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

Taloha ni, Mr Chair, and talofa lava, manuia le aso, in Samoan Language Week. It is a pleasure to take a call in the Committee stage of this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development, in her first reading speech mentioned that this is a priority for the Government. Although the debate has been robust, I would like to take a little bit more of a serious approach in the Committee stage.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Oh no!

Yes, I am sorry, Mr Macindoe. I will take a slightly more serious approach in my Committee stage contribution, because I wish that this was a priority for the Government. The aged-care sector and the way that we look after our older New Zealanders are very, very serious issues going forward. The fact that Part 1 introduces indexation as opposed to raising the threshold by $10,000 per annum does not really do a lot in terms of addressing some of the serious structural issues that we will face soon in terms of looking after our older New Zealanders.

We need a much, much broader approach to looking after our elders, and that is why we believe that in terms of this change, the indexation to the CPI, it would have been good in this instance for New Zealanders who are affected and New Zealanders who are concerned to have the opportunity to speak at a select committee hearing. I would like to ask the Minister why this bill is going through under urgency, and why New Zealanders are not going to be able to have their say in a select committee hearing. Having spoken to Roy Reid last night, I know that he is very concerned about the fact that this will provide New Zealanders with a disincentive to save for their retirement. As I have earlier spoken about at the first and second readings of this bill, there is also a difference of opinion from the Aged Care Association. It is welcoming this move.

But I would have liked the opportunity, as the Labour Party spokesperson on aged care, to ask questions of those people and to hear the opinions of Kiwis who have concerns about how their parents or their grandparents are being cared for, and to hear how this change might affect them. So again, I put forward my question to the Minister as to the rationale for this bill going through Parliament under urgency, and I ask why those people who will have concerns out there in the community are not being given the opportunity to make a submission at a select committee hearing.

Part 1 introduces a change to the asset threshold for residential care for our elderly. In the first year, according to the regulatory impact statement, there will be savings of $4.5 million. There is also an estimation, I guess, from the Ministry of Health that this will affect around 170 residents at any one time. This does not address the issue that the aged-care sector and Kiwi families are facing at the moment. It is tinkering. We have heard from the opposite side of the Chamber that this is a measure for achieving a sustainable long-term plan for the care of our elderly. But in the first year, we are going to look at $4.5 million and in the fourth year this is going to be increased to $16.4 million. So in no way does this significantly address the issues that we as a country have to—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Would that pay off Government debt?

No, it will not pay off Government debt. It in no way addresses the significant challenge that we face in terms of our elderly. The $4.5 million in the first year will pretty much pay for the pens and the paper clips at the Ministry of Health. So the reason why the Government is, in Part 1, changing from the $10,000 threshold to indexation to the CPI troubles me in terms of whether or not this Government has a long-term plan or a long-term vision in this area. One would think not, because this is the bill that is before the Committee and that is troublesome. If the big silver bullet from the Government is CPI indexation of the thresholds, and not what has been practised for the last, I believe, 7 or 8 years, then we as a nation are in big trouble if we do not have any more—[Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Kris Faafoi.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to make just one more point.

💬 Chris Hipkins: Make a few more.

Make a few more—OK. Actually, sorry, there are two more points I want to raise. One is the way that this bill has been introduced to the House, through the Budget process. We have had clarification since the debate began on the bill. In the beginning we heard that it was not mentioned at all in the Budget speech from the Minister of Finance, and we have confirmed that. That is a fact. We have trawled through the press releases looking for a press release on the issue. We were not able to find one, but we were able to find a press release in the name of the Minister of Health, the Hon Tony Ryall, where there is a very fleeting mention of the measure that is being debated at the moment. There were one and a half sentences in a press release and there was not one mention in the Budget speech about this change to the thresholds, from the increases of $10,000 each year to CPI indexation. If this is a priority for the Government, it is not cheering it, and it is not putting it out there as a priority at the moment.

