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 third time. I would like to start by acknowledging the Parliamentary Counsel Office, Treasury, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Health, and other contributing agencies for their role in this work. The Government welcomes the enactment of this bill. It sets in place a responsible and sustainable framework for assessing a person’s assets to determine whether they are eligible for assistance through the residential care subsidy.

This bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to change the amount of annual increase in the applicable assets thresholds used in determining the amount that residents in aged residential care are required to contribute to the cost of their care. Throughout this debate and throughout the Committee stage we have heard all sorts of rhetoric about what might be happening, but actually current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are going to be replaced with CPI indexation of the thresholds. We have heard that all sorts of other things are going on, so let us get the facts here. The bill sets the thresholds for 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 to $213,297 for Threshold A and $116,806 for Threshold B, respectively. Threshold B is the lower threshold, excluding a person’s home and car, and it also requires those amounts to be CPI adjusted by Order in Council for each later year, beginning on 1 July 2013.

This bill means that the residential care subsidy will continue to be available into the future, as the demand for residential care for older people rises. It is a fair deal and one that this Government is pleased to support. It is a priority for this Government to enact this bill at this time. Passing this legislation through this Parliament will provide certainty for those people who may require residential care and for the Crown, and will establish a sustainable pathway. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much for giving me the chance to speak in the third reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The previous stage—the Committee stage—I think could best be described as unbalanced, because not one member opposite took a call in the Committee stage. The bill is such a priority for this Government, as the Minister for Social Development said in the first reading, but there was not one contribution from the other side of the House. Actually, to be fair, there were two contributions: a point of order from the junior whip, and Maggie Barry actually answered a question for the Minister in the chair. If this Government thinks this bill is a priority, then it might have been good for members opposite to take a few more calls—or a call—in the Committee stage.

I feel sorry for the members opposite who did not know that this measure was coming in the Budget. It is going to be a very long plane ride or car drive home, because those members opposite know they are going to have to go home to their local electorates, if they have got one, or to their piece of New Zealand, and explain this to the people in their electorate. Maggie Barry has got quite a few rest homes in her electorate, so she can consider herself to be very, very busy soon, having to explain the measures that are contained in this bill, which will adversely affect quite a number of the older people in her electorate, I would say. I am sure that the families of those concerned on the North Shore will make their opinions known to her, so the phone in the electorate office of Maggie Barry MP will be going off the hook now—off the hook. As she explained to us, she did not know at election time that this was going to happen. This is a new initiative from the Government, so I feel sorry for all the members at the back of the House in the National Party, who will have to go home at the end of this urgency and say: “What the hell happened there?”. They will have to go home and explain this rubbish piece of legislation, which was brought sneakily into this House.

This has been sneakily put through this House. It was not mentioned once—you know, I have been saying this ad nauseum today—in the Minister of Finance’s Budget speech. Not once. How were the people of New Zealand notified about this legislation? By one and a half sentences in a throwaway line in Tony Ryall’s health budget press release. Shocking, appalling process—that is the way that the Government announces what Paula Bennett called a priority.

💬 Darien Fenton: She did 2 minutes during the first reading.

Sorry, yes—2 minutes. I will give her credit for that. The other travesty here in this process is that this is being rushed through under urgency. In the first year of this measure being introduced, 170 elderly Kiwis who are currently in rest home care are going to be affected. That is 170 families out there, and probably more, who are going to be very concerned about what is happening in this House today.

💬 Hon Annette King: That’s just to start with.

It is just to start, because—if Ms King could advise me about the fourth year—I believe it is 640 individuals who will be affected in the fourth year. So over the next 2 or 3 years even more families will be affected by this. Those families are not going to get the opportunity to take their concerns to this House. They are not going to be able to come and say that they are unhappy, happy, or indifferent, or ask: “Have you thought about this? Have you considered that? How much money is it going to save?”. We can answer a few of those questions now, because the Ministry of Health has quite helpfully given us some numbers in the regulatory impact statement: $4.5 million saved in the first year, and I believe that in the fourth year it gets up to $16.5 million. This is in a measure that earlier someone from the other side of the House, and I think it was Tim Macindoe, said was a measure to ensure the sustainability of residential aged care in New Zealand—to save $46 million. If this Government thinks saving $46 million in—

💬 Hon Annette King: It’s $16 million by the fourth year.

I say $16 million; $46 million, I think, in total. If this Government thinks saving $46 million is the answer to sorting out residential aged care in New Zealand, it has got some problems.

