made in relation to the broader area of student support. This is a very technical bill that tinkers around the edges, but what it does not do is comprehensively review the whole issue of student support and how it is that if we truly, really want to be an innovation-led economy that is based on having a very skilled, very educated, and very trained workforce, then what we do is we support our people into education. This bill does nothing to address that.

What Labour thinks is that we do actually need to take this broader, more holistic look at things and see how it is that we can achieve these aims. What this Government is committed to is what Steven Joyce calls the dampening down of demand for education. For Labour this is absolutely counter to the kind of New Zealand that we want to see. We want to see a New Zealand where our young people are encouraged into this training. Actually, Treasury has estimated that the changes made in Budgets 2010 and 2011 would result in 25,000 people losing access to student loans, and do you know the people who will not go on to study, to train, and to get an education? It is those 25,000 people who cannot afford to pay their own fees and support themselves while they are there. We do not see that cutting off access to 25,000 people is a way to build the kind of New Zealand that we want.

What this Government has done is it has made some very, very unfair decisions. It has cut off student allowances for postgraduate students, and this is at a time when we have a whole lot of rhetoric from the Government about how we need more people with higher degrees in this country, yet we take away the student support. I just want the Government members to reflect on how this compares with the fairness that it is trying to enshrine through clauses 63 to 66 of the current legislation. I want them to pause and think about how these two decisions and these two actions fit together. I want them to dwell also on taking away the right of people aged over 55 to take out a student loan. Where is the fairness in that? We do not see that there has been fairness. I would also like them to pause and reflect on the fact that the Minister of Labour ignored advice from the Ministry of Education in passing the youth rates legislation last week, which said that youth rates will add to the burden that students have to shoulder as they study. Now when they go out and they are not getting their allowance, they do not have access to loan or they have reduced access to loan. To add insult to injury, these young people, if they are students who are aged 16 to 19 years of age, will be facing youth rates when they go out there. As someone who has taught and tutored at a university, I can tell you that students who spend all their time working and not applying themselves to their studies certainly do not get the most out of their education that they otherwise would.

What is contained in these clauses 63 to 66 is one of the bases of why Labour is willing to support this bill, because there is fairness in there. But, in talking about the fairness that is in these clauses of the legislation, I would like members opposite to think about the very unfair—

I rise to speak to Part 3 of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2). I feel that Part 3 is a really lovely encapsulation of the whole bill, because it contains the aspects or themes that we see—I shall not speak about the whole bill, but the aspects and themes that it covers—paralleled throughout the bill. We have, as Dr Megan Woods has so eloquently enunciated, a number of clauses that refer to the broader definition of income, which is the aspect of the bill that is about fairness and that is about making sure that the student loan scheme is sustainable over the longer term. We on this side of the Chamber do believe in student support. We believe that it is something that is good for New Zealand and is good for those individuals involved. It leads to future prosperity. We would like to see more of it, as New Zealand can afford it, over time. We think this is a good thing. So the broadening of definitions is the part that we support.

Then, as we move on through this part, we see that this part of the bill also contains the amendments relating to the repeal of provisions on the 10 percent bonus, which, of course, is a Peter Dunne U-turn. This bill is rife with U-turns. This, nicely encapsulated in Part 3, is not only the broadening of the definition of income, which we support, but the kind of embarrassment of a Government U-turn contained in this legislation. There are many of those through the bill, and we have discussed the various U-turns contained in this bill in previous parts of the debate in the Committee stage.

Finally, at the end of the bill, in clause 68, we also have some tidying-up. That tidying-up relates to the rushed changes that went through in Budget 2012. There we saw the Government make eligibility for student support much more difficult. We saw changes that restricted access. We saw in there an increase in the repayments threshold, so that students who were on relatively modest incomes were forced to pay back a larger portion sooner, and those with dependent children and so on will be feeling the pinch of that.

So in Part 3 of the bill we have all different aspects of the bill reflected. It is kind of typical of the wider bill. We have the good intent, we have the embarrassing back-down, and we have the tidy-up, the sweep-up, after the Minister on some previous mistakes.

