Members of the Rebel Caucus have slammed Labour's Tertiary Education policy, released on Wednesday.

The executive Caucus of Prebble's Rebels said that the policy is a shallow bribe, which will result in students being punished with high taxes for the rest of their lives because of university study.

"The public have been outraged over recent years at students taking out taxpayer provided loans for holidays to Bali. Under Labour, taxpayers would be providing students an interest-free loan to invest, as over half of tertiary students never need the loan for tertiary expenses" said National Rebel President Clint Heine.

"Every student will sieze the opportunity to take out the maximum loan, even to just put it in the bank and earn interest."

"But perhaps the greatest indictment on the Labour Party is how it plans to punish the graduates and tall poppies of this country with high taxes. The message Labour is sending to students with this policy is that they should make financial hay while the sun shines, because after graduation they'll be paying off the Labour Party's credit card debt" Mr Heine said.

The Rebels said it was, however, encouraging that the policy included no mention of compulsory student unionism.

"Labour had hinted that their policy would forcibly overrule students at those universities who voted for voluntary membership of students associations, but that particular piece of lunacy has been left to the Alliance" said Clint Heine.

"While a student stays at university they do not have to face the reality of how much their course is costing the taxpayer. Labour is willing to place yet another burden on the taxpayer as middle and low income earners carry the full cost of students taking out loans they do not need."

ENDS

For more information, contact:
Clint Heine (+64) (03) 4779442
president@rebels.org.nz

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