Student Politicians Hypocritical Over Debt Level

The first thing student politicians should do at today's student loan summit is admit that student associations have increased the level of student debt, Prebble's Rebels president Clint Heine said today.

"Students have had to borrow millions of dollars to pay for compulsory membership of student associations," Mr Heine said. "Much of this money has been wasted on things like anti-APEC protests, ski lodges and trips to Cuba. It's hypocritical for student politicians to complain about student debt when they have caused part of it," he said.

"The primary objective of student politicians is to find ways to take large amounts of money from tertiary students. Student politicians need all this money to fund huge bureaucracies around the country and their expensive offices on Lambton Quay. When the current government changed the rules to allow students to borrow student association fees under the loan scheme, student politicians were delighted," Mr Heine said. "If student politicians think it's good enough for students to borrow to fund political bureaucracies and the wages of political activists, why shouldn't they accept that students should pay part of the cost of tuition?," he said.

"Student politicians are deliberately evasive on the question of fees. When they complain about fees and argue for free education, they never mention that they still want to retain some fees so that students have to pay the costs of compulsory student associations," Mr Heine said.

"Youth affairs minister Laila Harre is a big supporter of forced collectivism and compulsory membership, so she won't rock the boat by asking why tertiary students should be forced to pay for the left's political activism," Mr Heine said.

"The hypocrisy of student politicians over student debt shows that their main concern is getting money off students to fund their wages and loopy political activism," Mr Heine said.

ENDS

For more information, contact:
Clint Heine (+64) (021) 122 8544
president@rebels.org.nz
http://www.rebels.org.nz

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