Veterans’ Support Bill

Mr Chair, I trust you will indulge me if the introduction to the Committee stage of the Veterans’ Support Bill sounds a bit more like a second reading speech, because I was unable to offer any intervention when the bill was read for a second time. As a consequence, I have not spoken on this bill since its first reading in October of last year.

I think it is appropriate to first acknowledge the very thoughtful speeches that were made by people who have a very strong empathy with this bill. I specifically and strongly remember the speech of my friend and colleague Melissa Lee, that of Andrew Williams, and that of Meka Whaitiri, all of whom have very personal stories about why this bill is important to them. I want to acknowledge their very thoughtful contributions.

Can I also thank the submitters, especially those from the veterans community who have informed the bill and its subsequent changes, and also members of the Social Services Committee, ably chaired by Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, who is now the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. His promotion resulted in the bill safely passing through the select committee by Melissa Lee.

I also thank officials, especially Sarah Luxford and the team at Veterans Affairs New Zealand and Major Rebecca Thornley, both of whom worked incredibly hard, and still are working, on the regulations that will support this bill. Others who contributed too are Keith McLea, Robert Buchanan, Victoria Hinson, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and others.

I also want to acknowledge another individual who has a very strong connection to this bill and to support for veterans, and that is Brigadier Rick Ottaway. Rick retired from his role of, probably, 7 or so years as the general manager of Veterans Affairs and Secretary for War Pensions, but that was only a small proportion of a long legacy of service to this country militarily over 50 years. I think it is worth acknowledging in this House and thanking Brigadier Ottaway for his long and loyal service. I am pleased to say that although he has retired from that role, I do not lose all of his services. He will be continuing to support the efforts to plan for the commemorations for Anzac Day 2015.

As we know, we are here because the War Pensions Act, which this bill replaces, is now 60 years old. It was written for a time and a situation in the post - World War II period, and has served very well, but it was recognised that it was necessary to replace it. The Law Commission, after its deliberation, recommended two schemes and made 170 recommendations, of which 132 were accepted by the Government in what I think was a very generous package—a $60 million package—that resulted in material increases to disability and surviving spouse pensions last year.

Most of the recommendations that were not taken up were administrative in nature—the setting up of a committee and some consequent amendments that the Government felt were not necessary. But there were a couple of thorny issues, I think it is fair to say, that were debated, and continue to be debated, about whether or not they should have been agreed. I think the overall package, however, was very generous in the circumstances, particularly in the straitened times when Cabinet was considering it.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the way in which it has landed, but one particular issue that has been debated—and I know we will continue to do so during the Committee of the whole House—is the issue of lump sum on death. The best estimates of that suggest that the cost of removing the current disability threshold for the payment of lump sum on death would be in the region of at least $40 million over 4 years. It actually depends on what is included if the bill is to be amended. It could be much higher than that.

My parliamentary colleague the Opposition spokesman on veterans affairs, Mr Goff—a very experienced member—generally, in the race to see which side of the House can be generous, will talk up the value of an initiative like this. Indeed, he has talked it down because he realises that in straitened times it is probably not appropriate. Nevertheless, although I agree that the diminishing number of veterans may make this affordable in the short term, the very reason we are replacing the War Pensions Act 1954 is that although our older soldiers will pass on in time and although the numbers needing support may diminish in the short term, thanks to a number of recent theatres, including Bosnia, the first Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands, in the medium to long term there is no doubt that the 15,000 to 17,000 new and modern veterans who have served this country with distinction will, as they age, need to be well supported, including in their retirement.

So we will have that debate, and I think it will be a robust debate—I have no doubt. I, for one, am not swayed to the view that we need to invest an extra $40 million at this time, but that will be a framework we will set up, and we will be able to debate and have that discussion in the future. But if I was to be swayed into making the extra investment right now, I think I would be inclined to support our veterans while they are alive, rather than after they pass away. Their families have made sacrifices as well. I am not trivialising the importance of providing some sort of support as a lump sum on death. That is certainly the case for those who, under the new language, have an impairment of greater than 52 percent under the new American Medical Association guideline nomenclature.

