National divided over student loans

Students be warned, National clearly can't be trusted to preserve interest free student loans, Tertiary Education Minister Michael Cullen said today.

"The Labour-led government made student loans interest free from 1 April last year to make tertiary study more affordable and encourage skilled New Zealanders to stay in New Zealand," said Dr Cullen.

"Typically John Key is indicating this will be yet another Labour-led government policy National will have to back.

"But his tertiary education spokesperson has other views.

"Just two weeks ago, Mr Key appeared on Campbell Live to answer viewer questions. John Campbell said one of the most frequently asked questions was, would a National government keep interest free student loans? Mr Key said 'there are half a million New Zealanders who've now got used to not paying interest and we have to listen to that pretty carefully.'

"He added '…you've got half a million New Zealanders now with zero per cent loans and that's a pretty hard thing to turn around and say it's over.'

"However National's tertiary education spokesperson Paul Hutchison's written Parliamentary questions suggest he doesn't support interest free student loans.

"He wrote to me expressing concerns that '…interest free student loans are directing saving resources away from other priorities (such as improving the quality of tertiary education, and expanding access to industry training and apprenticeships), while at the same time creating no obvious educational benefits'. He also asked 'what is fair about taxing people without tertiary education in order to pay for an interest free student loan scheme?'

"Clearly Mr Key is going to have trouble persuading his caucus to back up the impression he has tried to create that the interest free student loan policy will be safe under National.

"Once again Mr Key is publicly saying what people want to hear. But privately, be warned, National has a secret agenda. Remember Mr Key strongly campaigned against interest free student loans at the last election and voted against them."

ENDS

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