Check out conference happenings, including audio and full text of speeches, on our Green Party AGM as it happens web page.
Go to the high resolution (24bps) audio of N"ndor's speech (22 min, 3.8MB). Go to the lower resolution (16bps) audio of N"ndor's speech (22 min, 2.6MB).
Our young people have been ripped off.
Robbed by a generation who want everything for themselves and want to leave nothing for the future. I don't just mean the obvious things, like clean air, cheap energy, abundant fisheries and forests and healthy waterways. I'm talking about the legacy of student debt.
The current generation of decision-makers, most of us and I include myself, had it sweet. We grew up in a time of genuinely free primary and secondary education. A time of virtually free tertiary education, when university fees for example were in the hundreds rather than thousands of dollars and pretty much everyone got an allowance.
The philosophy that underpinned that approach was one of reciprocity. The understanding was that our parents' generation would fund our education and in return we would contribute something back to society, and we would fund the education of the next generation.
I don't believe that New Zealand was some kind of utopia back then, and neither do I want to return to the past. But I do believe that in the process of rapid social and economic change over the last twenty years that we have lost something important. Our sense of community and our sense of reciprocity.
Because when the generation that benefited from those years of free education and economic prosperity came to power they didn't say "we had our education paid for and now its our turn to pass it on". No, they said "stuff you lot, we want tax cuts"
To pay for them, they proceeded to ram-raid of the economy, with a program of privatisation, users pays and the transfer of public debt to private debt. And under National they introduced the student loans scheme.
I find it hard to describe that as anything other than intergenerational theft. A stealing of the future.
The Green Party says that a well educated population is vital for the social, cultural, environmental and economic wellbeing of our country and that tertiary education is primarily a public good. That we must restore a sense of reciprocity between publicly funded tertiary education and the social obligations of graduates who benefit from that. We believe that the student loans scheme negates that sense of reciprocity and we call for a free tertiary education system.
Because when you treat tertiary education as primarily a private good, as the loans scheme does, why expect students to treat it differently? Why expect students to have any other intention than to maximise their individual earnings is what ever way they can? We know that the extreme individualism that makes a virtue out of greed and disrespect for others is not natural to people, but that it can be engendered by the social and economic order.
We oppose the student loans scheme, not just because of the enormous financial burden it places on tertiary students, and the consequential impacts on fertility rates, home ownership, migration rates, career choices and family life. We oppose the student loans scheme not just because it breaches the Bill of Rights in terms of age discrimination and discrimination against women, Maori and Pacific Islanders. Women, for example, take almost twice as long to repay their loan according to NZUSA's figures,and therefore pay significantly more for their education than other students because of increased amounts of interest that accrue.
We oppose it as well because it reinforces a culture of individualism and greed, because it forces students to look out for number one above all else and to view education as their personal golden goose, rather than an asset of the whole community to be used to benefit the whole community.
The effects of that change are difficult to quantify, but they can be observed our society today.
And they can be observed at every university campus in the country, where what used to be hotbeds of political activism of all persuasions have become cold. Campuses are no longer places of dissent, of political discussion and debate and challenge. They have become places where students rush from lecture to lecture to lecture to work. Between full time study and increasingly long hours of part-time work, few students have time for anything much more than sleep.
In fact it amazes me that there is any political activity on campuses at all, and I pay great respects to student activists and politicians who have steadily lifted the level of political involvement and activity over the past few years and increasingly taken the issue of student debt to the Government and to the community. I also pay respects to the members of Campus Greens here today, who have managed to organise on polytech and university campuses around the country to advance Green ideas and initiatives in the face of these challenges.
But how can we have the sort of tertiary system that the Green Party envisages, where tertiary education is part of the web of educational opportunities that help all New Zealanders fulfil their potential and deepen their understanding of the world that we inhabit. Where people can develop the skills necessary to create a sustainable, cooperative and inclusive society, where students can participate meaningfully in our communities and in our democracy, which enhances rangatiratanga and which helps people to take responsibility for caring for our world, when it is built on a student loans scheme that we know influences people in the opposite direction.
The Green Party says that higher education should be made equally accessible to all on the basis of capacity by every appropriate means and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education. That life-long learning should be available to all New Zealanders, that students should be paid a realistic allowance while studying full time. And that education should be learner centred, equitable, responsive, diverse, innovative, socially responsible, ecologically aware, publicly accountable and of high quality.
Student debt is a ticking time bomb. Yes this figure is real time.
And I don't just mean in terms of the debt mentality it engenders, but also in terms of more tangible effects on our economy and society. Andrew has already spoken on a number of the impacts of student debt, and I note that student debt, at around $7 billion already, is growing at a rate of around $78,000 an hour. The average amount owed to the student loans scheme per student has increased from $11,665 in 1999 to $14, 424 in 2004 and $14, 871 this year. That does not include another almost $4,000 borrowed from other sources. Lastly that around 13% of the population over 15 owe money to the student loan scheme — that's almost 419,000 people.
