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By now most tertiary students will have had their orientation week and will be down to the task at hand - studying towards their chosen careers.
It is timely to go over what this Government has done and has planned for our future taxpayers.
The 1990s saw spiralling tuition fees, which increased by 14 percent a year with no ability for students and their families to predict what they were going to cost from one year to the next.
In its first term, the Labour-led government put an end to that fee spiral.
It could not put an end to fees completely - no government is likely to be able to afford that in the foreseeable future.
Enough money was committed over three Budgets to increase funding levels for public tertiary institutions by a total of 9.8 percent so that they could afford to (and were in turn obliged to) freeze fees at 2000 levels.
If fees had kept going up at the same rate as they did in the 1990s then students would be paying on average $1000 more this year, with the prospect of a further increase for 2004.
We also ended the inequity that saw student loan borrowers facing compounding interest of 7 or 8 percent while they continued to study and were unable to make any repayment.
We've made sure all interest on the loans of those in full-time study is written off at the end of the financial year. Those in part-time study on low incomes have also had their interest written off.
Those are some of the main things that the Labour-led government did for students in its first term.
So what will the second term of this government mean for students? Our agenda for the next three years is: predictable fees, fair loans and wider allowance eligibility.
We have a comprehensive Review of Student Support under way, dealing with the loans and allowances side of the equation.
Through this the Student Loan Scheme eligibility will be extended to part-time, part-year students in approved courses and we will be making sure that loans are not being taken up for non-educational purposes.
A major focus of the review will be extending eligibility for student allowances. This will be achieved in a combination of ways.
We will widen student allowance eligibility for single full-time students aged 18-24, beginning by progressively raising the parental income thresholds.
Eligibility for the Unemployment Benefit Student Hardship (formerly the EUB) will be widened and we will restore allowance eligibility to those tertiary students aged 16 and 17 who have finished year 13 at school.
We'll also develop fairer provisions for non-custodial parents and parents with more than one dependent child in tertiary education.
My offices have been contacted by constituents concerned that because another World Trade Organisation member has asked New Zealand to change a variety of laws, including scrapping the Overseas Investment Commission, that this would allow unrestricted overseas access to our land, energy resources and businesses.
The Government is quite clear about its participation in the General Agreement on Trade in Services negotiations and there are some areas where there will be no changes.
Last month, the Government announced the 10 guiding principles of our GATS negotiations. They are available on the Government's website and the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry's website.
Let us be quite clear: the Government has decided that our GATS commitments will fit our domestic regulatory regime.
In particular, we will not make commitments that affect the Kiwishare, abolish the OIC, or in areas such as public education, public health, and water privatisation.
Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton assures me that to suggest otherwise is scaremongering.
On a more local level the Government has agreed to help the development of two proposed new wind farms by giving them credit for the clean energy they would produce.
By allocating climate change "carbon credits" to the proposed farms the Government will help ensure they are economically viable.
The projects are TrustPower's proposed 36 megawatt (MW) extension of its existing 32MW Tararua wind farm and a new 40-80MW wind farm proposed by Meridian. They will roughly triple New Zealand's current wind generation capacity of just under 40MW.
These wind farms could be commissioned in 2004 and 2005, helping to meet New Zealand's need for new electricity generation capacity in a sustainable way.
Electricity from these wind farms will avoid some gas or coal-fired generation, with its associated greenhouse gas emissions. That is clearly in New Zealand's interests, but the initial costs mean that the wind farms would probably not proceed without the credits the Government is offering.
Added to this is Genesis Energy's plans to extend its Martinborough Hau Nui wind farm and I'm pleased to hear that Carterton may possibly support a Waiohine man's efforts to get smaller locally-produced wind turbines into the district.
Briefly my congratulations to Wairarapa District Health Board and Mana Whenua on the signing of their health agreement last week. It is a step ahead towards more Māori input into health services.
In another initiative Wairarapa Primary Health Nurses Group is to get $550,000 over the next three years to improve public access to health.
This forms part of the $7.1 million Primary Health Care Nursing Innovations Fund and is part of $400 million of new money to begin implementing the Primary Health Care Strategy over the next three years.
My grudging congratulations to the Swiss team Alinghi for winning the Americas Cup. While the result is disappointing for Team NZ and New Zealand in general, we had a good innings in holding the cup and we certainly have the talent to win in the future.
I am interested to know if you think the Government should sponsor a future race, provide the more than $5 million it has promised to retain our talent or whether they should be left to sink or swim on their own.
Please email responses to gbeyer@wise.net.nz or post to PO Box 913, Masterton.
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