I was, I must admit, expecting the Minister of Health to take a call on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, because, as my colleague Kris Faafoi, the member of Parliament for Mana, has just explained, after searching and searching and searching for a press release in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett or the Hon Jo Goodhew, the current Minister for Senior Citizens, or the Minister of Health announcing to the public that not only was the asset-testing regime being changed but it was being frozen, and that this change in legislation was going to be put through all stages under urgency without giving the public any opportunity to have a say at all, I thought that the Minister of Health would be taking a call. Because it was the Minister of Health who made this massive announcement, but not as a press release, titled “Asset testing regime to change”, or “Breach of contract with 170 residents in residential care”, or “Massive investment in New Zealand’s economic growth because of a saving this financial year of $4.5 million”. No, it was just one and a half sentences, snuck halfway down in a press release announcing all the other major changes in the health budget. So it was not even in the name of the Minister who introduced the legislation and whose name will remain on this change in the statute. The Minister in charge of the legislation said nothing to the public about this. The Minister for Senior Citizens made no public comment at all in relation to the asset-testing regime, despite her portfolio giving her the advocacy mandate for senior citizens in New Zealand. So I would expect the Minister of Health to take a call. I thought he would take a call immediately after my colleague Kris Faafoi, but he did not do that.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Talofa to you, Mr Chairman. First of all, I want to express my disappointment that despite acknowledging Samoan Language Week you did not acknowledge to the senior whip from Labour and other members of the House that it is also Hug a Ginga Day. You may want to take the opportunity before the House rises later on to address that with the many members of the House. The Hon Kate Wilkinson is smiling in anticipation of this, so I look forward to the Hon Kate Wilkinson leading the queue to have that interaction with the Chairman.

I am really pleased to conclude my first contribution in the Committee stage of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill by repeating my call that I made prior to the lunch adjournment to the Minister of Health, or indeed to the Minister for Social Development, to take a call in this Committee stage and explain to, particularly, the 170 current residents in residential care why the $4.5 million that they are being asked to pay this year is necessary. Why is it necessary for them to contribute that amount of money, given the range of other options that I am sure both Ministers considered? Why is that being described totally incorrectly by National members as the way of securing the long-term sustainability of the asset-testing regime? Because it is not. In fact, what this does is fundamentally alter the asset-testing regime, as was very appropriately commented on by Kevin Hague in his earlier contribution to this debate.

What it actually means is outlined very well in what I do not think is the greatest regulatory impact statement that I have ever seen, but perhaps it was because the officials did not have very much notice to put it together, but certainly the fiscal savings, which is all the regulatory impact statement describes, are very appropriately laid out. For a person who currently is under a contractual understanding that their asset threshold would be at $220,000, the CPI indexation would mean that it would be at $213,297, and that is with the assumption that there is a 2 percent increase in the CPI from year to March 2013 and onwards. As I said, that is outlined in the regulatory impact statement.

A lot of National members do not seem to think that this is a problem. You know, what does it matter if older people who are in a rest home have to have fewer assets before they qualify for this asset-testing regime? But what it actually means for the average resident, again according to the regulatory impact statement, is that they will have to pay an extra $70 a day, and the difference between the current amount and the new amount is that they will not become eligible for the full income subsidy for 96 days longer than they currently would. Again, National members would say “Well, older people are a problem. What’s 96 days?”. I have heard in speech after speech in the earlier stages of this debate National members referring to older people as a problem. I find that offensive. I also think that it indicates that they are totally out of touch with reality if they think that the additional 96 days of paying $70 per day is not much. It is a lot, and particularly it is a lot when you face the harsh reality of the fact that the average stay in a rest home for older New Zealanders is now around 18 months. The brutal reality of this is that these people do not have very much longer to live. That is borne out by the facts.

