Investing In NZ's Future - Where We Stand With Students pt 1

Interest on student loans
We strongly supported Labour's bill to remove interest on student loans as a first step toward tackling our escalating student debt crisis.
However, taking interest off the loans was only a partial solution. Our students are still forced to begin their working lives saddled with crippling debt, and our best and brightest are still driven offshore in order to pay it back. New Zealand First will fight to keep your student loans interest free. Better still, we will strive to reduce the amount you have to borrow to live and to pay your fees with our universal student allowance policy and movement toward a zero fees model for tertiary education.
In the mean time, our dollar-for-dollar student loan repayment scheme will make it easier for you to pay off your debt faster.

Student loan entitlement
Access to tertiary education is a fundamental birthright for all Kiwis - whether you've just finished high school or you're a mature student. We noted Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce's moves to restrict student loan entitlement with concern as surely, in the midst of a recession, the most logical thing for many to do is retrain and upskill in the hopes of finding future employment. New Zealand First will make it easier for Kiwis to access tertiary education by lowering your fees and preserving your ability to get a student loan.

Student allowances
New Zealand First has vigorously campaigned for a Universal Student Allowance since our founding in 1993. Students are one of the few groups in our society forced to borrow to live, as well as being some of the most economically vulnerable - especially during a recession. It is unreasonable to expect full-time students to have to seek full-time employment to survive, particularly when many of the job vacancies you would otherwise be filling simply no longer exist. It is also fundamentally unfair to decide whether to hand out assistance to struggling students on the basis of how much your parents make. Not only does this make it far harder to allocate allowances on the basis of need, the current system is open to abuse by students from wealthier backgrounds whose parents have mastered the art of income trusts.
Kiwi students used to enjoy a generous universal student allowance back in the "good old days". New Zealand First will give students a fair go by restoring this entitlement.

Tertiary fees
Kiwi students pay some of the highest fees in the developed world. This is partially due to persistent under-investment in tertiary education by successive governments; and partially because universities have been allowed far too much freedom to make up the short-fall by gouging you, the students, their customers.
In the long term, New Zealand First wants a Zero Fees model for tertiary education - as we used to enjoy up until Tertiary Education Minister Phil Goff abolished it in 1989, and as many successful economies such as those in Scandinavia have today. However, we are also realists who recognise that such a change would be difficult to implement overnight. New Zealand First will re-impose a cap on tertiary fees as a first step and then progressively reduce your fees over a number of years. We will also ensure that this does not harm the quality of your education by once again properly investing in your education and our future from the public purse.

VSM / student control of student services & support
The ACT Party's "Freedom of Association" bill was an ideological solution looking for a problem. Rather than seeking to improve accountability, transparency, and value for money in our student associations, this government has instead decided to indulge in an old far-right game called union-busting. We note with considerable bemusement that implementing this law will neither decrease the fees you pay nor increase your control over how the money is spent. Instead of paying a levy to a democratic student association accountable to you, you'll pay higher fees to your education provider. Prior to the law's passage, New Zealand First would have instead advocated a strengthened opt-out clause. Now that it's passed, we fully expect to see the quality and availability of your services to be reduced. We are further concerned that universities will simply be able to ignore your views on the issue in the absence of effective student associations to represent and advocate on your behalf.

Student representation in institutions’ decision making processes
New Zealand First is deeply concerned about the decline of our student associations and their ability to represent your views. Since the passage of ACT's VSM legislation, the ability for students to make their voices heard has become more crucial than ever so as to ensure that the service you're paying top dollar for is acceptable to you - the customer - and meets your needs. We do not believe it is possible to have a viable university or student culture without an independent student voice. New Zealand First would therefore ensure that - in the absence of fully independent student associations - your university listens to you.

A FUTURE FOR NEW ZEALAND YOUTH

Young people get a bad rap in New Zealand and it is undeserved. New Zealand First believes investment in our youth is investment in all or our futures. Our youth will face up to the future if they are given the tools and opportunity. We have an exciting policy for students, but not everyone is made for university. New Zealand First is embarking on a ground-br4eaking programme, new learning, new trades, new apprenticeships, new skills and new competencies for the digital age. You know we look after our grandparents, but we are going to look after our grandchildren as well.

NEW SKILL TRAINING FOR NEW TRADES

Technologies constantly change, but the need for skilled adaptable people stays the same. New Zealand First will pull back on the practice of bringing in workers from overseas, while untrained New Zealanders stand in dole queues. Our long term economic plan invests in our manufacturing sector to provide more jobs and most importantly, apprenticeships. But it doesn’t end there. We will consult manufacturers about the skills they require to complete on world markets. And we will start training people in these skills. Many young people have asked to make trades training a condition of receiving the unemployment benefit. New Zealand First agrees. Basic reading, writing and numerical skills will be included. Skills levels will be lifted and employers will be given incentives for ‘on the job training;. We will increase the number of places available at polytechnic trade training.