The most debilitating thing about student debt is that for many people, particularly women but anyone in a profession that requires a tertiary qualification to practise but does not recognise that in pay, they will never see an end to debt. Average repayment times of 6.6 -8.9 years for men and 10.3 — 12.7 years for women do not tell the real story, the reality for those individuals who face a lifetime of debt.
That is why the Greens believe that we must do something to address student debt. We have a three pronged solution. We are calling for a debt write off scheme so that every year a person stays in the country and works full time, in either paid or unpaid work, a year of their student debt would be wiped. That means there is an end to debt. People earning over the repayment threshold will still make repayments over the write-off period, but at the end of each year their debt will reduce by the amount borrowed to pay for a year of study, both fees and living costs.
Can we afford it? The question we have to ask ourselves is can we afford not to? Can we afford to pay the social and economic costs of burgeoning student debt?
As an aside, student debt typifies the need for a new approach to our national accounts. If we look at projections of Crown net debt levels to 2010 we can see that the bottom line, which is net core Crown debt, looks decidedly more healthy than the upper line, net Crown debt with student loans removed as an asset. The government is meeting its debt target on the backs of students. It is crazy that our national accounts count as a Crown asset, the national liability that is student debt.
Government figures indicate that a write-off after twenty years will have an economic, as opposed to accounting, cost in the region of $1.8 million a year with an initial cost of $12.3 million. We believe that we can as a nation afford to be much more bold than that. We say, year for year, write off student debt. Make it pay to stay.
Annual repayments from student loans amount to $509 million. The real cost of writing off student debt year for year would be somewhat less than that, because some repayment will continue to be made. Obviously the longer the write off period, the less expensive it becomes.
Until the loans scheme becomes redundant, through implementation of Green policy, there are a number of other things we would do. We would adjust repayment thresholds. Currently repayments start as soon as you earn over $16,588 and there is one income band. The Greens would increase the threshold at which repayment begins, but seek to keep that fiscally neutral by introducing higher rates of repayment for people on higher incomes.
We would suspend all interest for people on low incomes and for primary caregivers, and apply zero real interest to student loans. Because money borrowed for fees is paid straight to tertiary institutions, and money for living costs is both capped and paid in instalments, this presents no danger that students will borrow money to invest and profit from.
And we would make study costs tax-deductible for students who do not qualify for an allowance.
The second prong to reducing student debt is a universal student allowance, at the level of the unemployment benefit, for all full time students. Currently just over one third of full time students are eligible, according to NZUSA figures, and around half of the $7 billion student debt total was borrowed to pay for living costs. Government figures estimate a universal allowance will cost in the region of $4.1 billion net over four years — just over a billion a year.
We recognise that this may not be achievable overnight. While maintaining our commitment to a universal student allowance, we will seek to move towards it by progressively reducing the age at which student cease to be means tested on their parents income. This is the only area of government policy where people are considered financially dependent on their parents until they are aged 25 and even the Government acknowledges that this is a breach of the Bill of Rights.
To reduce the age limit to twenty for example, is estimated by the Ministry of Education to cost around $250 — 312 million per year.
We will also seek to raise the parental income threshold. Currently if your parents' combined income is under $33, 000 you can get $136.79 if you live away from home or $109.43 if you live with them. This amount decreases by $4.80 a week for every increase of $1,000 in their income until the threshold of $63,825.84 gross is reached, at which point you get nothing.
You can also get an accommodation allowance of between $24 and $60 a week, depending on where you live and if you have children. You'd be lucky to get half a room in Auckland for that. We would raise that amount to the same level provided for beneficiaries — up to $145.
And we would re-introduce the independent circumstances allowance based on work history, at a cost of around $5.4 million, make all unemployed students eligible for the unemployment benefit over the summer holiday.
The third prong is to cap and progressively reduce student fees. This requires that we ensure that tertiary institutions are adequately funded. Funding of course does not only impact on fees but also other matter such as salary levels. In this regard the Greens have supported the campaign by the Association of University Staff for a Multi Employer Collective Agreement, despite strong opposition from some Vice Chancellors to even discussing at it.
Reducing average fees to $1500 is estimated to cost around $300 million, or $200 million to reduce to $2000.
As part of our commitment on funding levels, we would also review funding mechanisms to explore alternatives to EFTS funding and the competitive model it encourages. We have seen for example the marketing budgets of universities increase in order to attract more students at the same time as student fees are increasing.
The last area I would like to touch on is the social wage. In order to reduce barriers to participation the Greens will work with student associations, tertiary institutions, local government and other stakeholders to facilitate affordable and accessible public transport to and between campuses, affordable and accessible childcare facilities on campus and improved disability support services.
As part of our campaign to reduce student debt we are initiating an ecard campaign through the Green Party website. We are going to send the first one right now.
I want to thanks NZUSA for coming to day to talk about the plight of students. I am proud to represent the Green Party on this issue, an area that we have been loud, strong and consistent on since we became an independent Green Party. How much of our platform we are able to implement of course depends on our strength after the election.
But have no doubt, we are committed to reducing student debt, we are committed to better access to tertiary education, and we are committed to a tertiary education system that is leaner centred, equitable, and socially and ecologically responsible.
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