You would think—Mr Chairman, I apologise for referring to you in that manner—one would think that at most times, at all times preferably, but certainly at the time when people are nearing the end of their life, this would be the very time that they should be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. Instead, what people who are facing or living in residential care are being told is that without them having an opportunity to have a say personally, or through an advocacy organisation such as Grey Power, or an organisation such as Age Concern, or through their family members, and without any opportunity for them to have a say to a select committee, the asset-testing regime is being completely changed. The threshold levels are being effectively frozen, rather than progressively increased so that the asset-testing regime would completely phase out, as was our commitment in 2004 in the legislation, and at this time people are being treated with total disdain and disrespect. I find that offensive. I am really, really puzzled that neither the Minister for Social Development, nor the Minister of Health, let alone the Minister who should be the advocacy Minister, the Minister for Senior Citizens—none of them—have bothered taking a substantial call and explaining to people why this fundamental policy change. Instead of having a progressive phasing-out of asset testing, we are now moving to the freezing of assets, and we are doing this under urgency, with not one single member of the public being entitled to have a say to a select committee. How can that be justified?

If this is the answer to the financial situation that the Government insists New Zealand is facing—$4.5 million being saved in the next financial year from older New Zealanders who are at such a high level of health need that they are in a residential facility—then heaven help the future of this country. I think it is offensive that we do this sort of legislation under urgency, when there is clearly no need. The only reason that the Government could justify this legislation under urgency is if, failing this, on 1 July we would fall over as a country, financially. I do not think that $4.5 million is going to save us from that crisis, if that is as bad as it can be. There is no reason for this to go through Parliament under urgency. Every older New Zealander should be saying to their National member of Parliament: “How dare you treat us with such disrespect.” I am sure they will. I have seen the press statements from Grey Power. I have had phone calls and email messages from different branches of Grey Power, and indeed from Age Concern, from around the country. People are so upset that without any notification, without any justification, this has now been rammed through under urgency, with the backing of National, the Māori Party, the ACT Party, and United Future.

This was not part of the National Party’s great plan for the future, outlined during the election campaign. Not once did I hear my National Party opponent, or any other member of the National Party, say that in order to get through the next 3 years we are going to have to freeze the asset-testing regime for older New Zealanders in rest homes or hospital-level care. Not once was that mentioned.

This Budget, as I said in the first reading, is a penny-pinching Budget, and this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, is the most pathetic of the penny-pinching measures in it. It imposes costs on the elderly, and it confers absolutely no benefits whatsoever on them anywhere in it. So for them it is a zero Budget. It is a zero care Budget for the elderly.

In the first reading I referred to the Prime Minister, Mr John Key, as “Mr Australia” because of his policies and intentions to ensure that many of our most talented young people will disappear to Australia as a result of Government policy. But maybe it would be more appropriate to refer to him as “Mr Fagin”, because he is pinching pennies from the pockets of the elderly and, of course, from newspaper delivery boys. That is the level at which we see the National Government’s pitch to the elderly in this Budget. It is an insult to the elderly of this country, and it follows an insult by the Prime Minister to the elderly during the last election campaign in which the Prime Minister referred to New Zealand First supporters dying off. Of course, in fact, more and more New Zealanders are going to be reaching retirement age, so it is the opposite, in effect, to that which the Prime Minister referred to. It will be his problem to regain their confidence in National policies. Well, if he did want to do that, this Budget sure ain’t going anywhere near there, and certainly not with the measure proposed in this bill. They will lose confidence in National, the elderly people of this country, in droves.

Where is the strategy to deal with the elderly? Where is the strategy in this Budget or in Government policy to support the elderly long term, to ensure funding of superannuation for 65-year-olds in the future? There is nothing but silence for the elderly in this Budget, except, of course, for this bill, which will only make life harder for them. Only New Zealand First can be relied on to support superannuation for the elderly from 65 years permanently. At least the Labour Party is open about its policy to increase the retirement age to 67, but that will never be adopted by New Zealand First.

