Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. This bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to change the amount of the annual increases in the applicable asset thresholds used in determining the amount that residents in aged residential care are required to contribute to the cost of their care. Current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are replaced with Consumers Price Index indexation of the thresholds. If the resident’s assets are equal to or below the applicable asset threshold, then they qualify for Government funding through the residential care subsidy to meet the cost of their care in a rest home or a continuing care hospital.

This bill is a priority for this Government. It is an important piece of legislation that will ensure that the residential care subsidy is sustainable into the future, particularly as demand for long-term residential care for older people increases. I am pleased to be able to present this bill here today. I commend this bill to the House.

Taloha ni, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you for giving me the call at the first reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Labour will not be supporting this bill at this stage.

We oppose this bill because of the way it has come to the House. We listened very intently to the finance Minister’s speech yesterday, and nowhere in that document could we find any reference to this change. But we do have a bill before the House that will impose a significant change to some of the elderly who are in residential care in New Zealand. So we do not believe that the Government’s process around this has been transparent, and we are not happy that a significant number of people who we believe would want to submit this bill to a select committee hearing on this issue will not have the opportunity to do that, because this bill is being put through this House under urgency.

The Minister, the Hon Paula Bennett, in her contribution—a very brief contribution—did mention that this was a priority for the Government. It is so much of a priority that there was no press release. There was no mention of this in the Budget speech at all. So we wonder why there was not any mention about—

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: It was in a press statement.

I stand to be corrected. There may have been a press statement; we certainly have not seen it. But it was not a priority enough to make it into this document—the Minister of Finance’s speech that he made to the House yesterday.

We have already heard through the media that there is concern around this bill. Roy Reid from Grey Power has already said publicly that he is concerned about the moves that are being made in this bill. We believe that he should have the chance to make a submission to a select committee so he can give his opinion. I am sure that there will be opinions on both sides of the fence, and I did notice that there was a press release yesterday from Martin Taylor from the New Zealand Aged Care Association. So maybe Mr Taylor should also have his opportunity to make his contribution to this. This bill is going to affect a significant number of elderly people, and the fact that it is going to be rushed through this House under urgency, without people getting a chance to make a submission, we think is extremely bad process. It does deal with an issue that is going to be a very important issue going forward for New Zealand, but we do not believe it is a plan, as such, to deal with the increasing age of New Zealand’s population. Again, it is another example of tinkering and a lack of leadership from this National Government.

This bill will affect the amount of money that some of our elderly will be able to have in terms of being able to get a residential care subsidy. So in this Budget, which we had before this House over the last 20 or so hours, we have seen the Government target the very, very young—our paper boys and paper girls—and, now, the very, very old. Although our paper boys and our paper girls may not be of voting age, our elderly certainly are, and certainly their families—their sons and daughters and other family—will be very concerned about some of the measures that are contained in this bill. Again, that is why we believe that the process is wrong and that those concerned families should have a chance to have their say in the select committee process.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, we will not be supporting this bill. The process is bad. It is being rushed through under urgency in this House, not giving the families of those elderly people concerned the opportunity to have their say, not letting Grey Power—a significant lobby group in this country—have its say, and not letting the sector have its say as well. We believe they should have their say. We will not be supporting this bill.

Talofa lava in Samoan Language Week. I rise to support the Minister for Social Development in the first reading of this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I want to thank the Minister, who is sitting in front of me, for bringing this bill into the House. I thank her for her courage, her tenacity, her fortitude. She is bringing not only welfare reforms to this House but this bill as well, and that shows the vision and leadership of this Minister in what is one of the most difficult portfolio areas in Government.

She referred to the Social Security Act 1964 and amending that Act to change the threshold levels. Mr Faafoi asked why we are doing that. Well, he did not listen yesterday afternoon to the Budget speeches. The reason National is bringing these bills to the House is that we are acting responsibly in terms of managing this Government’s finances and delivering better public services in tight financial times. Why is it a priority, Mr Faafoi? It is a priority because, as we all know, the demographics of New Zealand are changing, and as demand for residential care services increases, we need to meet that increased demand with prudence and with sustainable policies. So instead of annual increases the Consumers Price Index will set the threshold. We know that that is consistent with other indexed entitlements, like national superannuation, which is adjusted every year.

It is also to cover up for some of the profligate policies of the last Labour Government, in the early 2000s. It was looking for ways to spend money, and it introduced $10,000 annual increases in this threshold. Once again, it is a bill that delivers on covering up the bad mismanagement of the last Labour Government. What will it do fiscally? Simply, it will save just under $35 million over 4 years. Again, that is a demonstration of this Government’s fiscal prudence and fiscal sustainability, and it has been brought to this House because this Government is about driving our economy back on the road to recovery and back into surplus. I recommend this bill to the House.

