Government Superannuation Fund Amendment Bill (No 2)

on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Government Superannuation Fund Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. The bill removes an anomaly that unfairly deprives around 800 widows of pensions from the Government Superannuation Fund. It is our second attempt to do this. A member’s bill that was introduced by a former colleague, Jill White, when Labour was in Opposition, was defeated by the then National Government. This time we will succeed. Under the Government Superannuation Fund’s old general scheme, eligibility for the widows pension is suspended if the widow remarries, and it remains suspended for the life of the new marriage. That is a hangover from the old male breadwinner concept, and is out of step with current social mores, so I am pleased that we are now removing it from our statute book.

This bill was introduced in May last year, and has been caught in the Government’s heavy legislative programme, but any inconvenience to those who stand to benefit is temporary only, as the bill, once passed, will apply retrospectively from 1 July last year. This bill was reported back from the Finance and Expenditure Committee in September. The committee has recommended only a small technical change—to remove an ambiguity in clause 4. Otherwise, the bill is unchanged. It removes the inequalities in the treatment of members by, firstly, repealing the provisions of the principal Act that suspend the payments of benefits to a spouse in the event that he or she remarries, and providing for the restoration of suspended benefits to spouses who have remarried. Secondly, it aligns the allowances paid to children of deceased members by replacing the fixed annual allowance prescribed in the old scheme with the inflation-adjusted allowance provided for in the new scheme.

Around 47,000 people receive Government Superannuation Fund pensions. Of those, 12,000 are surviving spouses, and of those, about 800—all widows—may be affected by the bill. A very small number of children—about 19—are affected by the change to the child allowances. There are no non-regulatory options available to fix the problems that the bill seeks to remedy. Amendments to the legislation include clause 2—the Act comes into force on 1 July 2002. Clause 3 specifies that the purpose of the Act is, firstly, to entitle the spouse of a contributor under Parts 2, 5, or 6 of the principal Act to be paid an annuity after remarriage; secondly, to restore annuities currently suspended after remarriage; and, thirdly, to align cost of living adjustments to children’s allowances paid under Parts 2, 5, and 6 of the principal Act with those paid under Part 2A.

Clause 4 amends section 45 of the principal Act. The effect of that amendment is that the remarriage of the spouse of a deceased contributor does not affect that person’s entitlement to the annuity, and the payment of annuities currently suspended will resume with effect from 1 July 2002 as if those annuities had not been suspended.

Clause 5 amends section 47 of the principal Act by requiring that all children’s allowances under the old scheme must be calculated in the same way as children’s allowances under the new scheme. The effect is to increase the allowance from $78 a year to $2,414 a year.

I commend the bill to the House.

I shall start by correcting something that the Minister said when moving the second reading of the bill. In fact, the bill did not go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee; it went to the Government Administration Committee. I remember that, because when the first reading occurred, there was discussion across the House—

💬 Jill Pettis: National still voted against it.

No, we voted for it. Jill Pettis, a whip, does not seem to remember the history. I remember the history quite clearly, as I spoke in the first reading and argued that the bill should have been referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. But the Government of the day, for reasons known only to itself—and reasons that Michael Cullen was not prepared to share with the House—sent the bill to the Government Administration Committee. I am pleased to see it back here, with minor amendments. As we read it for the second time in the House today, it certainly has the support of the National Party caucus.

I recall a meeting in July last year when Lady McCombs—for those who do not know, Lady McCombs is the widow of the Hon Sir Terence McCombs, who was a respected member of Parliament for Lyttelton for many years. She came and saw me—

💬 Rod Donald: She is a great supporter of the single transferable vote.

She is also a great supporter of the Labour Party, I might add. But she still bothered to come and see me, and I appreciated the opportunity of meeting her and other representatives who were dramatically affected by this issue. At the meeting, which was held shortly after the calling of the snap election in 2002, she asked whether the National Party would be prepared to support the legislation. I gave her an assurance that we would, and I am pleased to be part of the second reading when we further deliver on the promise that I gave to Lady McCombs.

The purpose of the bill has been outlined by the Minister, the Hon Margaret Wilson. It removes an inequity that has existed for some time, which occurred in 1985 in the time of the previous Government. It removes an inequity in the way widows and widowers are treated, and I am pleased to say that it will be retrospective to 1 July 2002. But I am concerned about the timing of the legislation. It has taken a long time to wind its way through the process, and then be back before the House for the second reading debate. I am far from convinced by the Hon Margaret Wilson’s excuse for that, which was that the Government has a heavy legislative workload. This legislation could have passed through very quickly. It has widespread support in the House. Margaret Wilson argues that it affects very few people. She gave the numbers from the select committee report—about 800 widows and 19 children. Yes, by anybody’s standard, that is a very small number of people, but that is not the point.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: It’s the principle.

It is more than the principle. This issue is a very big issue for that small number of people, and every week that goes by, they want not just the promise that the legislation will be passed, and not just the fact that it will be retrospectively dated back to 1 July 2002. They want to see the law changed, and they—

💬 Rod Donald: It will be by Thursday, and it would have been passed today if ACT had not denied leave for its remaining stages.

