Academia Brainless Over Tertiary Savings Scheme

"If comments emanating from areas of the tertiary education sector are anything to go by, the future for New Zealand looks very bleak indeed," says Peter Osborne, the Libertarianz Spokesman to Deregulate Education today, "and I don't mean the reactions to the Te Wananga o Aotearoa debacle either."

Mr Osborne is responding to the various reactions, for and against, to the Government's proposed Tertiary Education Savings Scheme. While he believes the scheme is merely "election quack-speak from Minister Mallard" and will never get off the ground, it is the reaction that most concerns Osborne.

He says, "While representatives from the Otago and New Zealand University Students Associations are predictably disgusted by the suggestion of this scheme, they completely miss the point as to why it is so loathsome. These ambassadors for compulsory student union membership believe they are entitled to an education for which taxpayers are made to pay compulsorily. Speaking for themselves rather than, I suspect, for the students they claim to represent, these student politicians say that rather than have their parents save up to help them reach their dreams, they would rather the rest of us foot the bill."

"Meanwhile the Vice Chancellors' Committee approval of the savings scheme basically gives the green light to more compulsion as once again the taxpayer will be forced to contribute and it will inhibit those who are already saving for their children privately."

"For God's sake," exclaims Osborne, "Why do these people feel that they have the right to use the state as their agent to force people to comply with, and pay for, their hair-brained ideas? It is this very philosophy that is driving this country into the mire. Education is not a right when it involves the removal of other people's rights.

Mr Osborne concludes, "Libertarianz understand this scam for what it is and when voted into government will set about undoing this shambles. It is tax that screws everything and everybody. Without tax everyone will have double the disposable income that they have now. Saving for education would be easy. Education costs will be considerably cheaper than they are now as educational institutions would also not be paying tax, therefore fees will be hugely reduced. Education will be separated from the state, thus no one would be forced to endure the monumental cock up that New Zealand education is, any longer. Most importantly everyone will be free to really live, secure in the knowledge that those who think that the rest of us owe them something for nothing will no longer have the government's ear."

"It's Enough to Make you Vote Libertarianz!"

ENDS

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