9. PANSY WONG (National) Link to this
to the Minister for Tertiary Education
Does he stand by his statement: “We have already made significant progress in improving quality and increasing participation in the tertiary education sector.” in regard to senior citizens; if so, why?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister for Tertiary Education) Link to this
I am not aware of any such statement made specifically in regard to senior citizens.
Is the Minister aware of the practice of some private training enterprises of offering cash-back rewards to migrant senior citizen students of as much as $3,000, as an incentive for them to draw down student loans to pay for fees of as much as $9,000, and is that what he meant by increasing participation?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
No, and I fail to see what that has got to do specifically with senior citizens.
How does the Minister explain the doubling in the number of senior citizens with student loans enrolling in English language courses from 725 in 2004 to 1,564 in 2005, and is he concerned that the kind of cash-back enticement outlined in my previous question is leading our senior citizens to be burdened with debt that some have little prospect of repaying?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
The answer to the first part of the question is immigration. The answer to the second part of the question is that one of the slightly stranger features of the student loan scheme is that once one reaches a certain age, in effect one does not have to pay the loan back.
Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to complaints made to StudyLink in Chinese and English about this issue, and the lack of response from StudyLink; if so, how can we be assured that Ministers and their departments take problems like this seriously?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
No, but if the member would care to take it up with me, I will certainly take it up with the appropriate agencies, as I have done with one or two other elements of obvious attempts to rort the student loan scheme.
Can the Minister assure us, now that he has been made aware of this problem and of the fact that 70 percent of senior citizens with student loans are learning English at tertiary institutes, that he will review alternative and more appropriate ways of providing English language lessons for senior citizens, to avoid their being burdened with hefty student loans?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
I have to say I now find the member’s questions rather confusing. On the one hand she is asking me to make these courses available free; on the other hand she is complaining that we are making loans available for them.
I seek leave to table a letter from the AIS St Helens institution to StudyLink that states it refused to refund to a student a portion of the student’s StudyLink fee as a cash reward for studying with the institution.
I seek leave to table the amount of student loans incurred by senior citizens—those aged 60 years and above—which has doubled from 2002 to 2005, with the total amount of student loans incurred by senior citizens being—
Madam SPEAKERI seek leave to table the answer to a parliamentary written question showing that StudyLink dismissed complaints with regard to that issue, in respect of complaints made both in Chinese and in English, relating—
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
I seek leave to table information in respect of a chartered flight arrangement between Auckland and Shanghai arranged by someone very closely connected to someone in this House, where three planeloads of tourists were left in Shanghai and never received any compensation at all.