The sweep-up at the end there relates to those eligibility and support mechanisms that we talked about rushing through in Budget 2012, the repayment thresholds that were adjusted in Budget 2012, and the reduced access to support. That again points to the differing attitudes between the two larger parties in this Parliament. If we remember back, it was National that introduced student loans in the first place. It sought to make it a bit more challenging for students to attend university. Labour introduced interest-free student loans, which made student loans more accessible and more affordable. Then, subsequently, this Government has introduced administration fees on those loans—a way of introducing interest again without introducing interest again. That is a clever back-door trick, if you like, to try to make sure there are charges on loans, without going back on the promise not to introduce interest back on to loans.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: It’s a Clayton’s broken—

It is a Clayton’s—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Being fair, like clauses 63 to 66.

Yes, that is right; my colleagues are right there. So Part 3 of the bill encapsulates nicely the themes that stretch across the bill.

Labour will be supporting the bill for the fact that it is an attempt to go after those who are avoiding paying their due. We support that. We know that there are 101,000 student loan borrowers living overseas. Roughly half of those are of no fixed abode—their address is not known to the taxman, who collects those things. A total of $2.67 billion is owed, which is a phenomenal amount. The average amount of default is somewhere between $7,000 and $8,000, and there are 14,000 borrowers in default with debts of over $10,000. It seems unfair and galling to those who are making an effort to pay back their student loans when they see others getting away with not doing it. So it is essential that this broadened definition of income is applied and that the efforts to collect that money are realistic and forthright, and the data-matching proposal seems to get to that extent. Whether it can be implemented, of course, is a different matter.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Mr Chairman.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Mr Chairman.

Carol Beaumont.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am trying to share this around. I am sharing the love.

That is wonderful, thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Mr Cunliffe has already had two calls, so that is why it is your turn.

That is great. Part 3 of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2), as others have noted, concerns the parts of the bill that amend the principal Act that apply for 2014-15 and later tax years, including the amendments relating to the meaning of “adjusted net income” and the amendments relating to the repeal of the provision of the 10 percent bonus. We support the provisions around amendments relating to the meaning of “adjusted net income”, because that will be fairer. We think that all borrowers should make an equal effort to pay back their student loan. We also think that those who receive their income from a company, trust, superannuation scheme, or other source should be treated in the same way as those who earn a weekly wage—and, to be honest, just as an aside, that is often not the case. So we are pleased to see that in this regard some of those other forms of income are being drawn in and treated equally.

We understand that broadening the definition of income will save the Crown approximately $7.5 million over the next 5 years—that is according to Treasury—so, of course, that is a positive as well. Those provisions in clauses 63 through to 68 seem to us to make sense and are the reasons why we are supporting this Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2).

But there are concerns. As my colleague Megan Woods has talked about, we have concerns about how this fits in the overall approach taken by the Government to student support. There have been quite a number of attacks made on student support in an attempt to “dampen demand” for tertiary education. To us that seems crazy. Given the kind of economic change that we need in this country, given our need to be smart and agile, and given the need to really lift performance in our workplaces, we need to invest more. We need to be smart and innovative. A major part of that is investing in our young people—in fact, in all of our learners, not just young people—and anybody who wants to upskill themselves and participate to a greater extent in their career. So we are concerned about the number of changes that have been made. Some of the examples have perhaps been mentioned already, but I think it is important to just reinforce them. Over-55-year-olds in Budget 2011 were stopped from accessing the student loan. That just does not make sense. We want older people to continue in the workforce for longer. Although we have high unemployment at the moment, the overall demographic trend is for an ageing population, when we are going to want and need older people in the workforce. That means they are going to need to be able to upskill, to look at career changes, and to do all of those things. Arbitrarily cutting off access to student loans at age 55 is short-sighted in the extreme.

