National welcomes report opposing export education levy

National Tertiary Education Spokesperson Simon Power welcomes today’s Victoria University report on the Government discussion document on the export education levy, which concludes that the levy is simply not justified.

Professor Neil Quigley’s report support’s National’s view that there is no evidence of market failure in the export education sector.

“This report backs up National’s call for the tax to be removed from the Tertiary Education Reform Bill. National believes the ‘Export Education Levy’ is completely unjustified, and that its introduction was unfair.

“The levy will not only impact on the profitability of the sector, but the inevitable increase in fees to pay for it will reduce the competitiveness of New Zealand courses.

“I note that Prof Quigley’s report describes the Government’s discussion document (produced after it had introduced the levy to give the impression it was consulting with the industry) as “one of the most flawed and poorly informed pieces of policy analysis ever used to create a tax or levy in New Zealand.”

“Prof Quigley’s report says there are fears the levy will simply shore-up the poor-performing parts of the sector, at the expense of the quality players. National agrees with this and this is one of the reasons the Government must remove this tax it has unfairly introduced,” Mr Power said.

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