My very strong preference is actually to provide support to veterans while they are alive. However, in the reflections around this—and I gave a great deal of thought about the recommendations that were being promoted by Mr Goff and the RSA and other submitters—I was swayed by the simple proposition that anybody who requires retirement support and who was a veteran, having reached the age of retirement, should be entitled to a veterans pension and for their superannuation to be called such. I was swayed to that view and to the view that a couple of other entitlements could be attributed to all veterans—that is, a non - means-tested community services card and the removal of abatement provisions on the veterans pension if a veteran is required to spend an extended period of time in hospital.

So the Government has introduced Supplementary Order Paper 450, which makes some minor technical amendments, including the extension of the commencement dates for scheme one to 1 October 2014 and for scheme two to 1 October 2015, in order to give people time to prepare for those changes. We will discuss this in our debate on Part 6 when it comes up, but I do want to put in my prefacing comments that I think it was an important recognition—that simple statement that when you are a veteran, having reached the age of retirement, you are entitled to a veterans pension.

We will debate that robustly, I have no doubt, but I hope we can debate it in a manner that is befitting of our veterans. We stand in this House with those silent sentinels of theatres past—Le Quesnoy, Cassino, which is very current at the moment, and Messines—and our modern theatres of Timor-Leste, Afghanistan, and Missions in Support of Peace. I trust that when we do have those debates, we respect the dignity of the veterans who served in all of those theatres.

Can I first add to the list of people that the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs has thanked for the work that has gone into bringing the Veterans’ Support Bill to this point those who initiated the process. I am thinking of Rick Barker, the former Minister of Veterans’ Affairs. I am thinking of the late John Campbell, who was president of the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association, and Major Chris Mullane, retired, of the Ex-Vietnam Services Association. We began this process back in about 2006. The other person I want to add to that list is actually Sir Geoffrey Palmer. We set up the Law Commission to look at the War Pensions Act 1954, which was out of date. Geoffrey Palmer did a huge amount of work, went around the country, talked to the veterans, and talked to the RSAs. He brought up a package of recommendations that this House should take very seriously.

This bill has been a long time coming. I welcome it now that it is here. I have to say that my big disappointment—and this will come as no surprise to the Minister—is that the Government has left out of this bill some of the critical provisions that were recommended by the Law Commission, by the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association, and by other veterans’ groups. We have missed out things that the veterans came to the Social Services Committee and asked us directly for.

I agree with the Minister. We should, in this debate, honour those whom this bill is about. I am looking across the wall there at a plaque that says “Crete”. Last week we celebrated the 73rd anniversary of the Battle of Crete—something very close to my heart, because my father-in-law was captured there and spent 4 years in a prisoner of war camp. I see Cassino over there. I met with 44 veterans of Monte Cassino in our hall in this building. I talked to those people, whom we should honour because through their sacrifice and their commitment, we have a better world today.

Where I come out on this bill is not simply to do as the Minister has done, which is to pick up half of my suggested amendments and bring in the symbolism of saying that anyone who put themselves in harm’s way should be eligible for a war veteran’s pension. We should not only give them the symbolism but keep the substance—the substance of what the RSA asked for, pleaded for, and the substance of what the Law Commission said we should do, which was to give them a few small material benefits and some substance to back up the symbolism of recognising their role and their service. This is our last opportunity to do it. In the regulatory impact statement, we read that 28 percent of our war veterans will pass away over the next 5 years. That will be most of the World War II veterans. They were there in their 90s when we met with them last week. There was one fellow there, Ian Mathieson, who had turned 100. We spoke with him and we admired what they had done. We admired their grit. This is the chance to thank them in their lifetime by giving them the substance of what the Law Commission, after 2½ years of hard work, said the House should give them.

I ask you, Minister, why we are scrimping. What is the cost? It is $11.1 million. The Minister said it might be more than that. When I asked the officials, they said it was less than that. That is the answer I got from Rick Ottaway, Minister—that it was less than their original prediction. I ask you why it is, when we are passing in the estimates this year $13 million to pay for a conference in Samoa, that we cannot afford $11 million to honour those who, for 4 years, served this country abroad, watched their mates die or get badly wounded before their eyes, and often came back traumatised. I ask, Minister, whether $11.1 million in the first year, reducing to $8 million 3 years down the track, is something that is unaffordable and unreasonable to offer our veterans.