There are also limits on part-time students’ borrowing for course-related costs. That was a cut made in 2010. Budget 2010 also imposed a 2-year stand down on new residents accessing student loans. If people can get into some form of tertiary education and get themselves the kind of qualifications they need, that is probably a very sensible way for them to commence their residence in this country. After all, they do have to pay that money back.

In 2012 the National Government passed legislation to reduce the overseas-based borrower’s repayment holiday from 3 years to 1 year. That goes counter to such a long tradition and such an important element for many New Zealanders, and that is that they study, they go overseas, they develop contacts and networks, and they have other opportunities there. They then come back to New Zealand and it is beneficial to our economy. We did not support that.

The decision in last year’s Budget to remove the allowance eligibility for postgraduate students is the one that I want to really focus on now. That has to be the most short-sighted and unfair thing that could possibly happen, given the need to make structural changes in our economy and given the need to really look at innovation, to look at how we can support manufacturing in this country. The sort of manufacturing we are going to need to be involved in is not just in lightly processed commodities; it is going to need to be in elaborately transformed manufacturing, and we need people with ideas and smart things. We want these people to stay here. The fact of the matter is that those students who want to continue in postgraduate studies are likely to be some of the brightest New Zealanders that we have, who are wanting to keep learning, to research, and to do those things. What are they going to do if they cannot access support here? They will go offshore. They will be snapped up. We do have a good tertiary education system. We have a good education system overall. They will be snapped up and taken on by overseas universities, and once they are there they will end up being part of a research pool and part of a brains trust in other economies and not in ours, and that just does not make sense. This is an enormous waste of New Zealand’s potential. We do need more people doing postgraduate study, not fewer, if we are to grow our innovative economy.

All the while, during all of these cuts and dampening of demand, and short-sighted, economically damaging actions by the Government, student debt has continued to grow, with the latest figure showing it has reached $13 billion—$13 billion. Student loan debt is now a huge burden on young Kiwis starting out in their working lives, and, certainly, for most of those people, they have no concept of the dream of owning their own home, for example. It is very much seen as outside of their reach. Combine that with some of the other initiatives of the Government and the chances of those students minimising the loans that they need to take out—for example, bringing in youth rates. Bringing in youth rates like we just have—well, one of the consequences of that will be that young people will be less able to save for their tertiary study. What does that mean? Well, they are going to have to borrow more. So that is certainly counter-intuitive to reducing student loan debt.

Keeping wages down—a 25c an hour increase in the minimum wage—is the same thing. Young people are concentrated, if they can get work in minimum-wage jobs, on very low wages. Even if they are not on the youth rate, they are less able to save to fund their tertiary education studies, and, therefore, have to take out greater student loans. I could go on. The point of this is that those things combined with some of the cuts into student support are just a recipe for a disastrous economic outcome for us and also for those individuals. Social mobility used to be something that we valued in this country. It was a country not that long ago where if you were a kid with ability, you could go on, you could learn, you could get a decent job, and you could expect to do well for yourself and your family. That is no longer a reality for so many New Zealanders. That is something that I think we need to really consider. Do we want to have a haves and have-nots society? Well, over on this side of the Chamber, we do not. Tertiary education is a very important bridge to making sure that people have opportunity. So these things are very, very damaging.

So going back to this part of the legislation, to Part 3, I remind the Committee that we are supporting these provisions. We think that they are logical and fair. Unlike the Government’s overall approach to student support, they are sensible. The overall approach is one that we do not agree with and we think has major economic consequences. Thank you.

I start at the Hon David Cunliffe.

Thank you, Mr Chairman, that was very kind of you—eventually. Thank you very, very, very much.

I would like to take this opportunity to rise and speak to Part 3 of this bill, the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2), and do something that rather pains me, which is to be nice to the Government. I am wanting to compliment the National Government for several changes that it is introducing in this part of the bill. Having said that, I promise not to make a habit of this. I do not want people out there in listener land to think that we have completely lost our marbles, but there are several changes here that make me think that Government members have become the Latter-day Saints of social democracy, that they have discovered truth, fairness, and the Kiwi way, because they are doing albeit a very small amount to shave some of the silver lining of the silver spoon that some are born with in their mouths—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Next will be CGT!