I do not think for one minute that it is fair for Rod Donald to blame ACT for the legislative programme of the Government. Dr Michael Cullen, who sponsors the bill, is in charge of the legislative programme—and it is just a nonsense for Rod Donald, who has been here for a couple of terms, to suggest that Ken Shirley is in charge of the legislative programme. Dr Michael Cullen is the person who decides how important this legislation is. Is it more important than the Holidays Bill, which has just had its first reading? To people like Lady McCombs, it definitely is. Rod Donald should not blame Ken Shirley; he should blame the person who is making a mess of the legislative programme and is not prepared to get his priorities right. Instead of chipping in, he should talk to his mate on the other side of the House and make sure that we get the legislative programme organised so that this legislation is passed in a timely fashion. I say that in all seriousness, because when small bills that require inequities to be fixed come before the House, it is incumbent on all members of Parliament—particularly when there is such widespread support for the legislation—to get on and actually do the job. It is not a matter of playing politics with it; it is a matter simply of reorganising the schedule, reorganising the Order Paper, and making sure that we get the legislation passed.

There is little more that I can add to the legislation at this time. A small number of people are affected, but, I repeat, for them it is a very big issue. I am pleased to be part of the second reading debate and to support the bill.

I am very pleased to signal United Future’s support for the Government Superannuation Fund Amendment Bill (No 2), and I urge its speedy passage through the House. I am strongly in favour of correcting the obvious injustice that denies spouses’ annuities to widows or widowers who remarry.

I am delighted that United Future MPs are actually allowed to use the “m” word—that is “marriage”—in this House, because I understand that the word has been carefully expunged from the policy manifestos of both the Labour Party and the National Party. I find that tragic, and against the criteria of observable reality and common sense, incomprehensible. After all, the great majority of New Zealand adults are currently married, and marriage—be it for the first, second, or third time—is still immensely popular. This bill is before the House because many widows, widowers, and divorced people continue to remarry, and it is great that they do, because there is now a veritable library of information and social science that shows that marriage, with all its imperfections and failures, is still as good as it gets for most of the adult members of the human race. All the studies show that, on average, spouses—to use the language of the bill; or partners, the terminology that is more common today—are the happiest human beings, with the highest household incomes and the best health.

Those are the kinds of issues that I came into Parliament to promote, and if marriage is a key, then all of us need to begin to talk it up. That does not mean, of course, that the single, the divorced, or the gay are regarded as somehow second-class. As far as United Future is concerned, all people are welcome and, by their very presence, enrich all of us. Each of us in our own way makes a contribution to the health of New Zealand, its families, and its communities. Let us put this bill through in record time.

I take pleasure in rising and speaking on this bill on behalf of my New Zealand First colleagues, like Mr Jim Peters and Mr Dail Jones who are with us in the House today.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Give us some substance.

Mr Brownlee should not worry; I will give the House some substance, unlike the National Party over there, which is shrinking by the day. New Zealand First supports this bill. I agree with Mr Carter, the National speaker, who was happy that the bill is retrospective to 1 July 2002; New Zealand First is very supportive of that fact, as well. New Zealand First is also supportive of the aim of the bill, which is to amend the Government Superannuation Fund Act of 1956, to repeal the provisions of the Act that suspend the payment of benefits to widows or widowers in the event of remarriage, and to provide for the restoration of suspended benefits under those provisions.

New Zealand First is also supportive of the change to the allowances paid to children of deceased members under the old scheme by replacing the prescribed fixed annual allowance with an inflation-adjusted allowance, as provided for in the new scheme. New Zealand First supports good legislation, and it opposes bad legislation, unlike some parties in this House that just oppose for the sake of opposing. [Interruption] I do not know what that Labour member said when she interjected, but New Zealand First is a party that is sensible and will support any legislation that is sensible and common-sense. I am very glad to speak on behalf of my New Zealand First colleagues. We do support the second reading of this bill.

I rise in support of this bill, and I find it somewhat ironic that we are even debating a bill that will cost as little as $2 million yet will provide for the widows of 1,200 people who are deprived because of an anomaly in the previous legislation. The fact that someone should remarry and lose their benefit seems to me to be quite iniquitous and without any basis for opposition. For those reasons I support the bill.

ACT New Zealand certainly supports this bill. It also welcomes its speedy passage. In the light of the speeches that we have had from all the parties thus far, the Minister who began the debate on this bill today really cannot get away with what she said. I heard her comment; she said that the bill had been held up by the heavy legislative programme of the Government. This bill is very simple and very clear. Its purpose is to remove an inequity that has been on the statute book. It was, I think, probably introduced inadvertently in 1985, but this Government has been in office for over 3 years, and it has had ample opportunity to address this situation. It has been languishing at the bottom of the Order Paper. The Minister had the temerity to come to the House and say that the busy legislative programme had been the reason that the bill had been delayed. I can only assume that she was being sarcastic. I do not think she was sincere in saying that. Perhaps it was her little joke with the House, because it is one big joke.