We have given Rio Tinto $30 million to subsidise it to stay in New Zealand for another 3 years before it pulls out. Last night we passed a very good piece of legislation—well, we did not pass it; it went through its second reading, as you might recall, Mr Chairman, and I do not think you were unfortunate enough to be the presiding officer in the Chair at that point—that would cost $138 million by its third year. I applaud that. We should be helping working mothers to have a little bit of time out to raise their kids. If we can do that for our working mums, then surely, for our veterans in their last years, we can make this gesture to them of a little bit of substance to back our expressed gratitude—and I accept that it is heartfelt gratitude from the Minister—for their service.

What I am saying is that what we are asking for is not unaffordable. What we are asking for is not unreasonable. What we are asking for is not part of a bidding race in an election year; it is something that the Law Commission said we should do and that the veterans sincerely and genuinely pleaded with us to do. Surely, in this Chamber, when we stand up time and again and express our gratitude, we can give it a bit of concrete form. You know, the $40 million that the Minister mentioned is over 4 years. There will be $11 million, dropping to $8 million. The Minister says: “What about the other 10,000 to 15,000 vets from Afghanistan, and Timor, and the Solomons?”. That will be a factor. It will be a factor when most of us in this Chamber are dead. Most of those veterans will not be retiring until about 2054. So it is not an argument to say that we cannot afford it, because sometime in the future, 40 years out, those who have served us well in Afghanistan, Timor, and the Solomons will also be eligible.

It is, as the Minister acknowledged, about the families as well. The families of those World War II veterans went without their loved ones for 4 years. When their loved ones came back they were often traumatised, as my father-in-law was. In his case it was from 5 hugely difficult years when he was starved and forced by the Germans to march across Eastern Europe in the face of the advancing Red Army. Those families also suffered. What most veterans will tell you, Minister, if you listen, is that they want to be sure that those costs are met when they die and that they are not a further burden on their families. It is not a lot to ask for: a $5,700 lump-sum payment on death, to give that peace of mind to our veterans and to acknowledge our gratitude for their service and sacrifice to our country.

I applaud the fact, Minister, that you have done a U-turn and said that all veterans are eligible for the war pension. But that just means that they transfer from New Zealand Superannuation to something called the veterans pension. They want that. That is good. That symbolism is important. They get the community services card, which might cost a couple of million, maybe—maybe not even that much. They get their pension even if they are hospitalised for over 13 weeks. That might cost a couple of hundred thousand. The one thing that we were offering them and that the Law Commission said we should give them was that lump-sum payment on death. Is that too much to ask of our generation and the generations that will come, for people who shaped the world that we enjoy today, the peace that we enjoy today, and the well-being that we enjoy today?

It is a gesture. It is a token amount. It is tiny, as a percentage of the total spending of a Government. It is 0.00001 percent, and we are told that it is unaffordable in straitened times. Well, we could afford to give big tax cuts to wealthy people. Can we not afford to make a small gesture to our veterans so that they know that on their death the costs of their funeral expenses will not fall on their families? It is a little thing, Minister, to ask, and I am asking it of you sincerely.

I would love to see this Committee go forward as one and say: “Here is something concrete, tangible, albeit very small, that we can do for our veterans.” I have heard no explanation in the Minister’s speech or from those on the National Party side who have spoken at the earlier stages as to why we cannot afford to do that and why we should not do that. No New Zealander would begrudge this small gesture to the people who fought and sacrificed themselves on our behalf. I have got Supplementary Order Paper 441 here. I am asking that members across the Committee support it. I know that New Zealand First is supporting it, and I thank those members for that. I know that the Greens are supporting it. I thank them. Brendan Horan is supporting it. The Māori Party is supporting it—

Order! The time has come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) with amendment, progress on the Veterans’ Support Bill, and no progress on the Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.