KEY POINTS:
Tauranga National Party candidate Simon Bridges' age generally isn't his greatest political asset but it was when he talked to year 12 and 13 students at Mount Maunganui College today.
At this morning's assembly principal Terry Collett urged students - about a quarter of whom will be 18 before election day - to work harder and get better qualifications to face an increasingly difficult economic environment.
He warned universities would cap numbers and those who left school without qualifications faced competition for low skill jobs.
The crowd warmed up, Mr Bridges, 32, told students that many of them had to make an adult decision on November 8.
He said his party had a new younger generation of leaders and National wanted to provide a better future where the students would want to stay and work in New Zealand.
Brent Robinson, whose 18th birthday is the day before the election, asked where the money came from for National's student loan policy in which a National government would add 10 per cent to any early student loan repayment.
Mr Bridges said that was money the government would no longer have to pay interest on and the cost was not too high.
Another topic was about universal student allowances - which the Labour Government announced as policy yesterday.
"This policy is reckless... it shackles your future because you have to labour on to pay back this $210 million as a tax payer plus a large amount of interest."
Emma Rose Luxton, aged 17, asked what National would do after deputy leader Bill English ruled out an universal allowance but promised a more generous policy to come.
Mr Bridges said National would make allowances more generous than they were right now.
After the assembly Ms Luxton said Mr Bridges was better than incumbent MP Bob Clarkson.
"He seems more up-to-date than Bob Clarkson because we had him last election and it was quite embarrassing."
Mr Robinson was quite impressed.
"I thought he came across really well. He certainly changed a few ideas about things."
He thought he would probably vote Labour - because of interest-free student loans and the universal allowance but also because his parents voted that way - but hadn't made up his mind.
Ms Luxton was concerned about the environment and would be voting Green.
"The economic downturn concerns me for my future but at the moment my future is (affected by) the global situation in crisis with global warming which everyone seems to have forgotten about and that annoys me."
She said she knew a lot of people who were voting National. "Just because they want to get rid of Labour and I don't think that's a good enough reason to vote for them."
The students were confident their school mates who were eligible would vote.
"We have classes where we discuss it all the time. Everyone's pretty up to date with it."
- NZPA