When we look at the nonsense legislation that this Government has passed in its last term, and continues to pass in this term—things like the renationalisation of accident compensation, doing away with the Employment Contracts Act, the Local Government Act, and to increase taxation—all of those measures destroy the fundamentals of the New Zealand economy. The Minister says that those bad policies that the Government was just so keen to take the time of this House to legislate for had priority over a very simple measure to remove the inequities between widows and widowers in this bill that we now have before the House.

We heard Rod Donald try to blame the ACT party for the delay. That is rather comical, because we wholeheartedly support this measure. We cannot understand why it was not introduced 3 years ago. The inequity has been there for a considerable length of time. This Government stands condemned for the time that it has taken to address this very important measure. I do not propose to take any more of the House’s time, other than to reconfirm ACT’s commitment to support the removal of this inequity.

The Green Party is pleased to support this bill. Indeed, it seems that every party in the House wants to support it. Therefore, I invite the Government to seek leave at the end of the report back for the Committee stage and the third reading to take place today. I proposed that course of action at the Business Committee a couple of weeks ago, given the non-controversial nature of this bill. If my recollection is correct, I believe that it was ACT that actually blocked that procedure being taken. I would like to invite Mr Shirley not to oppose leave if the Government so chooses to seek it.

As a number of speakers have pointed out, the Minister in particular, this bill deals with an issue of equity, and it overcomes discrimination against people who choose to remarry. I guess that is a change, because it is usually the other way round where discrimination takes place—people who are not married and who live in relationships analogous to marriage, such as myself, are the ones often discriminated against. But in this case we have a situation where those who are surviving spouses of former public servants find themselves in a situation that if they remarry they would lose their entitlements. So it is good that we are fixing that situation.

I must say it is a pleasant change for the Green Party to support this bill. The last time a Government superannuation fund bill came to the House the Green Party was the only party to oppose it. I am very sorry that our concerns raised at the time that the Government Superannuation Bill (No 1) came to the House have been proved chillingly accurate. As we now know, the Government has lost $380 million so far—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member will come back to the bill.

I am coming back to that. The Government has so far lost $380 million in unrealised losses.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That is out of order. The member cannot refer to that when talking about this bill. The member will please come to this bill.

I would like to say to those surviving spouses—and according to the bill there are 12,000 of them—that they need not worry about the concerns that I have expressed about those losses, because they will not affect their pension in any way whatsoever once it has been restored to them. The losses are something that the taxpayer will have to pick up, not the beneficiaries of the Government Superannuation Fund. The issue I am concerned about, about those losses, is not one that any beneficiary, or, for that matter, any person who currently contributes to the Government Superannuation Fund, needs to worry about. Of course we all need to worry about it as taxpayers, but that is another issue to be debated at another time.

I look forward to the speedy passage of this bill. It would be an ideal situation if we could deal with all remaining stages today. I say that as a member of a party that is very keen on proper process being conducted in this House, but in this particular instance, when the whole Parliament supports this bill, it makes a nonsense of the parliamentary process to drag out the final three stages over 3 days.

Nobody wants this bill to be dragged out. I am pleased that common sense has prevailed and that there seems to be universal support for this bill. In 1992 National voted against this bill, but it has had a change of heart. I am pleased that we have learnt about its change of heart. I support this bill, and commend it to the House.

National supports this bill. It is worth picking up on the point that the Hon Ken Shirley made. This bill has sat on the Order Paper for a very long time. The Government has not seen it as any sort of a priority at all. No doubt Government members have gone around the countryside spooking up audiences, getting them a little bit agitated about the situation, and saying: “As soon as we can get through it we will.” The Government has had lots and lots of opportunities. We have had plenty of occasions when the House has been in urgency, when, as Mr Donald said, the bill could have been put through all of its stages. In the last 4 years we have had numerous occasions where the House has lifted either before 6 o’clock or before 10 o’clock. It would have been very easy for the Leader of the House to slip this on to the Order Paper, knowing full well that he had the support of all parties here. The House needs to stick to the agreement that was reached last week in the Business Committee and let the bill go through stage by stage this week. At the end of the day it will not affect the date from which the payout to these people is available.

I want to pick up on a comment made by Mr McNair. He thought that it was appropriate for him to give the House a bit of a history lesson. A history lesson for him would be that some 5 or 6 years ago there was a member in this House who brought a member’s bill forward to deal with this particular issue—Jill White from Palmerston North. That bill did not go through at the time, because there were a number of things in it that probably caused a bit of a problem. But let me tell Mr McNair that it was the leader of New Zealand First, the Treasurer of the day, who exercised the veto effectively, although not formally on that occasion. The high and mighty attitude that New Zealand First has displayed today is somewhat an effort in false piety. If Mr McNair would like to apologise to the National Party for his ruthless comments, then I would be prepared to yield to him now.

As I said, this is an interesting bill, and we support it. I have had widows in my electorate office who were in the situation of not being able get more than the half-pension, and were facing the prospect in the latter years of life—in their 60s—of remarrying and losing all the income stream that they had. That seems to be fundamentally unfair. The bill addresses that, and I am very pleased for those constituents of mine who will benefit from it. At the end of the day we are talking about contributions that have been made from their household income, and in many other laws that household income is communal property belonging to them both. This puts that to right.

Bill read a second time.