Govt may not adopt graduate tax—Dyson

Press, 29 September 1988, Page 5

Govt may not adopt graduate tax —Dyson

By

GLEN PERKINSON

in Wellington

The proposal to tax university graduates may not be considered at all by the Government, says the Labour Party’s president, Ms Ruth Dyson.

The Government might not even take the proposal, included in the Hawke report on postcompulsory education and training, to the party’s policy committee, she said yesterday. Under the statement of intent agreed to by the Government at its party’s recent conference, all matters contrary to the party’s manifesto must be referred to consultation. Ms Dyson was confident that process would be upheld. But the controversial graduate tax might not be included on the policy committee’s agenda when it discussed the Hawke report’s contents, she said. The report is not a Government report and has no policy standing until ratified by the Government — something it might not bother doing, Ms Dyson said. The member of Parliament for Sydenham, Mr Jim Anderton, was vociferous in his opposition to the 20 per cent charge on university study. He said it breached one of the party’s original policy statements adopted in 1919. That policy said that education should be “universal, secular and free” from “kindergarten to university.” “The Hawke report is

the antithesis of that,” Mr Anderton said yesterday. It is believed the party will not accept the graduate tax. The author of the proposal for cutting State funding of tertiary education from 99 per cent to 80 per cent, Professor Gary Hawke said of the possible rejection of his proposal that the “level of service” in New Zealand’s tertiary education institutes would continue to fall below standards of other Western nations. “There will be a reduction of service that they provide, like poorer teaching, because there won’t be enough funding

to meet the increased demand,” he said. He believed the public purse would not be able to meet the cost of an increased demand for tertiary education, and so the beneficiaries of that education should help pay for it. Mr Anderton said he was incensed at any move to develop user-pays for “essential social services.” It was a negative move and would drive disadvantaged students away from tertiary studies rather than encourage them, as the proposal anticipated. It would create an antisocial trend where people who had paid for their education said, “This is mine; I’ve paid for it so I’ll do what I like with it,” Mr Anderton said. This could mean that those who used their education to help the community would no longer do so. “There won’t be a feeling of duty and obligation to the community but a selfish and individual approach taken by graduates,” Mr Anderton said. There were also many practical difficulties in the proposal. “Education is not just a business proposition. The State has a responsibility to provide free education from kindergartens to universities,” he said.