During the Committee stage many people on this side of the House did mention the silence of the Minister who was in the chair, the Minister for Social Development. Well, to be fair, one member of the National Party did answer a question, even though she got herself into a bit of grief with the whip. But the silence from the chair just shows you the tactics that the Government has employed to bring this piece of legislation through. It wants to sweep it through this House as fast as possible, so that nobody outside of this House realises what is going on. That could be put in the category, I believe, of dodgy process. Those people outside of this House who are worried about this—and, as Annette King said, Grey Power is watching—wanted to hear from the Minister as to why this is being brought in, what the rationale of it is, how much money it is going to save, and why they were not consulted earlier on. None of those questions were answered at all, apart from the response that we got from Maggie Barry to say that members did not know about this before the election. Well, I am sorry about this, but that is just not good enough, when serious questions are being asked, and especially when this House does not get the opportunity at the select committee to let other people answer questions. So we are here, asking the Minister in the chair questions, and there was not a peep out of the Minister. I think that is a shame, given what, I think, are the large ramifications of this bill to elderly people around the country.

This is a serious issue about how we look after our elderly. It is an issue that, personally, I think needs the heads of this whole Parliament to get round a table and sort out. It needs a broad, cooperative approach to make sure that our loved ones—and I am sure that we all in this House have people whom we hold dear and who are around this age—are looked after properly. If some of those people cannot afford care, we must look at how we provide that for them, and if there are some who can, we must look at how we make sure that they are looked after, as well, in a way that is not overly burdensome to them. But it is an issue that needs a proper debate, a broad debate, about all the issues that are concerned in aged care, not a piece of flimsy, rushed through the House, last-minute legislation that the Government would prefer be swept through this House very, very quickly.

This is a piece of legislation that unfortunately has gone through this House under urgency. It did not deserve that. This issue is bigger than this. It should not have been swept through under urgency, people should have been able to have their say, and, as I said during my Committee speech about the silence of the Minister in the chair, when we were putting questions to the Minister—I think some of them were reasonable, and some of them might have had a slight political edge to them—the silence was golden. I think that shows the level of respect that this Government through this process with this bill has shown the elderly people of New Zealand.

I wanted to come down to the House to acknowledge the fine stewardship of the Minister for Social Development throughout the consideration of this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. This bill represents a slowing down in the increase of the asset-testing threshold in New Zealand. Instead of increasing it by $10,000 a year and stopping it in 2026, which is what the existing legislation does, this new legislation—

💬 Hon Annette King: Because it would have been phased out by then, you silly man.

It does not get phased out if the increase is stopped in 2026. That is not a phase-out. What this legislation does is slow the increase right up into the future. The increases in the asset-testing thresholds are slower, but the thresholds still continue to increase. Money is going to be raised from these increased asset-test thresholds, and the real question the Opposition never asked is what that money is going to contribute to, for helping older New Zealanders.

I will tell you what it is going to contribute to over the next 4 years: rest home subsidies will increase by $47 million—

💬 Hon Members: How much?

There will be $47 million extra in rest home subsidies. On top of that we will be increasing dementia bed subsidies by $37 million over the next 4 years, and home support services will increase by $40 million or so over the next 4 years. So there will be $47 million extra in rest home subsides, $37 million extra in dementia bed subsidies, and $40 million - plus more in home care services.

This Government is making rest home care and home care priorities in investments, and one of the ways that we are able to afford this extra investment for the older New Zealanders of this country is to slow the increase in asset-test thresholds. I agree with Minister Bennett; I think it is moderate, it is sensible, and it recognises the tough economic times our country is in and the demographic pressures. Of course, information has been made available on the Ministry of Health website to assist people who are inquiring, and Grey Power and Age Concern were briefed before the Budget yesterday to advise them of what was happening. I certainly commend this bill to the House.

I would not be at all surprised if the next speaker from National is Steven Joyce. Clearly, the optics have not been great on this. Clearly, the messaging has not been as succinct as Minister Joyce, the “Minister of Everything”, would wish, so the Hon Tony Ryall was sent down to rescue the Hon Paula Bennett, who did not make a single contribution through the entire Committee stage of this legislation. During the introduction of the bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, Minister Bennett described it as a priority. She said this was a priority. Well, the Hon Tony Ryall has just described to us the loaves and fishes of the asset-testing health budget regime. This is a fantastic policy whereby you can save $4.5 million, taken from the dressing gown pockets of residents of rest home and hospital care - level facilities. Suddenly you get $4.5 million over here, out of their dressing gown pockets—they are already residents; they have entered into that contract, and it is being broken by National—and on the other side of the ledger you can put $47 million into rest home care, you can put $37 million into dementia care, and you can put around $40 million into home support. Wow! That is loaves and fishes in action. Thank you, Minister Ryall, for that amazing lesson in new maths. No wonder this Budget looks so bad for New Zealanders. If people on that side of the House think that any older person is going to fall for that spin, then they are wrong.

This has been a disgraceful breach of the respect that we should hold older New Zealanders in, and a disgraceful breach of proper parliamentary process, where urgency should be accorded when it is needed and at no other time. In fact, the arrangements of the House—the rules of the House—have been changed so that we do not have urgency just when the Government wants to do overtime. We are now correctly calling that extended sitting hours. This legislation may well have fallen into that category. It may have been that the Government has got a bit behind in its workload and wanted to get a bit more done, but at no time, ever, could this be justified as needing to go through all stages under urgency without any reference at all to a select committee and therefore to the public.