As it is Samoan Language Week, fa‘afetai lava.

Thank you for the opportunity to rise to speak to the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The bill amends the thresholds used in determining the amount residents in aged residential care have to contribute towards the costs of their own care. The current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are proposed to be replaced with Consumers Price Index indexation of the thresholds.

This will affect a couple of groups of people. Those in that category are those who have partners and those who do not, whose partners are either in aged residential care or not. Specifically, in clause 7 in Part 2 of the bill we read that schedule 27 is going to be amended, and the threshold—the upper threshold, threshold A—“applies to every resident assessed as requiring care—(a) who has no spouse or partner; or (b) whose spouse or partner is also a resident assessed as requiring care; or (c) whose spouse or partner is not a resident assessed as requiring care but who has elected, under clause 2, to have Threshold A apply to him or her rather than Threshold B.” Threshold B, the second threshold, is a lower threshold and applies to every resident who has a spouse or partner not assessed as requiring residential care and who, for some reason, has opted out of threshold A.

So there will be elderly people facing difficult decisions in changing circumstances whom this policy affects. Members of the families of those people will also be interested in following what is going on here. It is actually a relatively small number of people, and the savings over a number of years are not enormous, but there are some savings. So there is an issue here that should properly be debated. So that sits before us. People eligible for the subsidy pay their income, less certain exempt amounts, for their care, and the residents’ district health board pays the difference between what the residents pay and the contracted cost of their care.

We have seen the Government go after the paper boys in the previous bill; here we see it going after the most vulnerable elderly folk, and we see that these measures are required to be taken under urgency to take the economy to a different level, to turn the economy round. Well, I do not think that is so. I think it is more tinkering by the Government, but it is the kind of tinkering that does actually affect real people. It would be far better, in my view, to have a full and proper process around the progress of this bill, not a process whereby it simply slips through under the veil of urgency, when it is really not the measure that is going to turn the country round. Again, it is not a pro-growth tax policy; it is more tinkering by this Government. If we go through the history of this threshold, asset testing was introduced by the National Government in the 1990s. We can see where it was going with that. Following the 1999 election Labour introduced a big increase in the threshold, and later made sure that $10,000 chunks went in year after year to make sure that that threshold continued to rise. It is clear that National is wanting to reduce it; there is no question about that. Our quibble is really with the process on this matter—our primary quibble—because there is a real, genuine issue that sits behind this.

On the one hand you have got those who have worked hard, saved, and paid down a mortgage, and the incentives for them to do that are that they may well be able to pass on some of that to the next generation. There are many elderly folk out there who are proud of the fact that they have worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, saved, and paid down a mortgage, and they want to pass a little bit of that on to the next generation. So are we discouraging savings here? Is this what is going on here? Is the National Government against savings? Well, it pushed KiwiSaver out in the Budget, so we might be led to conclude that. On the other hand, we have got the issue of intergenerational wealth, and we do have here a subsidy that goes in and around our elderly folk—those folk who do have assets. We have got to ask ourselves, when we have one of the more generous superannuation arrangements in the world, whether this is the right thing to be doing. Is this perhaps a good measure to make sure that we are supporting these people, but not supporting them more than we can afford?

So there is a live debate there, but this Government does not want to have the debate. It does not want to invite people to come in and have their say. That is unfortunate. These people do have real lives, and this measure affects them and it affects their wider families. But for some reason this Government—and Mr Woodhouse is yelling out, because he is one of those people who do not think that old people should have a say on this matter, and do not think that their families should have a say on this matter. It is a real disappointment. The answer is that the process is wrong. This does not need to be done in urgency. It is not going to turn the economy round, Mr Woodhouse, any more than picking the pockets of paper boys and paper girls in Dunedin will turn the economy round. It will not turn the economy round. It is a bill that tinkers, once again, but it is tinkering with real people’s lives.

The Labour Party will not support this bill, because we do not support the process that has been put down. We have a select committee process for a reason, and it is so that we can hear the views and the concerns of the people who will be affected by these measures. That is the proper process, and that should be happening. That should be happening. There is no reason for the National Government to crimp this process back, “crimp” being a word that we associate with the ACT Party, not the National Government necessarily—but occasionally with some others. Let us leave my contribution there for today, but for saying there is a better way of doing this. There are better policies that could be put in place. It is a shame that we are having this debate here in this crimped down, shortened fashion, when the measure affects real lives and it is not going to change the economy. It is not addressing the real issues.