The Government was hoping to slide this bill through unnoticed, and when you have a look at it you can see that that is not surprising. Maybe the Government just forgot to do a press release, or perhaps could not do one in this case. Well, I could help the Government. I could help it do the press release. I could tell the people of New Zealand how the elderly are being treated, and how the elderly are being punished in this Budget and by this measure. The Government did not consult, did not assess the negative effects on the elderly or their families, and did not allow reference to a select committee. It did not care about the elderly. It did not care about their views. That has been typical of its approach to this all along. This is a disappointing Budget for the elderly. Compare it with New Zealand First policy. If we were part of Government right now, we would be looking at a 10 percent reduction in power bills for the elderly—for SuperGold card holders—and a $10 cap on visits to the doctor, with the first year free altogether. Those are the sorts of policies that the elderly in this country want to see—not the kind of thing we see in this bill.

I want to talk next about the Minister for Social Development’s claim about indexation somehow preserving the assets. What utter nonsense that is. In fact, this policy ensures that those assets will be whittled away, and whittled away sooner. More people will be forced to reach the threshold sooner, as well. Otherwise, how, indeed, could the money be saved at all? National is making a political football out of this issue. This is not what the elderly want, and not what the people of New Zealand want, either. What they do need—

I would really appreciate the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paula Bennett, answering three questions: why have we got this policy, why now, and why is it being imposed retrospectively? Because from our position on this side of the House, this is a sneaky, grubby little move by a money-grubbing Government; a dirty little secret that it kept right up until it tabled the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill in this House to be passed under urgency with no consultation with the public of New Zealand, particularly older New Zealanders. It is a nasty little secret that it did not have the fortitude to tell New Zealanders about before this Budget. Why not? Why did it not have the fortitude to tell the older people of New Zealand? Why not consult with Grey Power, ask an organisation that represents hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders whether it supported this move?

Well, I can tell the people who are listening that this measure will be the thin end of the wedge for older New Zealanders, because I have seen it all before. It was National that brought in asset testing. It was National that made promises to older New Zealanders and broke them. And now we have it bringing back a sneaky little deal to undermine services and support for older New Zealanders, and doing it under urgency with no consultation.

Maybe those who are listening would also like to know that the Rates Rebate Scheme has been frozen in this Budget.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: What!

Yes, its funding has been frozen in this Budget. The Government did not tell the public about that. They might like to know that there will be no funding to tell people about the Rates Rebate Scheme. Keep them in the dark, do not tell the older folk that there is something that could help them—keep it hidden. That is the thin end of the wedge for me. This is an agenda that is going to attack those who are the most vulnerable. As you heard from Ruth Dyson, who was the Minister who introduced the legislation that changed the regime for asset testing so that it could be phased out over a period of time, older people in New Zealand are staying in rest homes, on average, for 18 months. It was not that long ago that people going into rest homes could be there for between 8 years and 10 years. Today they stay longer at home—without the support they ought to have; it has been cut—and they spend a very short time in rest homes. This Government, in a sneaky way, wants to penalise them.

I also want to say what a superficial regulatory impact statement we received from the Ministry of Health. I am incredibly disappointed with the regulatory impact statement. If you read the first page of it, is the Government worried about older people? No, the first thing it is worried about is making sure it will not “impose significant additional cost on business”, it will not “impair their property rights” or the “market competition”, and it will provide only “minor costs” on providers because they have to inform patients. Where in the front of this regulatory impact statement is concern about the older people? Why is it about business? Have those members become so devoid of care about the people in this society that when they write a regulatory impact statement it has more to do with about how it suits business than it does about older people?

Then you look at the consultation. What consultation took place on this bill? Well, the Ministry of Health talked to itself. It talked to the Ministry of Social Development and Treasury. But, of course, it had to maintain Budget secrecy over this. We are talking about $4.5 million in the first year. The ministry said that it had to have Budget secrecy over that, and that was why it could not consult. That is a nonsense. It could have gone out and found out how it affected people. Then when you look to see whether there is going to be any monitoring, evaluation, or review of it, you see that, no, there is going to be none at all. There is going to be no look to see what impact this measure has on older New Zealanders.