The arrogance demonstrated by the Government towards older New Zealanders is gobsmacking, and I am sure, as my colleague Kris Faafoi mentioned earlier, this will be mentioned regularly and frequently to members of the National Party by their constituents. I know that as word of this gets out over the weekend and over the next little while, many people will be contacting the National Party and asking those members why the Minister for Social Development could not answer a single question during the Committee stage. Why could she not answer the questions of how this bill helps, why it was needed, and why it went through the House under urgency? There is no justification for it, at all.

I was also surprised that the Hon Peter Dunne did not take a call at all on this bill; nor did the Hon John Banks. I am not sure whether he has realised that he is actually a member of another party now. He is a member of ACT, and his vote was cast on his behalf by National. And nobody from the Māori Party took a call, despite their votes being cast in support of this legislation, as well. So for the entire Committee stage we had opposition raised by members of the Green Party, by NZ First, and by Labour, and not a single contribution from the majority vote that will make this legislation our law and freeze the threshold for the asset-testing regime for older people—freeze it for the people who are already in a rest home, who entered that rest home with a clear contractual understanding of how the law was, a contract that has now been broken by National.

The Hon Tony Ryall said: “We’re not changing anything dramatically; we’re just slowing down the increase.” This is a major policy reversal, Mr Ryall, and I know that that Minister understands that very well. No amount of his spin is going to alter the fact that this has penalised older people who are not able to have a say at a select committee—not just older people but older people who are at the most vulnerable stage of their lives, at a level where they are dependent on support being provided to them because they are not able to independently live on their own.

We know, and I am sure everyone in the House is aware, of the issues in the aged-care sector. Everyone knows the issues and the challenges. What we have seen from this Government is a total denial of its leadership responsibility in aged care. What it has done is said: “Yes, we know. There are lots of issues in aged care, and we’re going to change the asset-testing regime for older people.” If that is the answer, then the Government has not understood the question. Everyone else throughout the country in this sector understands the issues and the challenges. We should face up to that.

I recall at the Health Committee when Labour and Green members of the select committee tried and tried and tried to get the select committee to agree to having an inquiry into these issues so that we could, across all the parties in Parliament, look at the issues in the aged-care sector and develop some systematic responses to them—in consultation and in partnership with the different players. They all care about the quality, the affordability, the sustainability of home support, of residential care, of dementia care. But, no, the National members blocked that inquiry, so Labour and the Greens did it themselves, and we came up with a lot of tragic stories about issues facing us in the aged-care sector. Grey Power was a partner in that inquiry as well. Grey Power, I know, and Age Concern New Zealand were told of this change just minutes before it was introduced to the House. They had no opportunity for any genuine debate, and they had no opportunity for consultation. They should be feeling very aggrieved, and I know they will express their views to the appropriate people at the appropriate time.

This is a big disappointment to me, because in my view it is an opportunity lost. We have every part of the aged-care sector saying that we know there are issues, we know there are challenges, and we agree on the problems. Why could the Minister of Health and the Minister for Senior Citizens not have taken that opportunity and said: “Let us work together and develop solutions that are sustainable.”? Instead, they are penalising a small group of people for a pitiful amount of money that will make no difference to the overall health budget but will penalise just those who have been denied an opportunity to have a say.

In the second reading debate on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill I made some references to parliamentary debate, and to remarks made by the Prime Minister at the time, Michael Joseph Savage, around the passage of the Social Security Act. I am going to give that quote in full now. He said at the time that the honourable gentlemen “on the Opposition benches want to turn back the clocks. I want to know why people should not have security—why people should not have security in the evening of their days, or when they are invalided. What is there more important in Christianity than to be our brothers’ keepers in reality?”. That idea of security has formed the basis of the social contract between the State and the public since the 1930s. That idea of security involves a number of different concepts, of course. It includes the idea of fair treatment—people being treated fairly. It involves effective, high-quality services, and it also involves policy stability. So all of those elements are important, and all of those are called into question by the Government’s behaviour around this bill.

Asset testing is a discriminatory regime. As Grey Power has so ably advocated, asset testing is a form of discrimination against older New Zealanders. It has no place in the New Zealand policy landscape. It is also contrary to the direction that we want to pursue in our economy, in that in our economy we are trying to encourage saving, yet asset testing, for aged residential care, encourages people instead to spend, not to save—to dispose of their assets or else to conceal them. That is inappropriate. Asset-testing regimes lead to situations where those who have the connections and the legal nous to be able to evade the test are generally easily able to do so, and those who do not are thereby penalised, leading to capricious effects. That is not what we require in a law.

Asset testing for aged residential care also mitigates against being able to pursue our Ageing in Place strategy, where we want to try to retain older people’s ability to live in their own homes. A person who needs aged residential care for a time, but is required, effectively, to lose their family home because of the asset-testing regime, and then regains their independence actually is no longer able to leave the rest home and to return to their family home—a situation that we would expect to occur more and more as time goes by. So asset testing is discriminatory and something to be discouraged on all fronts.