Before I call the next speaker, can I just remind members on my right that when they yell across the Chamber “you” they are referring to me.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Can I begin by remarking on one of the last things that the previous speaker, David Clark, said. He said he would leave his contribution on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill at that for today. But that is kind of the problem, is it not? Today is it.

The reason that has been advanced by the Labour speakers so far for opposing this bill is one of the two substantive reasons that we in the Green Party will also oppose it. The process that is being pursued here is nothing short of abysmal, and shows a certain contempt for the New Zealand public. This is a policy that was not signalled by National prior to the election. It was not signalled by the Government in the months following the election. It was not signalled in the Budget speech. It is the kind of policy that now, today, as we face a bill that is to be progressed through all of its stages today, is going to rob a significant number of New Zealanders of their right to have a say about this issue. Of course, we understand that sometimes, following a Budget, there will be a need for urgency. There will be a need to progress a bill through all of its stages in order to ensure that changes to legislation come into place in a timely way, and that they are not avoided. I am a little surprised, for example, that the next bill that the House debates is not going to be progressed through all of its stages today. I would have thought, on the track record of Governments, that it would be a bill that would go through all of its stages today. But not this one. There is no need. There is no urgency surrounding the matters in this bill. There is no reason why it could not go to a select committee to give New Zealanders the opportunity to have a say about it. That is one of our reasons for opposing this bill. The process that the Government intends to follow is a completely wrong one.

But, unlike the comments of the Labour speakers that I have heard so far, we do not have an equivocal view about whether the measure that is outlined in this bill is a good one or not. We believe that it is entirely wrong. Although some of the media coverage of the bill so far has suggested that it is something of a cosmetic change, in fact, to the asset-testing threshold, we do not believe that to be the case. It is understandable, perhaps, that people will have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, because their opportunity to scrutinise what is planned has been so limited. But the reality is that rather than a cosmetic change, this bill in fact is a complete change of the policy setting around asset testing for aged residential care.

Our policy, the Green Party’s policy, has always been to oppose asset testing for residential care, and I will go into the reasons for that in a moment. But we were certainly heartened by the Labour Government in, I think, the 2002-05 period, having campaigned on removing asset testing, setting about a process—slower than we would have liked, but none the less a progressive process—to remove asset testing. And that is the current policy setting. It is a policy setting towards progressive removal of asset testing for aged residential care. What this bill does is to change that policy setting from eventual removal of asset testing to, instead, freezing the asset-testing threshold at its current level. That is the effect of this bill. It is to freeze the asset-testing threshold where it currently stands. That is a complete change of policy, and we believe that it is one that New Zealanders ought to have had a say about. It is not cosmetic. It is entirely substantive.

The reasons to oppose asset testing are many. Probably the single greatest one is that, in fact, asset testing for aged residential care introduces age-related discrimination in the provision of State care. That has been the argument that has been advanced by Age Concern. It has been advanced by Grey Power. it has been advanced by the Green Party, and it has been advanced by many others. The argument is that this is effectively the only area of care or support from the State that is asset tested, and it is a form of discrimination based on age and it ought not to be.

Secondly, it is especially discriminatory for a couple who own assets collectively but one person of whom requires aged residential care. That is a second form of discrimination that ought to be scrutinised by a select committee but will not be, because of the process being followed around this bill.

The third reason to oppose asset testing is that its effect is capricious. The reality is that those of us who are more resourceful in society will find ways of evading the asset test. Actually, it promotes behaviour to avoid the regime by those who are sufficiently well connected and knowledgable to be able to do so. That is not an appropriate basis for the policy being applied or not. So the effect of asset testing is capricious, and that is a bad principle in law.

The fourth reason—and I certainly heard Dr Clark allude to this in his contribution—is that another effect of an asset-testing regime is that it encourages people to not save. So it actually creates conflicting signals to ageing New Zealanders about whether they ought to be saving for their retirement or not. An asset-testing regime around aged residential care in fact encourages people to spend rather than save. I think it has been a mantra of, I believe, all political parties for quite some time now that that is the polar opposite of the effect that we are trying to encourage in our economy. So for picking up the 170 New Zealanders who will be picked up by this effect in its first year, actually we create an incentive that takes the economy in the wrong direction, which is away from saving and towards greater spending.

The last point that I want to make that is an argument against asset sales—

💬 Hon Member: Asset sales?