I am incredibly disappointed in this Government once again attacking the most vulnerable of people, our older people, who by the very fact that they are in a rest home are vulnerable. They are not there unless they really are in the final twilight years of their lives. Then for the Government to bring in this measure under urgency, secretly, is despicable—despicable. On this side of the House we oppose the way that the Government is going about it. This is not what you do to New Zealanders who have worked so hard in their lives to support the rest of us.

It is a pleasure to follow that very excellent speech made by the Hon Annette King. One of the things about this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, that has really shocked me is the derisory approach of this Government. We had a 1-minute speech from the Minister for Social Development in introducing the bill, and a 2-minute speech from the junior Minister Jo Goodhew when introducing the second reading. There was nothing in the Budget speech. We pored through the press releases and, finally, after much searching, found a paragraph that was deeply buried in a press release. Nothing was talked about it in the Budget yesterday. This Government has kept its secret. It is the dirty—

💬 Kris Faafoi: It’s a sentence.

Oh, it is a sentence. It is a sentence—not even a paragraph—telling the older people of New Zealand that this major change is being considered by this Parliament under urgency. If this is such an important conversation for us to be having, why cannot people participate in it? Why cannot people have a say? Why is it that we have to have this debate on a Friday afternoon, under urgency, when all of the people who will be affected by it—people currently in residential care and people who will be in residential care in the future, including most of us in this House, I would imagine—cannot participate? Why can they not have a say?

As I have been listening to the debate, I have been thinking about a personal example. My mother-in-law and father-in-law are in residential care. One is in a private hospital, and one is in a rest home. My father-in-law is 93 years old, and my mother-in-law is 88 years old. They have only recently gone into residential care, when it got far too much for them to stay at home. In fact, my mother-in-law went in first, and then my father-in-law followed. I want to talk a little bit about their lives.

My father-in-law was an Anglican minister. He was an Anglican minister in the far north. He used to give half of his income to the poor people of his community. My mother-in-law and father-in-law struggled and scraped on a minister’s income, year in and year out, giving half of it away to the poor people whom they wanted to support, because they are good people. They are good Christian people.

Eventually, they were able to save enough to buy their own home. They bought their own home and they paid it off bit by bit. That is the only asset that they have. It is the only thing they own. They are now in residential care, they are paying for themselves—they are paying the bills themselves—and, eventually, they will get to the point where the asset value of their home means that they will have to pay a whole lot more.

When I think about my father-in-law’s life and my mother-in-law’s life, I think it is so undignified—so undignified—that they are going to be listening to this and hearing about this, in this debate, under urgency, in this Parliament on a Friday afternoon, in secret. They will say to me at the weekend: “Darien, why could we not have a say on this? We have lived and worked hard. We have tried to be good people. We have been good citizens. We have stood by the principles and values that we grew up with.” Love thy neighbour is one of them, and treat other people as you would be treated yourself.

All of those principles they have lived by and worked hard by. Here they are, and here they will be, in their twilight years, in residential care, listening to this and finding out that this Government does not believe that they should have any say in this change. I think it is not only undignified but completely disrespectful. The way this Government has gone about this—approaching the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill in urgency—is just appalling.

As we know, this is a Budget that is picking on kids—and we debated that last night—who do not even earn the minimum wage. They are on $4 or $5 per hour. It is appalling. Students are picked on too, and now it is a case of “Let’s get stuck into the older people. Let’s not talk to them, and let’s not let them have a say. Let’s forget about them.” The Government does not really care about the people living in rest homes. Do you know what it is? It is peanuts that we are dealing with here. It is absolute peanuts.

It is my first call on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, and I am very delighted to get up and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. We in New Zealand First believe that this bill is an ambush on senior citizens. Nothing was specifically mentioned yesterday. We heard nothing in the Prime Minister’s speech about it. There have been no press releases from the Minister either that we have seen. We have had a look at the website. Nothing has been said about this. It just snuck in under the quiet of urgency, which is really quite shameful.