Who knows? Perhaps they will, as Megan Woods has said, introduce a capital gains tax to help the cause of fairness. But at least in this bill they are broadening the definition of income to include such things as—wait for it—trusts, which the Law Commission tells us are being overused, that we have one of the highest incidences of family trusts in this country. It is a major avoidance loophole and too often taxpayers are vesting assets in the hands of children, simply for the purposes of minimising tax. But were any friend of the National Party doing that on this occasion—of this bill—the Government would be narrowing that avoidance loophole by saying that income from trusts will be calculated in the definition of income that is used to calculate student support entitlements. Likewise, companies. That, of course, means a wide range of companies. It could even mean companies like, I do not know, Apple—Apple, which is paying less than 1 percent of revenue in taxation in New Zealand, even though its average profitability on revenue is over 20 percent worldwide. That would seem to be somewhat unfair, but at least this bill is broadening the definition of income in student loan calculations to include income from companies as well as trusts—

💬 Todd McClay: There’s one more. You missed one out.

—and superannuation schemes, of which, of course, the member who is interjecting so rudely has many. That is, of course, a further broadening of the definition of income, and that is a good, proper, and right thing to do. Why is that? I believe—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Part 3.

Yes, we are in Part 3; I am looking at clauses 63 to 66, and particularly at clause 63, which broadens the definition of “annual gross income” to include income from trusts, companies, and superannuation schemes. That is amplified in clause 64, which replaces section 73, and clause 65.

That brings me to the “So what?”, which is really pretty simple. In our extended families, I will warrant that we know young people who are very, very fixed on tertiary education and who, almost no matter what the odds, will go and do it. They will take on loans and they will pass the exams. We probably also, in our heart of hearts, have someone in our whānau who really is not cut out for tertiary education, and that is just fine too; they will find their own path. What this series of reforms aims to do is to address that group in the middle: the kids who need a hand-up, who need the power of the State to provide them with the confidence and the financial resources to stretch to tertiary education, and the money that is involved in that needs to go a bit further. That is why the silver spoon brigade has to be able to count, or should count, their trust income, their company income, and their superannuation income.

I am not quite sure how this actually got through the National caucus and why Todd McClay, a trust fund baby from way back, the esteemed chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, did not torpedo this out of pure self-interest, but it seems he was outvoted if he did try, and here it is on the Committee floor. We on this side of the Chamber think that this is a very good thing. It is a small—a very small—step in the cause of social justice from the National Government.

That brings me to clause 67, and, as David Clark has rightly pointed out, this is perhaps the most exciting clause—a breathtaking clause—within Part 3. Why, I hear you ask out there in TV land, is clause 67 so exciting? Because it repeals the 10 percent silver spoon bonus repayment. Kids from rich—

Thank you, Mr Chairman, for the opportunity to make a comment on this bill, the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2). It was encouraging to hear the spirit of bipartisanship reaching across the room from our friend Mr Cunliffe. The thing that surprised me was why he was not quite so focused on doing sensible things when Labour introduced this excessively generous scheme, which this Government inherited—this excessively generous scheme, which was wide and billowing with very few checks and balances. Labour did not do anything about drawing in the full income of households. It just opened the gate as wide as possible and encouraged people to borrow as much as possible and never pay it back.

Of course, that kind of activity, that attitude, that lassitude, you might say, extended to every aspect of Government spending through the 2000s, and saw Government spending increase by 50 percent during those fat years, up to the point of 35 percent of GDP. This Government has been about trying to restore some order to the nation’s books and get us back on track to surplus in a very difficult and dangerous world.

This piece of legislation—I am drawing back here to Part 3—is all about that important task of making the student loan scheme more sustainable. When we look at clauses 63 through to 66 they are about working on some of those little minutiae that are really about just getting some boundaries around the scheme, making the student loan scheme sustainable in the future, reducing the need for more Government borrowing, and preparing students for the way ahead.