—well, it is an argument against asset sales, and maybe I will come to that—or rather, against asset testing for aged residential care, is a point that has been made by Age Concern, and that is the point that as we move to an environment in which we wish to encourage ageing in place, where we want people to be able to remain in their own homes, or home-like environments, for as long as they possible can, we do not want aged residential care to become the norm. What happens with asset testing is that a person who has been living in their own home who moves into aged residential care and is subject to the asset test may well lose, therefore, the asset—which is their own home—that they are most likely to have. Then, should they no longer need residential care and be sufficiently independent to be able to live in their own home again, their own home is no longer there for them to move back into. So asset testing undermines our approach to aged care and to the health of older people.

The last point I want to make at this point in the many debates that we will have over this measure today is that what this measure is about—and the regulatory impact statement makes it clear—is saving money for the Government. And that is because the Government has not allocated sufficient in the health budget for the health services required by New Zealanders. So it is instead taking the money that it needs for the new initiatives from other services. In this case, it is taking it from older New Zealanders, from older New Zealanders who have contributed to the care that they need through a lifetime of work, a lifetime of contribution, and that is unprincipled and wrong.

I was not going to take a call yet in the first reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, but I do think that the call by Dr Clark warrants something of a response. After a very long commentary, which sounded more like a political studies lecture, Dr Clark said two things. Well, he is a bit vexed. On the one hand, he said families should have the ability to pass on assets through the generations, but on the other hand, he asked whether the State should really pay for the care of the elderly when that happens. Well, that is a fair enough question to ask, I think, but Dr Clark needs to come off the fence and tell this House what he actually thinks. It is no longer enough to say “on the one hand, and on the other hand”. MPs are required to hold a view. I look forward in the second reading to hearing what his view is about whether there should be one or the other. But it is actually consistent with the dollar-each-way mantra that Labour has about this.

Remember when we removed the gifting regime last year because it was completely irrelevant and was not working. What Labour members did not tell you in opposition to that legislation was that about 7 years ago, when they were passing regulations around the deprivation clauses in residential care subsidies, they could not bring themselves to allow families to gift off $54,000 to couples. That was not good enough for them. They had to make it $27,000. They completely unhooked the residential care subsidy tests from the gifting policy. This was a stupid policy—stupid policy—but now it does not really matter because the gifting regime has gone. But I suggest to the party on the other side that it needs to stop sitting on the fence, and tell this House what it really thinks about the regime overall, because this change is actually a very sensible way of dealing with the increase.

When house prices are flattening and going down, an inflation adjustment will actually benefit those people in this system, in the short run. What happens in the long run, who knows. [Interruption] Relative to the value of their properties—relative to the value of their properties. I reckon it is an excellent idea, and I support it.

It is a pleasure to take this call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. There are one or two things I want to say about it and about the Budget as a whole. This is a penny-pinching measure, and it is symptomatic of the Government’s whole approach to this Budget. It is making more elderly people in residential care pay more for their residential care, and sooner, by the indexation of asset thresholds. This will save very little. In the year 2012-13 it will save $4.5 million, in 2013-14 it will save $8.4 million, in 2014-15 it will save $12.4 million, and in 2015-16 it will save $16.4 million.

In terms of the Government’s overall Budget over these years, this means actually very little. But for people in the last years of their lives, it means less access to their savings for the comforts that they should have during those years, it means earlier State dependence, and it means they are robbed of the pleasure of passing a financial legacy on to their family. That is something that is so important to so many of them. But this Government, of course, does not actually care about the elderly, at all. New Zealand First, on the other hand, has a well-deserved reputation for caring for the elderly and their needs.

As I said, this is a penny-pinching Budget. It attacks the most vulnerable people in our community, it does very little to stimulate the economy, and it does practically nothing to stimulate exports, despite the declared objectives of this Government. Rather than punishing the elderly, it should try to support them further, as this community as a whole should do. New Zealand First, therefore, does have policies along those directions, including a 10 percent discount on power bills for the elderly, and people with a SuperGold card, and free doctors’ visits for the first year, and then a $10 cap for the years after that.

Those are the sorts of positive policies that New Zealand First has for the elderly, and what do we see from the National Government? We see not only nothing for the elderly, we see a policy of punishing the elderly, punishing paper boys, and providing nothing whatever for the low-income people in our community. The Prime Minister referred to “Planet Labour” during his speech, but the architects of this Budget are from “Asteroid National”, a dull, lifeless rock from outer space, producing no life, no light, and no warmth, especially not for the elderly in our community. That asteroid is very much like this Budget in its approach. Like an asteroid, National and this Government go endlessly round and round in circles. The underlying policies—asset sales, austerity, especially for the elderly and low-income earners, and an obsession with an early surplus, for no good apparent reason—are the same failed policies from the past. They did not work in National’s Ruth Richardson Budget, the mother of all austerity Budgets, and they will not work now.