Why on earth are we attacking senior citizens in this way? Private saving is what has been flagged as the way for the Government to get out of trouble, and we are all expected to save in order to dig the country out of the mess it is in. But this legislation shows New Zealanders that it is not worthwhile to actually save, because a good portion of your savings will be whittled away to pay for your care.

I cannot understand why Grey Power and other senior organisations were not invited to have a say on this particular legislation. What do we have in the regulatory impact statement? It states: “The analysis of fiscal savings was undertaken by the Ministry of Health with limited consultation with the Ministry of Social Development and the Treasury. Consultation was limited in order to maintain budget confidentiality.” Then we have the audacity to have this legislation snuck through the House under the guise of urgency.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Snuck? Snuck? Barbara!

It is sneaking through under the guise of urgency. I do not know why the views of this part of society—a vulnerable section of society—are being ignored totally by this bill being snuck through Parliament. We want a brighter future for our senior citizens, but where is that brighter future? I can assure National members that it is definitely not at this part of a person’s life. When you get to living in a rest home, it does not look very good at all. We might as well all have the brighter future while we are younger, and spend as much as we can, because the Government is going to remove the savings anyway. It is a total disincentive to saving.

I was quite interested to hear one of the National members say this morning that we are boldly going where no man has gone before, and I say they are right. They are right, and we do not like the direction that this is going in. It is negative, it is penny-pinching, it is miserable, and it does not address the fundamentals that are actually needed to put this country back on the right track again. Where is the brighter future for our seniors? It has gone. It is not even there. It is a bleak outlook for this particular group, and it is a shame that the legislation has to go through the House under urgency when it need not have. It is not an urgent piece of legislation. There was plenty of time to consult with other groups and to let our seniors actually have a say on this particular legislation.

We in New Zealand First think this is an ambush on our senior citizens, and we will not be supporting this legislation in any way. It is too shameful to support.

I have been listening to this debate for some time. I was not going to take a call, but I noticed that the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development, has stayed silent—stayed silent—all the way through this debate. I want the Minister to get up on her hind legs and explain to me, to the Committee, and to New Zealanders why it is that during the whole election campaign she said nothing to the elderly people of this country about what she was intending to do—not one word. No wonder this Government is sneaking the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill through under urgency, because it would not have the guts to stand up—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

—and tell the people who appeared before the select committee why it was doing this. It would not have the intestinal fortitude, if you prefer those words, Mr Chairman, to say to the people of New Zealand that it stuck this in and it did not tell them about it.

I heard the Prime Minister during the campaign say the grand words “You judge a society on how it treats not its wealthiest and strongest citizens, but its most vulnerable.” What weasel words they turned out to be. This is a Government that is hitting the vulnerable in everything it has done in this Budget. It is even picking the pockets of the paper boys and paper girls of this country—kids, who cannot vote. It is taking a tiny amount of money in fiscal terms, but a lot of money in terms of what those kids get. It is picking on the people who send their kids to public schools. Is it not ironic that we have a Government, whose leaders send their kids to private schools that advertise the fact that they have lower class sizes, telling the parents who send their kids to public schools that class sizes do not matter? That is a double standard. There is a word you cannot use in the House, but everybody in this country knows what I am talking about.

Now the Government is doing it to the elderly. It is a miserable amount of money—$4.5 million—but what does it tell the elderly people of this country? These are people who have worked all of their lives and have built up some sort of asset. They are not wealthy people; probably the only thing they have is a home and few possessions. The Government is telling those people that in the twilight years of their lives, they will have to spend those assets rather than die with the dignity of knowing that there is something they can pass on to their kids. I have to say that that is pretty pathetic.

I say to the Minister to get up on your feet and explain to the country why you are doing this. Tell the country why you never gave any warning that that is what the re-election of a National Government might mean.

💬 Hon Annette King: What’s their agenda?

