Don't Spend it all at Once

The 1977 Budget was presented to the House of Representatives on July 21 and shortly after the Prime Minister resumed his seat, political commentators were describing his effort as a "meat and potatoes" budget. All very nice for those people who can still afford meat and potatoes — students will remember this Budget as the "Bread and Water Budget".

The blend of economic remedies prescribed for the ailing economy, and announced by the Prime Minister, illustrate that the Government's conception of sound policies bear as much relation to reality as letting blood does to modem medicine. They also illustrate an insensitivity to the plight of students during the present economic crisis which the Government's mismangement has produced.

No amount of deceptive humbug spoken by any Minister, or any Member of Parliament, can conceal the fact that the Government has screwed students. This [unclear: situation] will not be remedied until students have booted the backsides of every Minister and every Government Member of Parliament from one of the country to the other because of their appalling failure to act in students' interests.

What has the Budget given students that they didn't have before The short answer is bugger all, and that answer does not sacrifice accuracy for brevity. The Government has moved in a barely perceptible direction towards liberalising some of the conditions of award of the bursary. The Government has reneged on its election promise to increase the bursary "to take account of increased costs", and it is this failure that will cause the biggest backlash.

Strangely, the Budget section on bursaries opens with a blatant lie, stating that "substantial progress has been made towards implementing a reformed bursary". In fact, the Government's progress on this question has been [unclear: remarkably] slow, especially when compared with the great haste in setting up the National Superannuation scheme. The Government took 10 months after coming into office to get out the regulations which govern the bursary system. They took 12 months to call a conference on on tertiary bursaries. It took them a further 7 months to act on the recommendations of the conference for an immediately effective increase in bursaries. And they did nothing.

From this beginning the section on bursaries goes on to become a cosmetic job that would surely rival the sartorial excesses of Zsa Zsa Gabor. While stating that "the basis of bursary entitlements to bursary assistance will be similar in technical institutes and universities", the Government has failed to give technical institute students the right to a second course of study at a technical institute. If university students can do second courses at university, and tech students can't do second courses at technical institutes, how then are the entitlements similar?

The provision made for transfers between technical institutes and universities is minor and, for a few students, a useful concession. But, the only reason for this measure's inclusion is that it conceals the lack of action on other questions. There are some more components of the elaborate camouflage that the Government has used to conceal its sorry history of lies and distortions on bursaries. The time limit between a first course and a subsequent course has been lifted. Very nice for a few students who would otherwise be kept from having bursaries, but of no value for those students already at varsity who are having a tough time making ends meet.

Some of the problems for technical institute students have been worked out, and students in tertiary units of secondary schools have been given the bursary in recognition of their tertiary student status. Some relief is given for technical institute students who have costly courses which require heavy expenditure on travel, equipment or materials. The nature and extent of this support is not defined but an intelligent guess, on the basis of earlier provision of assistance for university students in costly courses, would be that this provision might only be a bit of useless window-dressing. For all students next year, a $2 a week increase in bursary values will apply from term one. This increase is equivalent to 28 cents a day, barely enough to buy the daily papers or a healthy bowl of [unclear: muesli].

Perhaps what is most significant about the Budgetary announcement on bursaries is what was not announced. The Government has not acceded to a request of the representative conference for an increase in bursary values from the beginning of 1977 to compensate for inflation in 1976. Well, we knew that in April 1977. What we know now is that the Government does not intend to [unclear: compe sate] students for the effects of inflation this year. They will do it next year — when it will be more convenient for them to have an increase, and announce another for implementation in 1979, due to the proximity of the Election. The Labour Government tried the same old vote catcher on students in 1975, and in the General Election of that year learned that if any Government wanted to buy students' votes, they had to do it with something more than a poorly assembled sham.

Repeatedly, in meetings with the national representatives of university and technical institute students, the Minister of Education has spelt out the difference between a cost of living increase in bursaries (which is what the students' representatives want) and an increase to compensate for increased costs (which is what the Government wants to give us). In either case, the question arises about the measure of cost increases that will be employed for the purpose of calculating the actual increases.

Deficit budgeting is a fact of life in Government affairs and in large international transactions. The Government seems intent on developing ing this principle as an important as pect of student life. Of course, the difference between income and expenditure has been with us for a long time. As Micawber so rightly observed; "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."That principle operates these days as much as it did when the comment was made, if not more. However, Micawber refers to wilful overexpenditure, and not to a situation where students, and the low paid, have to perpetually overspend and skimp on essentials to retain the basic services and access to other goods and services that make life page 2 possible. There is no room for frills in the budget of the average student, the wage earner and the state beneficiary because the Government keeps dragging more and more from them to keep the economy going. The increases in service charges for post and energy hit these three groups; the removal of subsidies on bread and milk hit these three groups and the continuing runaway price increases keep hitting these three groups.

The Students' Association put to the Government in April 1976 the proposal that a special index should be worked out to measure the price increases for the "basket of goods" that students ordinarily buy. This index would take account of cost increases for particular commodities particularly used by students, such as text-books, that are not accounted for in the general Consumer Price Index. The Government has refused to accept the Student Price Index as a measure of increasing costs for the purpose of calculating the size of increases in bursaries. They have also refused to use the general Consumer Price Index for that purpose and cannot suggest any other measure for cost increases that students have to bear. In a meeting with the Minster of Education on 31 May 1977, a representative of NZUSA asked Mr Gandar about the nature of the indicator used by the Government for working out increases in bursaries. His first response was "Oh, its an entirely subjective matter....", and he then corrected himself stating instead that the measure is objective but making it perfectly clear that he was at [unclear: a loss] to know how to explain that there was no objective basis and that his first statement was the correct one.

The real way the Government calculates bursary increases is to leave three years between the last increase and the next proposed one, make provision for all other policy (good, bad and indifferent); look at what money is left, divide it by the number of students receiving bursaries and to announce the result as an increase calculated on the basis of an "objective measure".

Last Monday, the MP for Palmerston North, John Lithgow, spoke to a lively forum at Massey University and agreed that, if students were not happy after the Budget, he would return to answer their questions.