Ruth Dyson has just spoken in the House about the repeated attempts that Labour and the Green members made in the last Parliament towards an inquiry into aged residential care, and this Government—or, I guess, the National Government that we had at that time—resisted every one of those. Yet the inquiry that we undertook found that wages were totally inadequate in that sector, that quality of care was totally inadequate in that sector, and that training was totally inadequate in that sector. What we see is a situation where both the asset-testing regime and the type of care that is provided show a disrespect for older New Zealanders.

But, also, people are entitled to policy stability. That is part of security. There are many New Zealanders, older and otherwise, who will have planned their retirement, who will have planned their aged care, on the basis of the policy settings that have been in place. For 10 years those policy settings have been that asset testing is being phased out. That has been the goal of the law. Now, with a stroke of the pen, this Government is changing those policy settings, changing the goal, so that rather than the aim being to eliminate asset testing, the goal of the Government’s policy is now to retain asset testing, to freeze it in place in real terms. In fact, that is a polar switch, and one that older New Zealanders were entitled to at least know about before it occurred—and, we believe, to have a say about.

In fact, I had to struggle to restrain my incredulity at the comment from the Hon Tony Ryall. He appeared to give the impression that Age Concern and Grey Power were in some way consulted about this change before the Budget was read yesterday. My understanding is that Age Concern and Grey Power were told about what would occur, approximately an hour before the Budget. That fails every test of consultation law in New Zealand. If the Government believed that those organisations were entitled to be consulted, then actually there was a whole lot more it needed to do.

The reason behind this bill is really, in fact, to fill the hole in the Government’s health budget—to fill the hole that a 2 percent increase on last year’s appropriation for health will leave. That 2 percent increase will go no way towards covering the costs of merely treading water in health—merely being able to retain our same capacity to provide services—let alone deal with population growth, an ageing population, changes to KiwiSaver that district health boards will need to somehow accommodate, and the trumpeted $1.5 billion worth of new initiatives. In fact, those will have to be funded entirely from savings or cut programmes within the health sector, and this is one of those.

The Government needs this bill to fill that hole, to compensate for the magical thinking that lies behind its health budget. That is why we have got this bill—that is why we have got this bill. It needs it for that reason. The next step in the logical chain is that it needs to be able to pass it through into law without public consultation, because it knows that the public are extremely exercised about the topic of asset sales and would wish to actually have their say about that matter. The Government cannot afford to have this bill go before a select committee, because it knows what the public would say, it knows what older New Zealanders would say, and it knows that it would make it a heck of a lot harder to get this bill through. It cannot afford to have it go through select committee, and that is the reason for the urgency. That is the reason for the urgency. The 1 July commencement date for this bill is actually the end of the chain; it is not the beginning of it. This whole process is in order to allow this Government to get this bill through without public scrutiny to fill the hole left by magical thinking in the health budget. It shows a contempt for the processes of this House and a contempt for older New Zealanders. Shame on this Government.

It is my honour to speak on the third reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I have been listening intently on this side of the House, and I have heard all the arguments from the Labour Party. And the belief that you can shout and scream and cry loud and be heard is just—having listened to the false arguments that have come from across the House, I just have to straighten out some of the hyperbole.

As the Minister for Social Development has already said, this is about changing the annual increases. It is not taking away the annual increases; it is merely making the annual increases go up in an affordable way. If the Labour Party should have learnt anything in the last 3½ years of being in Opposition, it is the context in which we now operate within this global environment. It is a global environment of recession; it is a global environment of fiscal responsibility. If those members want to live like the Greeks and eat Greek salad, then they can go right ahead and campaign on those promises. But if they want to be fiscally prudent and fiscally responsible, like the National Government, then they can sit there and learn some things.

What are the facts? What are the facts? Well, the facts are that the threshold levels for aged residential care were increased from $210,000 to $213,000. That is what it is: it has gone up. It has actually increased. That is for singles and for married couples who are both in residential care. It has gone up for a married person whose spouse is not in a rest home; it has gone up to $116,806 from 1 July. But what has happened as well is that the family home and car are not counted as assets while the remaining spouse is not in a rest home. That is contrary to what has been espoused across this Chamber. It is contrary to some of the things that have been said by the Labour Party.

I will tell you what is not changing. What is not changing is that it will not affect anyone getting subsidised in rest home care or anyone who applies and is assessed before the 1 July 2012 date.

💬 Hon Annette King: Of course it affects them.

Mrs King continues to propagate the nonsense that they are affected—that this is retrospective. But I am sorry, Mrs King, I ask you to read the bill—I ask you to read the bill. I will tell you what: I am specially going to visit the rest homes in Maungakiekie, from Onehunga, One Tree Hill, Ellerslie, and right throughout my electorate.

