Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I support the IRD's crackdown on student debt

Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

Well, here’s some good news if you don't like the idea of people freeloading on other taxpayers - the IRD has finally started properly cracking down on people who don't want to pay back their student loans.

They have doubled the size of the team that chases Kiwis living overseas to pay the money back, they've got the debt collectors in Australia involved and when any of these people with debt over $1000 comes in, 100 percent of them can expect to hear from the IRD.

And - this is something I particularly like - if the debt is big enough and these people have shown they really don't want to pay their money back, then they don't get to leave the country again.

So if they come in for a holiday or to visit family- nope, they're stuck here because they owe us some money.

And it looks like this crackdown is starting to work, because 7000 names have been given to the debt collectors in Australia - and about 1000 of them are now paying back their debt.

I don’t have any sympathy for these people and the crack down that’s coming at them. Because we are talking about a lot of money - about $2.2 billion. And as we know, this country's broke.

And these are not kids we’re talking about, these aren’t predominately 21-year-old graduates off an OE just forgetting to pay back their loans.

Most of the debt is owed by people in their 40s and 50s. Come on, you haven't paid your debt back in 40 years? By then - it's deliberate, isn't it?

These guys are the ultimate free-loaders. They get a nice education for free and then while the rest of us paid our money back and stayed to contribute to the country and pay taxes, they've taken that free education and skipped the joint and went and lived somewhere else and didn't pay that money back. 70 percent of them aren't paying anything at all.

If anybody should be paying up, it's these guys. And I'm very pleased to see the IRD is finally getting our money back so we can use it to build this place back up again.

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