This Minister of Finance is like a witch doctor trying to give life to the undead and producing zombie policies—policies more dead than alive. These policies will not work, because they are really about the Government’s financial and political objectives. They are not about people and their welfare. They are not about communities and their viability. They are not about the elderly, who are ignored in this Budget except by being punished in the same way that we see in this particular bill. They are not about students, who will find it harder to manage their student loans under this Budget. It is not about stimulating employment. In fact, without the economic windfall of the Christchurch earthquakes, with the thousands of short-term jobs provided by that, employment under this Government would get worse and worse and worse. It is bad enough already.

This bill and this Budget are all about political economics. It is 2 years of excessive austerity as a surrogate for genuine financial management, with all the damage that does to people, young and old, as we see in this particular bill. Then, after 2 years of unnecessary pain, the Government plans a small surplus. This is solely for election-year purposes. No doubt in that year, National will find some lollies, but not for low-income people, not for the elderly—for National supporters only. So National’s approach is to punish the paper boys and to punish the elderly and low-income people, so that in 2014-15 there can be some lollies for National’s mates.

The leader of the Government’s political economics is the Prime Minister, John Key—always richer in politics than economics. He cast an aspersion on Mr Shearer when David Shearer’s slip of the tongue referred to Mr Speaker as “Mr Australia”. But that was misdirected. It is the Prime Minister who should be “Mr Australia”, because he is the principal cause of the exit of thousands of talented young Kiwis to Australia. They have no confidence in him or his Government’s policies—especially in this Budget. The Budget will produce no real long-term jobs, no real growth, no worthwhile assistance with housing, and it will punish people with student loans. There is no mention of anything positive in this Budget for the elderly at all. In fact, this bill, which punishes only the elderly, is the only reference to the elderly in the entire Budget.

In response to these failing policies, all we get are the tired old excuses of recession from 2008, 4 years ago; the global financial crisis, also originating years ago; and the Christchurch earthquakes. Those are three tired old excuses for these failed policies. But this Government has had over 3 years to deal with the recession, and the global financial crisis has in fact had a limited direct effect on the New Zealand economy. In fact, the Christchurch earthquake recovery is actually funded more by insurance money and, to a lesser extent, by $5 billion to $6 billion from Government borrowing.

It is very, very difficult to see why measures that are set out in this bill are really required at all, when you see the magnitude of the issues facing this country. The small amount of money that will be saved is penny-pinching, when the elderly should be more supported by our community. This Government’s failed policies, relying on tired old excuses for not doing more, will not advance this community and this nation at all. We see that right throughout the Budget. It is a failed Budget. It is an old-fashioned Budget. It is a penny-pinching Budget that we can do without.

What an extraordinary contribution we have just had from that member, Denis O’Rourke. We have now got it on the record that New Zealand First does not want New Zealand to be back in surplus. That was one of his most memorable comments. Another one, a quick question for Mr O’Rourke: which way did Winston Peters vote on the 1991 Budget—yes or no? Winston Peters—yes or no for the 1991 Budget? Those members are deafening in their inability to answer that question. The only thing that was getting worse and worse about that particular contribution was the member’s speech.

Let us turn our attention to the Labour Party. We have had Kris Faafoi leading off, telling us that the Labour Party will oppose this measure, not because it cares about the policy in it but because it does not like the process. There was no engagement with the significant challenges that our rapidly escalating older population put before us, and no engagement with any of the Budget at all—just saying “We don’t like the process.” Then we had Dr David Clark read to us, at length, what is in the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. In fact, he read to us for such a long time that he forgot to tell us what he actually thought about it. When he was asked to state an opinion, he came back with that old chestnut “We don’t like the process.”, and he is still over there, warbling away. He will not actually tell us what he thinks of the bill. Well, I want to tell both Dr Clark and Mr Faafoi—and Mr O’Rourke, for that matter—that there is nothing unusual at all about the fact that here we are in urgency, the day after a Budget, considering tax changes, because actually that is what always happens. That is what Governments do. It even happened when the Labour Government was in power. But what was the one difference? The difference was that Labour was always pushing the taxes up, and we are trying to do something a little better than that.