We should not forget that the New Zealand student loan scheme is one of the most generous in the world. Some might say that there is only so much we can spend on tertiary education, and that if we devote all of it to subsidising student-free loans for people who can and should be paying it back faster—

💬 Tracey Martin: Student-free loans?

—interest-free student loans—then that is less money that we can invest in investment.

When we look down to the detail, what have we done? It is worth recapping briefly that the changes we made over the last few years have reduced the cost to the Government from about 48c in every dollar that is loaned—a truly horrendous cost to other people who are paying the bill—down to 39c, and we are trying to get it down further. This is a significant achievement, and it is a demonstration of the Government’s priorities. When we look at Budget 2012 repealing the voluntary repayment bonus and increasing the repayment rate from 10 percent to 12 percent, that has significantly increased the speed with which these loans are repaid, so students can get on with their lives, safe in the knowledge that they have made good progress on their loans and can save for houses and so forth, and the taxpayer is not unduly bent out of shape.

In the main provisions I just wanted to draw attention to the question of the definition of income being broadened to student loan repayment purposes, to align more closely with that excellent—

💬 Todd McClay: Does it include interest from bank accounts?

No, it does not, but it is the same income definition used for determining entitlements for Working for Families tax credits. We have here in the Chamber Minister Bennett, who has done such a good job in the welfare area.

These changes in Part 3 are absolutely common sense. Why do we do this? Because it is about people paying back their debts to other New Zealanders. That is what this bill is about, and it is only fitting and proper. I was disappointed that we were left with such a wide and billowing scheme that was unaffordable and unsustainable, and this bill is a number of small, targeted, well-crafted steps to bring this scheme back to a more sustainable level so that we can continue to support our students at university and build that brighter future to which we all aspire. Thank you very much.

I am happy to make another contribution on Part 3 of this bill, the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2)—in particular, clauses 63 to 66—because I think there is so much embedded in these clauses that we need a good discussion about them. One of the things that I would like to discuss is broadening the definition of what counts as income to be assessed for the purposes of student loan repayments. Of course, this is going to apply not only to those graduates who are in the workforce who are domiciled in New Zealand but also to New Zealanders living overseas who have a student loan. So for New Zealanders living overseas who earn their money from a business or from a trust their income is now going to be assessable for student loan purposes.

This brings us to another issue—and one of the things I want to talk about—in terms of these definitions and the fact that we are bringing in another whole category of people whose income can be assessed, which is the changes that are made in other parts and the interaction with clauses 63 to 66, and the way in which the data of these people can be matched at the border. There were concerns raised at the Finance and Expenditure Committee around whether or not this gelled with the privacy legislation that is going to be coming before this House. These people who are caught under clauses 63 to 66 of this legislation, which we think is a good thing, will now be eligible for data matching at the border. This new group of people is created by these clauses under Part 3 of the bill.

We have grave concerns, as we have had yet another data breach from this Government.

💬 David Bennett: Oh, get over it.

Only this week we have seen the details—and, no, Mr Bennett, I will not get over it. There are 90,000 Cantabrians who have had their details released and put out there, when this is a Government that has done nothing to give Christchurch people access to that information, despite the fact that they have been asking for it for months. So, yes, we do have concerns over the data matching that will happen for the new category of people created under clauses 63 to 66 of this legislation, because this is a Government that has shown itself to not be trusted with people’s personal information. We would like to put on record that when you do data matching you have an obligation to make sure—not you, Mr Chairman, not you. The Government has a responsibility, an obligation, to make sure that it is protecting the information that it holds about New Zealanders and to not have the slapdash approach that we have seen, which has led to the very serious breaches we have seen in ACC, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Earthquake Commission. We do not want to see this happening in terms of the new categories of people that are created under this legislation.