We said during the campaign that there was a secret agenda, but oh no, no—no secret agenda! National members said they were upfront and nice, that they smile and they talk optimistically. Then they come in, straight after the election, with the first Budget, and do they hit the people who have a lot of money—people like the Prime Minister, who got another $1,000 a week in tax cuts? No! They are sacrosanct. The wealthy and the powerful will be looked after by the National Government. This bill is a further example of how a National Government picks on the most vulnerable. Yes, the people that you are affecting, Minister, will be dead by the time of the next election. You will not suffer any political consequences, but what is the Minister doing—I know you, Mr Chairman, would not consider an underhand thing like this. The Government is picking on the people who are vulnerable, the people who have least to give, and the people who cannot hurt them politically. That is, to use the term of my colleague Annette King, a despicable act by this Government. It is picking on these people. At one end there are the paper boys and girls who get about $2 an hour, and at the other end are the people in the twilight years of their lives.

Ruth Dyson mentioned that the average time that a person is spending in a rest home now is about 8 months—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: 18.

—18 months, I am sorry. It is the last 18 months of their lives, and this Government is taking advantage of their vulnerability by sneaking in a measure that it had not warned the public about. It never had the intestinal fortitude to tell the public what it was going to do before the election, and it does not even have the courage to stand up in this Chamber and defend the measure that it is pushing through. Why can this not go to a select committee? There is no—

I call the honourable member Asenati Taylor. Talofa lava.

Talofa lava. It is “Lole-Taylor”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Lole-Taylor, then.

Thank you. The argument that the New Zealand population is one that is ageing and we do not have enough care facilities to cope with demand is a pathetic excuse to cut down on services. Why does this Government not take some of its newly proposed Future Investment Fund and invest in our elderly? The injection of nearly $12 million into aged care should be used to open up new aged care facilities. This National Government is willing to put $40 million into dementia services, hoping—hoping—that the elderly will forget about the new Budget measures. Would the Minister open her home to those who will be reduced to a less-than-dignified state of living? Because that is exactly what will happen as the result of this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. That is exactly what will happen.

The Minister for Social Development has dumped this bill on to us, knowing full well that this had been planned for weeks if not months in advance. The Minister has dumped this bill on to the New Zealand elderly, and she has dumped this bill on the New Zealanders who are vulnerable. Shame! Shame—it has to be said. The Government is paying into those big pockets of its mates, but bugger the rest—I am not sure if I am allowed to use that.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, you are not.

I apologise. The threshold for the subsidy is now dependent on the rate of inflation—CPI. This means that at any stage the threshold is vulnerable and can either not change or change very, very minimally. What we get is the forcing of the hand of the elderly to sell off their assets that they have worked so hard for all their lives. Paula Bennett has introduced this bill because she needs money for the welfare budget, so we take from the old in order to provide for welfare reforms that are destroying New Zealand society. The Government has looked at this subsidy because it did not realise that the 10 percent increase in thresholds would be yearly, and it was worried that this meant the window for the subsidy would widen dramatically.

New Zealand First does not support this bill. It is a direct undermining of elderly people in residential care. Elderly people will be forced to either sell their assets or apply for a residential care loan in order to pay for residential care in a rest home. Setting the rate of the applicable asset threshold used in determining the amount residents in aged residential care have to contribute to the costs of their care to change according to the CPI gives uncertainty to the scheme. It will most probably now take longer for the elderly, based on the value of their assets, to become eligible for the residential care subsidy. The elderly will be forced to find other means of paying for residential care. Some may even become more dependent on their children. Of course, that is the usual situation. It is something that happens quite a lot in the Polynesian community, especially those in South Auckland—something that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga should be familiar with. Even member Alfred Ngaro should know better, or even Dr Cam Calder—that is right. They are from South Auckland and they should be familiar with what it is like for the Polynesian people in South Auckland to try to save for assets. Now they will find it a lot harder, much harder, to even get into residential care. It is National’s direct and quick way to try to cut areas in welfare, not only to force New Zealand to sell its assets but also now to force the elderly to sell their assets. Thank you.