This bill will create savings of nearly $35 million over a 4-year period, which we will then reinvest in critical health care. It will quite sensibly ensure that from 1 July this year the Government can begin adjusting the asset threshold for rest home subsidies at the rate of inflation. Well, what is wrong with that? Why would you not want to do that? This is responsible governing, in very challenging times. It recognises our responsibility to respond to the rapid increase in our older population—and not just because New Zealand First is back in Parliament. It is an appropriate aspect of a Budget that I am proud to support, and I encourage all the members opposite to change the habit of a lifetime and to support it, because it makes sense.

I want to begin by extending my sympathy to the Minister for Social Development, who introduced this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, by delivering a 3-minute speech. I have never ever in my years in Parliament seen a Minister less enthusiastic about legislation in her name. I notice that she is not even able to continue contributing to the debate. She did interject, though—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member knows she cannot refer—when the member said the Minister would not contribute, there was an inference that the Minister had left the Chamber. Just be careful.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You inferred it; she did not.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, I am just saying to be careful in the future.

The Minister, however, in an interjection, did refer to a press statement that had been made on this issue. I invite the Minister to table the press statement, which may have been in her name—that would be logical, as she is the Minister who introduced the legislation. It may have been in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall, the Minister of Health. It may have been in the name of the Hon Jo Goodhew, the Minister for Senior Citizens. But whoever’s name the press statement is in, they should go back to their office and tell their press secretary to put it on the National Party website, alongside every other statement that has been issued in relation to the Budget. Jo Goodhew, who is now claiming credit for this asset-testing legislation, must have forgotten to get her press statement put on the New Zealand National Party website, because it is not there. So either Paula Bennett made a mistake in saying that a press statement was released in relation to this bill, or her press secretary has forgotten to put it on the National Party website.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: They forgot to put it in the packs that were given out to the media yesterday.

It was not in the packs given to the media, my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard has reminded me. It was not in the Budget speech delivered by Bill English earlier. It has not been mentioned anywhere, but suddenly under urgency we are introducing legislation that, in my view, breaches the contract, at the least, that has been made with 170 people who are currently in residential care who went into residential care on the understanding that they would be subject to the legislative asset-testing regime. Those 170 people deserve an apology from the Government, in my view. But if that is too good for the Government to offer, at the very least they deserve an opportunity to have their say before a select committee.

The Minister for Social Development in her introductory speech said that this legislation was necessary for the sustainability of the asset-testing regime. In this financial year it will save $4.5 million. The Government will spend $94 billion in the coming financial year. If it is necessary for the sustainability of this regime to save $4 million, then this Government has put us into a bigger financial crisis than any of us has imagined. We had earlier in this debate around the Budget the tragic sight of Bill English turning the poor old paper deliverers upside down and shaking them to get their few cents’ worth of tax money out of them, and now we see the same Minister saying to the elderly of New Zealand: “There is nothing for you in this Budget, but, actually, can we have $4.5 million out of your pocket this year so that we can continue giving tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders?”. Budgets are about choices. There are always limits on what can be spent. That is what Budget decisions are about. But to pretend that this is necessary for the financial sustainability of the asset-testing regime beggars belief, and Minister Bennett should be ashamed of herself.

Tim Macindoe in his equally short and thoughtless contribution on this debate—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: It was one of his better ones, though.

—it was one of his better speeches—referred to the aged being an increasing percentage of the population in New Zealand as a problem. Well, he is part of that problem. He is part of the generation that will increase the percentage of total people in New Zealand who are older.

💬 Hon Member: None of us are getting younger.

I agree with him on that point. He is a problem. People in the Waikato have been referring to him in that way for some time. But I do not consider that this is a problem that we should, therefore, park on the sidelines and say: “Let’s get money out of them.” The fact that we in New Zealand will have an increasing percentage of our population who are older should be celebrated, because it means we have improved the health and well-being of people. We need to ensure that those people have genuine choices about what they do and how they participate in our society. They should be respected, not classified as a problem and then used as a way of penny-pinching and getting money to pay for other things that the Government has chosen to pay for. The sum of $4.5 million is not going to save New Zealand, nor will it be part of a great vision for economic growth and prosperity. The Dominion Post editorial got it right this morning when it said: “Loose change won’t pay the bills”. It was referring to the tax grab by the Government from the poor old paper deliverers. The youngest kids in our society who are working are now having to pay tax. The Dominion Post tomorrow should repeat the headline, but talk about the difference that the $4.5 million that this Government is penny-pinching under urgency in its change to the asset-testing regime will make.

