In case you missed it, it is essentially this: go easier on people with student loans who still live in New Zealand and crack down harder on those with loans who live overseas. National says it's a bid to keep our brightest graduates here.
Do I think that's actually going to work? No, I don't. I don't think raising interest on loans from 5.6 percent to 6.6 percent for people living overseas is going to stop someone from leaving when they can, in some cases, move to Australia and double their income. They're still going to go, aren't they?
And do I think a Kiwi paying back their student loan in New Zealand is going to stay here because they're now only paying 10 percent of their income towards their student loan instead of 12 percent ? Again, no.
Frankly, I don't think this is going to make a jot of difference to the so-called brain drain. But what I think it is actually going to do is crack down on the bludgers who take a ride on our generous education system, study essentially for free, then bugger off overseas, pay taxes in another country and never pay this country back.
It's going to lower the threshold of what authorities need to prove, which should make it easier for them to arrest these people at the border. It's also going to freeze defaulters' KiwiSaver accounts until they actually pay New Zealand back in full.
Right, so until they've paid us back, they don't get access to their KiwiSaver accounts.
It grinds my gears every single time I read stories about people absolutely taking the mickey, refusing to pay this country back for putting them through university and then swanning back from overseas to visit Mum and Dad for the summer hols as if they're not obligated to pay when they are.
Ninety-three percent of our outstanding student loan debt is held by people who are overseas. Ninety-three percent.
Do you remember the doctor? This was the worst case of it. The doctor who moved to Australia and owed us $180,000. Then he came back here, got himself arrested at the border because he owed us $180,000 and then moaned about it, saying he didn't think he could afford to pay it back.
He was a surgeon.
There's a two-way billboard right there.
This policy, I don't think, is going to stop the brain drain. But I'll tell you what: it's going to lead to a few actual arrests and I'm okay with that.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
The National announcement on penalizing overseas Kiwis with student loans was a cheap silly soundbite written by its comms team. Mainstream journos got suckered that it was actually a thought out plan. In fact it tramples property rights by sequestering Kiwisaver money which is privately held = funded by individuals and employers = with nothing to do with government. It also borders on illegality by a bizarre attempt to bondage young people to NZ. Why not just make it illegal for them to leave, like in the old Soviet Union? Have the Nats descended into such stupidity they cannot see how a flippant comms announcement rides roughshod over property rights and enters murky legal territory governing rights and freefoms?
Yeah - arrest them at the border. Take any cash they have on them. Cancel their credit cards…
Does HDPA realise how ridiculous and envious she sounds?
Rob is right. Talk about pandering to the tall poppy loppers.
How about doing something about the real problem: NZ’s best and brightest leaving soon after graduation because they don’t see a future here.
National doesn’t have the drive and imagination to do that.
So instead it wants to somehow limit student loans to those who stay. This is fiddling while Rome burns.
I have children and grandchildren who live overseas (none with student loans). There’s nothing to lure them back.
Our young adult son was drowning in the New Zealand Health system as a newly minted house surgeon. A research project he committed two years of his life to, and large amounts of money, finally ground to a halt after over six attempts to get ethics approval. His ethics submission was over sixty thousand words by the time he had answered to the constantly shifting and tightening goalposts of cultural ‘oversight’ that he was subjected to. His research was into a major and increasingly destructive condition experienced by more NZers every year but unfortunately not something one could assign a higher weighting to for Maori health. It got to the point of total stupidity and seemed to be more about an exercise in wielding power over him than in establishing ethical foundations for his research.
Once in hospital working it rapidly became clear to him that his chance of getting onto any training program as a white male was close to zero.
With a heavy heart he moved with his wife and young family to a large Australian hospital. They grabbed him with open arms. After 18 mth he was offered a coveted registrar position in the specialty of his choice. He passed his part ones and he is thriving.
BUT they miss New Zealand. They miss their extended family and friends. Despite the difficulties they are desperate to return home. He tells me next year there may be a couple of training positions in his specialty and he would not have a hope in hell of being selected.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea if National showed a bit of good faith to these young ones overseas.
Soecialist training does lead to high incomes, but these young trainees are milked by everyone every step of the way. Two hundred thousand dollars baseline debt for medical training with a year or two of research thrown in is not unusual. Some areas of specialisation then set the trainee back another two hundred and fifty thousand or so by the time they get through. Being employees, they have zero tax breaks on these costs. Five hundred thousand dollars debt plus interest plus spending the majority of their ‘down’ time studying and completing compulsory courses and research- THIS is the pathway those highly skilled specialists every NZer wants at their bedside when the chips are down, must take. And at least if they’ve done it in Australia you can guarantee that they got there because of hard work alone.
NZ has no idea of the skills and good will it is losing.
Or maybe it does, and it just doesn’t care.
I agree with you Heather. We've got to toughen up on defaulters, and reinforce to our young people that when you undertake a commitment, you honour it. Otherwise we're just going to raise a generation who learn that you can take all the goodies on offer, but when the time arrives for delivering on your promise, you just play the victim card until you get let off. But by the same token let's not penalise young kiwis for wanting to follow in our footsteps. They deserve to be able to expand their horizons, broaden their worldly knowledge, forge alliances with overseas colleagues, and gain knowledge they can't get here. And just have some fun, for God's sake. I can't believe National genuinely think that their policy will deter young kiwis from doing that, but if they do, then I think it's time we elected some real thinkers into the corridors of power.
Anonymous 2:52, that information makes depressing reading. This country is rapidly going down to the lowest common denominator. It's startling at how quickly morale can disintegrate in the face of stupidity. Any young individual with a modicum of talent and work ethic needs to flee overseas asap.... If one remains here you will see truly stupid people rapidly rising past you. It starts at school age when all incentives are to push terrible students through the system. At university, three quarters should fail, but the government and various activist groups will blame lecturers for non-completions. Then lazy graduates enter the workforce....
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