I will tell you what I am going to do. I am going to talk about the facts of this Budget. There is $47 million in rest home subsidies over 4 years—increased. There is $35 million to dementia bed subsidies—increased. There is $40 million for home care support—going up. That is what they want to hear in our electorates. That is what the people of New Zealand want to hear, and that is what this National Government is providing for the people of New Zealand. I support this bill.

I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First, while at the same time I am trying to find a good reason to agree with the previous member’s speech. I believe that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga is rather confused about which bill is being discussed right now; nor is he aware of what is being said. In fact, the previous speaker reminds me of the lyrics of an Irish song that go something like “For all the languages, we cannot communicate.”—“For all the languages, we cannot communicate.” There seems to be no clear communication from the Government, nor is it able to say anything that will provide any comfort to any of our senior residents at residential homes.

It is strange to tell that National earthen lot that some of us over on this side of the House can articulate what they cannot—clearly, they cannot. I thought it was very strange to hear the Minister for Social Development say that she sees the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill as a fair bill. For years our citizens, who should be cared for fairly—“fairly” is the word—in residential care, have been demanded by Government departments to complete forms. If they need long-term residential care in hospitals they need to complete these forms. There is also another demand of them, and it goes like this: “You may be able to get a residential care subsidy from the Ministry of Health.” Note the word “may”; it is only a three-letter word. Why is that? It is because the Ministry of Health determines whether a person may get a residential care subsidy. Our senior citizens may get a residential care subsidy if they are assessed as needing long-term residential care in a hospital. It also depends on how much they and their spouses earn.

These residents have spent many years of their lives serving this country. Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga would not understand that. These residents have spent many years of their lives contributing to, and building the economy of, this country. Somebody should tell that to Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. These residents have spent many years of their lives fighting hard to ensure that people like those members over there on that side of the House have a better future. They have worked really hard to provide for a brighter future and a healthy environment for all New Zealanders, not just for the few—and not just for the few wealthy friends of the National Government. Sadly, the Government has failed to take that into account. In fact, the response it has is always “Aye. Aye.” “Aye” becomes the only vocabulary of members on that side of the House in their everyday language, leaving common sense outside of Parliament altogether.

The Minister who introduced this bill, Paula Bennett, is obviously confused about what planet she is on, given that her welfare destruction bill says yes to some sort of youth training, and no to sensible New Zealand First policies that create jobs. The bill strikes at the hearts of our elderly citizens by determining that their assets should be used to pay for the cost of their contracted care services. Instead, the Government just responds with “Aye” to anything and everything. I am reminded of an old saying:

The ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,

But right or left, as strikes the player goes;

And [she] that toss’d thee down into the field,

[She] knows about it all—[she] knows—[she] knows.”

How naive of this Government to quickly forget about many years of service and positive contribution. This Government needs to wake up and start introducing some better solutions. These welfare reforms will have skilled Kiwis packing their bags for Australia or being reduced to student wages. While we are on the exodus path, we might as well send our elderly off with them! At least in Australia they may have a better hope of holding on to their assets.

Has anyone thought of the effects that this new Budget measure will have on low-income families? Alfred Ngaro will forget that—oh yes. Those families will be forced to provide for the care of their parents and grandparents. National members cannot sit there and complain that Pacific people are the highest statistics on the unemployment scale, when the Government is forcing them to stay home to look after their elderly because Pacific people simply cannot afford to have their elderly placed in care. I know this, for sure. Pacific people cannot afford to go to work because they have to stay home and look after their papas and mamas from the Cook Islands, and their tina and their tama from Samoa. I know that those small-minded National members will say: “Well, these people do not have any assets, so they won’t be affected.” Well, this Budget measure is surely going to say to these people: “Don’t bother attaining assets.” That is what this bill is all about.

In 2010, 19,000 depended on the residential subsidy. This rate is likely to drop dramatically. What the Government is saying to the children of New Zealand is: “Don’t bother having savings, don’t bother having assets, and don’t bother with the bright future, because this will mean absolutely nothing when you are older.” That is what this bill is all about. People need not bother having assets that are worth more than $213,000. Have those members seen the prices of houses in Auckland, especially in Manukau? The average price of a house—just in case Alfred Ngaro has forgotten—is $345,000 in South Auckland. As we get closer to central and east Auckland, this price increases to $800,000. I am sure Housing New Zealand Corporation will be grinning with glee at these facts, because there will be an increase in the number of people renting their homes after hearing about the threshold, which will be so low that they cannot even buy a parking slot in the city. National members will come back with the argument that the families of the elderly, or the younger spouses, can live in their houses so that they are not affected by the threshold.

