Lawrence Xu-Nan: Green Party's Overseas New Zealander's Spokesperson comments on student loan debt fears

The Greens are warning student debt is stopping New Zealanders coming home for Christmas.

Its survey of 400 expat Kiwis found 71 percent were overdue on payments - and 82 percent are worried about their loan.

The Green Party's calling for a cross-Parliament inquiry into the repayment scheme for Kiwis living overseas.

Spokesperson Lawrence Xu-Nan told Ryan Bridge that inflexible repayment schemes, interest rates and penalty fees are driving people away.

He says these are people with skills gained overseas we want to eventually attract back to contribute to New Zealand.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the Greens have surveyed four hundred x Pact kiwi's
and they say they've found eighty two percent of them
are so worried about their student loan debt they're not
coming home for Christmas. Seventy one percent of kiwis overseas
with student debt are overdue on their repayments. Lawrence shu
Nan is the Green Party's overseas New Zealander's spokesperson, Lawrence

(00:21):
Good afternoon, Oh killer, Ryan, How did you survey them?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So we send out basically a form for people to
various I guess various people overseas, with a special focus
in UK and Australia because those other areas the two
regions that has most of our New Zealanders being overseas.

(00:48):
And then we collated some of these information and package
into a report. But a lot of the data that
you're seeing that you mentioned before, in terms of seventy
one percent of obviously student loan borrowers with overdue payment
actually from education counts. That's something that's from our own
domestic and official data.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
But your survey, how do you find these people overseas?
Are they Green boaters? Are they on your mailing list.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
No, we've actually used in many cases, as we see
with other things, we use social media to reach out
to people and to say that this is something that
we're conducting. So it's very much we're trying our best
to make sure that it is as independent as possible.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, and what do you want to happen? I mean
eighty two percent of Kiwi's worried about this, so worried
about this student loan debt. They're not coming home for Christmas?
What do we do with that information?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I think the main thing with the report is that
we have identified an issue and now we're asking for
a non parlatan solution to it as an inquiry to
the Solidt Committee.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Right, is it a problem that they're not coming home?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well? I think anyone who you know, obviously New Zealanders
that if they want to be reunited with their families
and with their parents and their loved ones in Autio
in New Zealand, they should absolutely pay their dis well
for a lot of them, as you seeing the report,
that it's sometimes outside of their own control why the
debt actually accrued and also it's you know, expanded to

(02:09):
such an extent.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
How is what proportion of them reported that that was
out of their control, the fact that they got the.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Debt, I think in terms of film of the data
that you saw and also our official data that we
have ballooned in terms of our longt.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
No, sorry, just coming back, sorry, line's just coming back
to that point because I think it's important.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
One.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
You've said that there are people who have got the
debt because it's out and it's out of their control
that they have got the debt. What exactly about it
was out of their control?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Part of that is a couple of this is why
they were asking for inquiry, because theres a number of loopholes.
Number one, one of the things we look at is
the fact that sometimes when they're going overseas, they didn't
realize or couldn't pay for a small amount of loan
that they have, but over time it compounded in terms
of arrears and now it comes becomes after twenty years

(02:57):
something that becomes unaffordable. That's one perspective. The other perspective,
so they simply are not they didn't by I idea,
they have a loan.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Did they tell them where their address was? You know,
then where they've moved to. I mean, there'll be people
listening to this line. So just think this is absolute
clap trap. And these people got it did They went
overseas because they didn't want to pay it back and
now they don't want to come home for Christmas and
that's their own fault. Why should we care?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I think I think that's also an unfair analysis in
some ways, because you know, there's no data to actually
also say that people who have a crusague that don't
want to pay it off, you'll find that in you know,
a lot.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Of the data speaks for itself. If they wanted to
pay it off, they would. I mean, are they overseas poor?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
You know?

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Are they homeless overseas? Or are they going to the pub.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
For some of they're genuinely is Hutcheon. So one of
the ones we have god is someone who couldn't vence
university here, moved to Australia because of domestic violence and
homelessness and then trying to find a job and then
they didn't realize that their debt would be increased to
the certain extent. Also, bearing that we have this fantasy
that people who are going overseas are often going to
places which have better you know, salaries, et cetera. Whereas

(04:08):
you get people who simply going overseas wanting to expand
their horizon and then do something different and you learn
different skills, and those people from Cambodia, from Hungary don't
necessarily earn the same amount as if we do here
in Altiroo on New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
So why would you move?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Because frankly, there's simply isn't enough job here. And this
is one of the reasons why this is such a
crucial issue. We're currently at a nine year high for
unemployment and we're going to be seeing more and more
young people, and these are young people with extremely high
student dead You know, if you talk to young people today,
a number of them will have that easily over five
hundred or over fifty thousand dollars, and they are going

(04:45):
to be slapped with an increase in terms of sting
along an increase in terms of the areas and the
long the interest rate on their debt. And these are
the people that we want to eventually want to attract
back to al Taua, bring the skills they have from
over and contribute back to our society. But right now
we're creating barriers and they're being double panelized.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Lawrence, appreciate your time this afternoon, thanks for being with.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Me, and thank you so much, really appreciate it and.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Hope you have a merry Christmas, you too, Lawrence Chunan,
who's the Green Party's overseas New Zealand as a spokesperson.
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