We ask that Government members take a call and give us a reassurance that these new categories of people will have their data protected, and that there will not be mass releases of it as there were with the people whose private information was shared in relation to their Earthquake Commission claims in Christchurch. This is an issue that we take very seriously, and we would not like to see the categories of people created under clauses 63 to 66 in Part 3 of this legislation being subjected to their information being shared in this slapdash and haphazard manner. We invite the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Immigration, and we invite a member opposite to take a call and to give us that reassurance that this information will be protected. It is not good enough for us to just say “Get over it.”, as Mr Bennett heckled from the benches opposite. We will not get over it. Labour takes seriously the fact that a Government has a responsibility to deal in a responsible manner with people’s private information. The reaction we have seen from the benches opposite and the Prime Minister’s reaction in question time today show that this is not a Government that thinks this is a serious matter. The fact that we are trusting this Government with more information and the ability to share more of this information under this legislation for the category of people created under clauses 63, 64, and 65 of this legislation gives us cause to question it. We would welcome a Government call on this matter.

Just a point that the data-matching legislation is out of scope. It is not in Part 3.

It is a pleasure to take a call on this bill, the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2). I just point out that although Labour will support this bill and does support this bill, it is a bill that deals with what is an unfair approach to funding tertiary education, but it makes it a little fairer. In particular, Part 3 and its redefinition of income means that those who can source their wealth—in particular, their income—from sources that up until now would not have been captured by the definitions of income will now have that captured, and that is entirely fair and appropriate. Without that it would mean that—and, in fact, there are people who can conceal, hide, or otherwise shelter their income and have it remain unassessable for the purposes of the student loan scheme, and that is unfair because that is an approach that favours the wealthy and does not at all have an impact on those who find it more difficult to meet the rigorous requirements of repayment of loans under this sort of scheme.

Let us remember that this scheme, in the absence of full State funding of tertiary education and with an approach that requires more private funding for tertiary education, at least knocks the rough edges off that approach. It means that it makes tertiary education accessible to people where it might not otherwise be so. But for that element of fairness to work it means that when it comes to repayment of those loans, everybody should be treated in a fair and an appropriate sort of way.

It is all very well for Mr Goldsmith to lament what he describes as the cost of the scheme and the fact that there is a large amount outstanding, but, actually, the real measure is the number of people who now get to benefit from tertiary education. Or, at least, up until now, because we know that those pressures are growing, that those pressures are getting harder, and that there are tertiary institutions where the pressure is now really on to lift fees, and that is putting more pressure on the student loan scheme and more pressure on both students and, of course, graduates. The higher the fees are, the more that has to be borrowed, and the more that has to be borrowed, the greater the pressure on graduates to repay it once they get out into the labour market and into the workforce.

So in that respect the bill will help to make the scheme more viable long term by broadening the definition of income, and that is a good thing—that is a welcome thing. Of course, what I think is very welcome on this side of the Chamber, as my colleague David Cunliffe pointed out, is that that incentive, which was really a godsend to those who could afford it—the very wealthy—to repay their loans very early and very quickly, the 10 percent bonus, will no longer apply, so that everybody is treated fairly in that regard. If you accelerate your payments, that is good for the scheme. If because of the job you go into—if you are a good, hard-working Kiwi graduate and you go off to do some sort of honourable, noble job like being a teacher or, might I suggest, a union lawyer—you will not be penalised because you do not have an income that means you can pay massive lump sums off your student loan. We should welcome that, because this is not a Government that has enjoyed a particularly friendly relationship with teachers, and even less so with union lawyers, I might add, from my experience. So I think these are very welcome changes, and it is for that reason that we welcome it.

But none of that should detract from the fact that every effort should be made, when it comes to tertiary education, to ensure that those who are talented, those who display the aptitude, and those who have the skills should have access to it. There are still people—young people, in particular; not just young people but adult students as well—who are at a stage where they could perform well in tertiary education but simply do not have the means, for whatever reason, to get there and enjoy the benefits of it. The more people we can have enjoying tertiary education and lifting their skills, the better that is for New Zealand as a whole. So anything that can be done to lower the barriers, to make it easier, and to create an incentive for people to get in there is good for New Zealand. For that reason we welcome measures like this, we welcome this legislation, and we will support it.

I move, That the question be now put.