This zero Budget—or zero initiative, we might as well call it—is dependent on volatility. The Government has decided to base the job market on Christchurch. Well, let us face it; we are not even sure whether that is going to happen or whether it is going to bounce back. Now the Government will base how the elderly are going to be cared for on a CPI rate of 2.1 percent. I have constituents, a couple, who are reaching the age of retirement and have saved up in order to buy the State house they have been living in for a number of years. They were informed in April by the Housing New Zealand Corporation that they could actually buy this property. That was last year. This year they were told that the offer has been withdrawn. I suspect that the Housing New Zealand Corporation knew that these people and those in a similar age bracket were best not to buy their houses because of the Budget announcement yesterday. So what are they left with? Well, there are no assets to pass on to future generations just so they can have a subsidy to allow them to stay in a rest home. The reality is that rest homes can come pretty close to eating up a person’s entire wealth. We do not support this bill.

I call Tim Macindoe.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh! You could have chosen Annette.

I am very sure the Speaker is glad he did not choose Annette. As the Hon Tony Ryall noted a few minutes ago, this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, merely slows the increase in the asset-testing threshold. Opposition members have worked themselves up into their customary collective frenzy and declared for the umpteenth time the end of the world. But they do not cry foul about the increase in rest home subsidies or in funding for vitally important dementia care—a problem that we know is increasing dramatically. They do not cry foul about the increase in home-care services provisions. These are the things that are at the heart of this measure we are debating this afternoon. Instead, the members opposite conveniently ignore all these worthy outcomes, because they do not want their constituents to know about them.

So let us put it on the record that that is what we are doing. I am proud to tell my constituents that we are making provision for those important things, because they know that it is a huge challenge. I applaud yet another step that meets the needs of our ageing population, and the many fine folk who work in the aged-care sector, while acknowledging, as all but the occupants of “Planet Labour” surely do, the very tight fiscal environment in which we are operating.

On “Planet Labour” sound policy means squandering all the funds in the good times and leaving nothing for the bad. On “Planet Labour” it means making big commitments to sound kind and caring, but failing to make any budgetary provision for those commitments. That was the record of Labour’s 9 years in office. It means failing to establish priorities to ensure that our country can avoid heading down the path that so many of the European economies are currently embarked upon, and it means coming into this House to feign mock outrage and pretend that improving our public services and making provision for these important measures will not matter.

That is why Labour members are still hopelessly out of touch with public opinion. That is why they are still hopelessly divided even within their own caucus. And that is why they remain totally without hope of returning to this side of the House for many, many years to come.

Sam Lotu-Iiga said that the Opposition has been shouting and screaming to be heard. Well, yes, we have, and I will tell you why: because no one over there is listening. No one over there has had their ears open to anything that has been said by the Opposition side of the House today. I heard Tim Macindoe, and I have got one question for him: did he tell his constituents, his elderly constituents, before the election that he intended, through his Government, to change the asset-testing regime? Did he tell his constituents? Well, I know what the answer is. The answer is a big fat no. He did not tell his constituents.

I have to say that his Cabinet did not tell him, either. The backbench members did not know that the Government was going to bring this measure in. I feel sorry for the suckers. They did not know that the Government was going to bring in this measure, until they trooped into the caucus room yesterday. They sat down, and Bill English proudly held up his Budget and said: “By the way, we’re going to introduce a little bill, just a few minor, technical amendments, and we’re going to change the asset-testing regime. You sit on your chuffs in the House and say nothing, because that is what your job is. You’re the suckers for our policy.” That is what happened. I know that is what happened. I have to say that it is pretty blimmin poor for the older people of New Zealand.

Tim Macindoe said we all have to make sacrifices. Well, is it not interesting: members opposite are going to take $4.5 million off the poor old people, who spend, on average, 18 months in a rest home, but guess how much is going into VIP limos? Guess how much is going into VIP limos? There is $8.2 million for the big limos. I am going to say they are taking the money off the old people so that they can have their BMWs. That is what it means—take it off the old people so that Government members can pay $8.2 million for their limousines to drive around in.

There is one word for this Cabinet—and I am not going to include the backbenchers, because they did not know about this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. There is one word for this Cabinet: arrogant. What an arrogant Cabinet. You know, during the Committee stage of this bill, would those arrogant Ministers stand up and defend this bill? No, they would not. They sat on their behinds in this House and would not say a word. What do they earn their money doing? I am sure that Tau Henare, when he was a Minister, would have been on his feet. He would not be able to resist it. But did we hear from Paula Bennett? Did we hear from Nathan Guy? No, they sat there with their heads down. They could not defend this measure. Why could they not defend it? Because they consulted with nobody, and it was a sneaky, secret little deal. It was a secret deal done in Cabinet that did not even include their backbench colleagues. They said they consulted on it. Tony Ryall: “We consulted on this bill.” Do you know what? They consulted on this bill at about the same time they told the backbench—yesterday. Is that consultation? Does that constitute consultation? You ring up Age Concern and Grey Power and say: “By the way, we’re going to change the asset-testing regime in the Budget in half an hour.” Is that consultation? No, it is not. It is arrogance. That is what it is.