As I said earlier, I do not think this move is going to solve any issues at all that New Zealand is facing. It should not be a move that is considered under urgency. We should give older New Zealanders the decency and respect that they deserve and at least refer this legislation to a select committee. Other colleagues from Labour, New Zealand First, and the Green Party have made very important contributions about the nature of this debate. A select committee would enjoy that debate, because it is an important one to be held. This bill being introduced under urgency and passed through all stages is the biggest mark of disrespect that older New Zealanders could have, and I say to the Minister responsible, Paula Bennett, and to the Minister for Senior Citizens, Jo Goodhew, that they should be ashamed of this move.

As a new member of Parliament, I stand in respect of older members of Parliament, more experienced members of Parliament, for the things that they say. I take them very seriously. But I now start to think about the credibility of the things that were just said by the member Ruth Dyson, and I take her to account for talking about the lack of transparency, the lack of engagement, and the lack of consultation. If this member was to look even now on the National Party website, she would find the information there. On the Ministry of Health website, those members would find the information there, and on the Beehive website, they would find the information there. But here goes, it gets even better. In the press release from Minister Ryall, it was there. But here are the Ginsu knives. Here are the Ginsu knives. You will be saying this: did we consult—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

—did we consult? This is what we did—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! When I stand, you sit.

💬 Hon Jo Goodhew: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am absolutely certain that I am hearing a chant from the other side of “lies”.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am the judge of that, and Alfred Ngaro will continue.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. But here are the Ginsu knives for you. The word “consult” was what your lips would be saying, so this was what the National Government did. An hour before the Budget was released there was a conversation with, who else, Grey Power. That is right—Grey Power.

There has been a lot of talk about “Where is the plan?”—somebody talking about “Where is the plan?”. Well, you know, we talk about “Planet Labour”, and I wanted to find out where “Planet Labour” was. So I went to the portal. Here is the portal: it is the Labour Party website. When I went to the portal, when I went to the Labour Party website, guess what I found? It said that it was an organisation in review. It was going out to ask—who? Its members. Do you know why? Because it wanted their views. Here is what it said: “We want your party for your views for our future.” But it gets even better. On the website the leader of the Labour Party is there, Mr David Shearer. What is he doing? He is playing a guitar. I think he is singing the song “Ten Guitars”. Hang on, I have just heard a newsflash: it is now “Nine Guitars”. That is right. It is no longer “Ten Guitars”; it is “Nine Guitars”.

OK, back to the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. This bill is about responsibility, this bill is about sustainability, and, most important, this bill is about continuing to subsidise the needs of our older people. It is about increasing Government spending by $82.4 million. I could keep going on and on, but I think the point serves itself. We support this bill.

Normally, people who get to lead the Address in Reply debate are seen to be people of substance, people of principle, and people who are used—[Interruption] No, I went last. I went last in my group in 1984. But we have just had the second speech in the House from that member, Alfred Ngaro, and we understand why the gap between the two was so long, listening to that. This bill—

💬 Alfred Ngaro: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is incorrect. Actually, this is my fifth speech—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, that is not a point of order.

The member reinforces the point of how much substance he is bringing to the House and how forgettable he is.

The point that I want to make to the House is that this is the legislation of the people who do not have the fortitude to make the big decisions. John Key puts all his assets in a trust and then says he will not look at the superannuation age. He puts his assets in a trust to avoid this legislation, and then attacks the poor people of Wainuiōmata, who save up and get a house that is worth $200,000. That is the approach of the National Government. It shakes down the paper boys and paper girls.

There is another thing that we have not got to yet. The group National has hit the most is the disabled people who deliver brochures. The disabled who push their pushchairs around, who are contractors, who work more than 20 hours per week, and who do not get a daily rate have lost their exemptions—they have lost their exemptions. So it is the young, it is the old, it is the poor, and it is the disabled who are being attacked by this Government. Do Government members have the bravery, do they have courage, do they have the gumption to send the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill to a select committee?

💬 Chris Hipkins: No.

Do they?

💬 Chris Hipkins: No.

No, they do not. They are not prepared to have people who have saved up for their $220,000 house and paid the mortgage off over 50 or 60 years come to Parliament to a select committee to have their say.

So afraid were they that they did not include this bill on the Table of the House during the Budget speech yesterday. They did not put the press statement in the media pack yesterday. They hid it. They hid it. It was secret legislation. They did not put it on their website until this morning, because they are not prepared to front up to Kiwis. It is a secret agenda. It might be a small secret agenda, but it is a secret attack on older New Zealanders. I do not know, maybe we do have to go back to Muldoon, or Bolger, or even Shipley. They would have had the guts to stand up in this Parliament, as part of the Budget—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I do not think that is a good term to use, that phrase, so the member should just bear this in mind, and also you must use full names when you are referring to people.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I think we have always been allowed to refer to former politicians by their surnames.