TERTIARY GRADUATES. “DOLLAR-FOR-DOLLAR” LOAN REPAYMENT

Student debt amounts to billions of dollars, and it has to be sorted out. We will face up to it before it inflicts more damage on yet another generation of young New Zealanders. We will introduce a scheme where Government makes a matching dollar-for-dollar payment on student debt for students staying and working in New Zealand. So if a student with a student loan of $20,000 pays back $10,000, the Government would match that sum to extinguish the debt and remove a big incentive for young Kiwis to go overseas. A generation of our young Kiwis are effectively economic exiles because of student debt. We want them to bring their stills and ideas home. In the long run this will save New Zealand money.

7 Steps to Recovery

Step 1: Savings

You are taxed on income; and then you are taxed on the interest your savings earn.

With inflation running at, at least 5%, where can ordinary people save with security and still get a reasonable rate of return?

The answer is nowhere!

New Zealand First will introduce:

A bold set of tax incentives to encourage private savings - the first $10,000 of interest earned would become tax free.

We will introduce government guaranteed inflation proof bonds - eligible to New Zealand citizens resident in New Zealand only - and that will pay the inflation rate (measured by the CPI) plus 2.5%

Step 2: Saving our Land

New Zealand First will impose strict restrictions on foreign land ownership.

This is not xenophobic - it's the same restrictions that Kiwis face if they want to buy land in many other countries.

Only New Zealand citizens will be able to buy land and that land already owned offshore can only be sold back to a New Zealand citizen.

Step 3 Foreign Ownership

We will also create a new agency The NZ Ownership Agency- with an initial budget of $500m.

This agency will have a specific mandate to promote New Zealand ownership - and would develop a comprehensive long term plan to buy back strategic assets.

Step 4 Manufacturing

We will have policies to actively support, encourage and where appropriate protect this sector.

There are too many jobs, skills and wealth creation at stake in manufacturing to allow the sector to wither and die.

For example, we will protect government sector contracts such as the building of railway wagons for our own rather than Chinese railway workshops.

Step 5: Student Debt

We will introduce a scheme where government will make a matching dollar for dollar payment on student debt.

So, if a student had a student loan of say $30,000 - (a not unlikely sum) and paid back, $15,000 government would match that sum to extinguish the debt provided that student stays and works in New Zealand.

A matching contribution scheme would effectively halve student debt and remove a big incentive for young Kiwis to go overseas.

Step 6: Aussie Banks

They have had a dream run in New Zealand.

And recall that is was those same four Aussie banks who had to repay $2 billion to the IRD for tax avoidance in late 2009.

As KiwiBank and TSB show we are perfectly capable of operating our own banks.

New Zealand First policy is to give all Government business to a locally owned bank.

Step 7: Infrastructure

There can be no clearer example of a wasteful approach to public investments than the Government's so called Roads of National Significance (RoNS) project.

This $12 billion plus project is actually all about building more motorways.

New Zealand First policy is to scrap the RoNS project and free up massive financial resources for public transport in both metropolitan and provincial areas.

These policies will be developed further as the year progresses.

Investing in New Zealand Broadband

In a stirling example of what is right with Scandinavia, the Government of Finland has decided to make broadband access a legal right. This is a laudable example of 21st century government infrastructure investment, and the successful Scandinavian approach to government economic investment.



Poor performance on the part of our privatised national telecommunications giant has resulted in our equivalent infrastructure being in a woeful state. Considering a supposed government emphasis on creating a "knowledge economy" (whatever that means), the vitality of the internet in general, and its ability to mitigate to a certain extent our inherent disadvantage in being located on the other side of the world; one would think rectification and improvement of our internet problems would be imperative.



Regrettably such strident measures have not yet eventuated here. While National has indeed agreed to fork out one and a half billion dollars creating such infrastructure here in New Zealand, there are two problems with its plan. First, their committment to using private sector companies' part-funding. Given the rather appalling record of private control of infrastructure that this country has (the obvious examples being railway tracks), it seems somewhat odd to entrust such a vital element of our national growth to anyone but the public.



Second, to my mind they aren't going far enough. The key difference between the NZ plan and the Finnish plan isn't the speed (100 megabits per second in both cases), but rather an entirely different kind of access. The Fins have decided to make such fast broadband access a national right available to all; whereas National's silence on the matter (excepting their excellent idea of ensuring availability to schools) convinces one to assume it will be the 'user pays' system of our historically tight market.



Having publically ensured (and subsidised) broadband access for everyone might seem to be at the rather cavalier end of "thinking big" policy, but it is this writer's belief that in order to secure both parity with living standards in Europe, and to take and hold an international competitive advantage, such a plan is necessary for New Zealand.