The Minister for Social Development said, when she did finally speak in the third reading—a well-prepared, 2-minute speech—that this was a responsible framework. She said that the fact is that it is a good deal. It is a good deal for whom? It is certainly not a good deal for older New Zealanders. And she said that it is a priority for this Government. When did it become a priority for this Government to change a regime that has been in place for almost 10 years and that older New Zealanders and people who are moving into the years when they will need rest home care were relying on? They had no idea that something that had been on the books for 10 years was going to be changed at a swipe of a pen, under urgency, and through a very secret, sneaky little deal done in Cabinet.

💬 Andrew Little: Shameful

Shame! It is shameful. It is very shameful indeed. This measure is not a priority for this Government. It is nothing but meanness. I think those members ought to be ashamed of themselves. They are taking $4.5 million off the most vulnerable.

Then they told us that they were doing it so that the older people could have certainty. Well, do you know what? They had certainty. They had the certainty of a 10-year-old policy that the National Party did not change in the first 4 years that it was in Government. It never mentioned it, never changed it, never said it would change it. Older people had certainty for 10 years, and then, at the drop of a hat, National changed the policy. It changed it for $4.5 million. It is OK to spend $8.2 million on limos, but you cannot spend $4.5 million on the most vulnerable in our society.

I have to say it is the beginning of the end for older people in New Zealand under a National Government. I have seen it all before. Bill English in 1998 said that he would not get rid of asset testing, although he had promised in a coalition deal with New Zealand First that he would. He welshed on the deal under National, which refused to get rid of asset testing. In this Budget National has frozen the Rates Rebate Scheme. There is no more money for the Rates Rebate Scheme. That is another kick in the guts for older New Zealanders. And there is no money to promote the Rates Rebate Scheme. Do not tell them there might be a little bit of help for them. The way to reduce expenditure is to never tell them that they are entitled to it. That is the way that this arrogant Government is carrying on.

I have to say I liked the analogy from Ruth Dyson. She said Government members were putting their hands in the dressing gown pockets of older New Zealanders and performing the old loaves and fishes act by taking $4.5 million off the old people, then claiming somehow that they were putting so much more money into residential care and home care. Well, for those members over there who obviously know nothing, there is no extra money for those people who are in home care. There is no extra money for those in residential care. The money merely covers the increase in the number of people going into rest homes, and it merely covers the number of people who need home care.

The members over there might like to have the wool pulled over their eyes, but I can tell you something that I know about older New Zealanders: they do not. I would say that Government members, when they sulk home out of this House, are going to face some older people who will say: “You could have changed it. You could have asked us, though. You could have consulted us. You could have said ‘Is there another way to do it?’, but, no, you kept it secret.” They will remember that this is an arrogant, sneaky Government that, when there is urgency, will do what it can to undermine the most vulnerable in New Zealand. Well, good luck to you, because I can tell you they will not forget it.

I think it is about time we got a little bit of common sense back into this debate. We have had the rhetoric from the Opposition: from the Labour benches, from the Green benches, and from the land of Nod. We have had rhetoric—rhetoric after rhetoric—debating the need for fiscal restraint and discipline. You would think that nobody had heard of the global financial crisis. You would think that nobody was aware of the need to be disciplined in our spending, to be fiscally prudent guardians of the public purse.

Let us just look at what we are proposing. As the Hon Tony Ryall pointed out, we are looking at a slowing of the increase in the asset threshold—a slowing of the increase in the asset threshold. From 1 July we will begin to adjust the asset threshold by the Consumers Price Index for rest home care subsidies. This is what we do with superannuation—this is what we do with superannuation. Up until now, under the profligacy of the previous Government, it went up $10,000 a year. We are looking at that; we thought that this is no longer sustainable. We are about protecting the most vulnerable in our community. We are about having a sustainable programme. I commend this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures Amendment Bill, to the House.

I understand the next call is a split call with the Greens.

I think the time has come to put this debate in some context. It is in the context of a Budget with zero ideas and zero hope, and a Government that is failing. The previous speaker, Dr Cam Calder, tried to paint the context of the global financial crisis as though it had just happened, as though this Government had not had opportunities to address it, as though this Government had not had opportunities to promote pro-growth tax policies, and as though this Government had not had the opportunity to direct money towards research and development. The previous speaker, unfortunately, is defending a status quo Government. If we do not change things, nothing will change. We will continue to buy more from overseas than we export. If we do not look after our exporters, who grow our economy, we will not succeed as a country.

What we are debating here in this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, is a threshold test change. It is a threshold test change that normally involves $10,000 a year over 4 years. This is the big idea of the Budget—this is the big idea of the Budget. Sadly, the reason we know it was the big idea was that it was kept secret. It was one line in a press release. The backbenchers opposite knew nothing of it, so it must be the big idea. The Government did not want it to get out. This was the big idea that was going to change the economy around. That is why we are in urgency. That is why we are trying to get this bill through, so that New Zealand will be put on the right track because of a $10,000-a-year threshold test change.

It follows on from picking the pockets of children in the previous legislation. We can see the theme: it is tinkering about the edges of tax law. It is not addressing the fundamental change that we need as a country if we want to grow our exports and make our country a better place to live in.