Muldoon, Shipley, and Bolger would have always had the guts to stand up in here. They would have stood up in here if they had a policy like that, and they would have said “This is our policy, and we are prepared to go to the people in an election, and we are prepared to go to a select committee in order to debate this.” But what have we here? We are not allowed to use the words that properly describe the members opposite. They are the people whom, if I were going into the trenches, I would not want beside me. I would not want them beside me, because I would rather have people with courage beside me, and I would rather have people with integrity, and they lack both.

This week is Youth Week. It is quite ironic really that this Budget delivers such a harsh deal for young people. If we look at the reduction in allowances for postgraduate study and if we look at what is happening with student loans, it really is quite a savage deal for our younger people.

It is quite distressing as well to see the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, which attacks our older people, in front of the House. The Green policy is to oppose asset testing for our senior members. We have this policy for several reasons, and my colleague Kevin Hague has already outlined some of them. One reason is that we see asset testing—and this legislation seeks to increase the threshold, basically—as discriminatory. It is discrimination against older people, because there are no other health care services for which you have to front up and be asset tested on in order to access them.

We also oppose it because it is unevenly spread. I think the previous speaker, the Hon Trevor Mallard, referred to the fact that people who are quite well off and who are used to placing things in family trusts will be able to rort the system. They will not be as savagely dealt to as those who are less well off but who still have their own assets. It goes against sensible reasoning. We have already heard from a previous speaker that this actually delivers just $4.5 million in savings, which is not much when you consider the lifelong contribution that our senior members have made to our society.

The bill also goes against what we see as the current policy for the care of the elderly, which is about ageing in place. We are moving to a situation where older people will be picking up residential care only episodically, if you like, and where they will move into residential care for respite and then come back into the community. It is going to be very difficult to do that if they have already had to sell their family home.

The capping of the threshold makes it harder for people. I live on Waiheke Island. It is a really beautiful place to live. It has been a haven for older people, and quite a large number of our community are beneficiaries. Most of those beneficiaries are superannuitants. People retired to Waiheke because it used to be cheap. It was a great place to live out your last years in good health in the sun and go swimming every day, and people bought cheaply in order to fund their lifestyles. What has happened in the last 10 to 15 years is that the property boom has meant that our older people are now asset-rich. They are asset-rich because the property prices have increased, because there has been quite a lot of property speculation. The property speculation has meant that the cost and the value of people’s homes have gone up. What that means for our older people is that they are now at stages where they are having to access residential care.

In the case of Mr Jones, who actually was the president of Grey Power—and a serial submitter who is going to be seriously hacked off about not being able to submit on this—his wife went to a rest home some years ago. He has been asset tested, and this will mean that he will suffer more hardship, because his bach that he bought 30 years ago is now worth half a million dollars. That means he has to pay for the quality of care that his wife receives. He treks over to the North Shore every day of the week to see her. He does that because that is the commitment he made when he married her. I cannot believe this Government is being so cruel to our older people. This is a stingy and unpleasant piece of legislation.

We have heard from previous members about our not having the fortitude to make strong decisions. I think that is exactly what this Budget has been about, rather than the big pile of lolly scrambles and voter bribes that this nation got used to over the 9 years of the Labour Government’s tenure. This Budget is another good example of this Government’s priorities in action. It is responsibly managing the Government’s finances, building a more competitive and productive economy, delivering better public services, and rebuilding Christchurch. What we have seen in the last 24 hours is a good example of what New Zealanders expect of this Government, which is fortitude, which is making the right decisions for the right time and not throwing a bunch of lollies out.

The Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill is about sustainable management of long-term residential care. Members opposite know it and we know it, but, as usual, it is oppose, oppose, oppose. This bill reflects the practice of this Government to responsibly manage the finances, to responsibly manage our taxpayers’ dollars, and to make sure that we can continue to afford the cost of residential care as our population ages. That is about having fortitude and making the right decisions for the right time. Clearly, that is what sets us apart from our opposition. That is why, when you look at the polls, we have been about 20 points apart for the last 3 years. They look like a set of railway tracks—30 percent and 50 percent. They are a set of railway tracks. That is because the New Zealand public have woken up to the need to manage the Government’s finances for the day. That is what they are doing at home.

We have also heard from the Labour benches that “It’s only $4 million here. It’s only a few million there.” Well, a few million here and there soon adds up to a few billion here and there. Although the previous Government might have been happy to spend up large to buy its way back into power, we make decisions that we know New Zealanders want, need, and deserve. That is about leadership. That is what this country expects. That is why we are on this side of the House. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.