What this bill is not doing is the big issue. As my colleague Jacinda Ardern said in a previous stage of the debate, there is no discussion on superannuation. There is no real fruitful discussion on superannuation in the Government’s documents. It does push out KiwiSaver another year, it puts off savings as a country for us all, but it does not discuss the big issue of retirement age. It is really tinkering with a small group of people who are on this threshold.

They are real people with real lives and real concerns, and there is no doubt about it that they need their voices heard. This is where this goes really wrong, because this Government is not following the usual process. It is not following the select committee process. It is not letting people have a say. It is not consulting. It is not asking whether we could do this a different way. Instead, it is getting on with it. Instead of following the usual process, this Government is pushing through this legislation because it knows it will be unpopular. It knows that cutting away—I say “cutting”; there is no other word for it—this threshold means that those who live independently will see their assets eroded away. They will be paying for their own care. They will be losing the subsidy that they are used to. This may be a good way of going about things at the margins, but they are not being allowed to have a say about that.

These old people are also concerned about intergenerational equity. I have spoken with them. They are concerned about their grandchildren. They are worried about the costs in the health system of looking after older folk. They are worried about the opportunities that may not be there for their grandchildren as a result of an ageing population, and they want to be a part of this debate. But this process does not allow them to do that.

That is why we are opposed to this legislation. It has not allowed the conversation to happen that should happen. It is tinkering about the edges. It is not making the changes that we need to make, and then we have Ministers unshamefacedly, seemingly, standing up and trying to spin this as something other than a cut. We have the numbers in the regulatory impact statement that show that in 2012-13, instead of the threshold being $220,000, it will be $213,297. How that is not a cut, I do not know.

There are more than 42,000 people in New Zealand who are in residential care, in 700 different facilities, so the changing of the rules that is happening in this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, obviously affects quite a number of people, and there would have been a lot of people and their families who would have been interested in contributing to the bill through making submissions. As a new member of this House, I think being at the select committee, hearing the submissions, and hearing the expertise that members of the public contribute is an incredible contribution to the lawmaking process. But having this bill go through under urgency, with no opportunity for people to have their say, means we are making bad law.

I think the Government has been deaf to a lot of the concerns that have been raised on this side of the House. There has been a theme of the need for collaboration. In areas as contested as water, we have had a collaborative process through the Land and Water Forum. Here we are dealing with the way people are looked after—our senior citizens, who have contributed taxes for all of their lives—in the twilight of their lives. We need to have a cross-party solution here, a lasting solution, not one that is going to be tossed out with the next Government. That is why Labour and the Greens, working with Grey Power, had an inquiry into aged care. That is why we want to work on something that works well for everyone and that endures. But this bill, sneaked through under urgency with no public process, will not do that.

It has been really puzzling listening to the Government. If you read the regulatory impact statement, that makes it clear what the motive for the bill is, and I quote: “Increasing the asset threshold … by the CPI (rather than by $10,000) would reduce the number of residents eligible for the subsidy and thereby reduce the amount of Residential Care Subsidy paid.” The reason for this bill is to cut the number of people who can access that care. It is miserly in comparison with the overall $870 million that is spent by the district health boards on subsidising residential care, so it is tinkering, as my colleague Mr Clark noted. It is tinkering about the edges. Why are we doing this? Why is the Government doing this, except to penalise a few people, and to cause enormous uncertainty, insecurity, and grief amongst older citizens, to make this small saving out of an $870 million Budget? It discriminates against older citizens. It is bad process, because it is being done under urgency. It is not good law, and it discriminates. Thank you.

I seek leave of the House to add that document, which is Changes to the Residential Care Subsidy asset threshold from the Ministry of Health.

💬 Hon Annette King: It’s available on the website.

It is? I am sorry, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is not granted.

I also have another document here from the—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Hang on. What are these documents? What is the source of the documents?

These documents are all available on the website, but—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The member knows that we do not table documents that are readily available in the public domain.

I mentioned these documents because we were accused for quite some time throughout this morning of the fact that information that was there was not there—and yet it was there. Enough with that debate; this is about the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill.

What this debate has been about has been the care and concern of our elderly people. This is the final word—I have the final word this afternoon—and it comes from Martin Taylor, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the New Zealand Aged Care Association and who supports the Government’s initiative to slow down the yearly asset threshold increase for eligibility for an aged residential care entitlement. This is what the association says: “Currently the asset threshold is $210,000 and increases to $10,000 each July. But with the policy change announced today, the asset threshold will now be indexed to inflation. ‘This is a small but significant step in addressing one of the most significant issues facing this and future governments, which is how to fund care for an ageing population,’ the Chief Executive of the NZACA, Martin Taylor, says.”

This again confirms why this bill is a bill that we support. This is a bill that cares, and this is a bill about the concern that we have for elder people. We will go to our constituents, we will go to our elder people, and we will tell them the truth. There will be no more scaremongering. I support this bill.