Veterans’ Support Bill

I rise to speak in support of Part 2. It is a relatively small part, but it is nevertheless reasonably important. It talks about the obligations that are placed on VANZ—that is, Veterans Affairs New Zealand—and the rights that it accords to the veterans. I think it is important that we codify the rights that veterans are entitled to and that we do place those obligations on the department.

Often old people generally, but in particular vets, feel that because of their age they do not count for anything, they are not listened to, and they are not treated with respect. Some of that is perhaps a little unfair on Veterans Affairs, but it is certainly a feeling that the veterans themselves have.

In Part 2 we set out a code of veterans’ and other claimants’ rights. It specifies what Veterans Affairs should do. That refers back, actually, to clause 14A of the bill. Veterans Affairs has such responsibilities imposed on it as having to “perform its functions and exercise its powers on reasonable grounds and in a timely manner,”. The difficulty with any sort of code like that is that it is relatively subjective in how it is set out, but it does at least give those who are trying to exercise their rights something to refer to. It requires under clause 14B that Veterans Affairs keeps veterans up to date on the progress of their claim and gives notice of its decision. Again, that would seem a relatively straightforward and proper thing for it to do. Also, under clause 14C, Veterans Affairs must tell the claimants about their review rights—that they have the right to apply for a review of any of the decisions made by Veterans Affairs on the claim—and it must do so at a time appropriate to enable the claimant to exercise their rights. They are relatively straightforward but nevertheless important rights that are set out in the legislation.

Part 2 also requires under clause 26 that the person who drafts the code of rights is the Chief of Defence Force, and he must do that—or, theoretically, she must do that—as soon as is practicable after the provision comes into force. The Chief of Defence Force has to consult with a group that is established by the Minister of Defence. This clause sets out that that group must include the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association and other groups representing veterans and claimants. I think it is important that the veterans themselves are involved in this process of drawing up the code of rights. It means that the people who are affected by this legislation and by the code do have an input into it.

The final decision rests with the Minister under clause 27, and the Minister must decide whether or not to approve that particular code. Presumably, the Minister can send it back to the Chief of Defence Force if he feels that the code is not sufficiently full or comprehensive enough to cover the areas that need that coverage. The Minister must then, after he has approved the code, present the code to this House within 12 sitting days of Parliament to ensure that the House sees what is in the code, and the Minister must arrange for the approval of the code to be notified in the newspapers. That is pretty much that clause.

There is not a lot that is controversial about Part 2. As I said before, the Labour Opposition is fully supportive of the main areas of this bill, which are designed to promote the interests and to respect the interests of the veterans and the service that they have provided to this country.

E te Heamana, tēnā koe. Koutou ngā rangatira o te Whare nei, tēnā koutou i runga i te reo karanga e whakanui ana i Te Reo Māori. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora anō tātou katoa.

[Greetings to you, Mr Chairman, and to you collectively esteemed ones of this House upon the call to celebrate the Māori language. So acknowledgments, salutations, and greetings once again to all of us.]

Hopefully, my pronunciation is actually OK to celebrate Te Reo language week. This is my first opportunity to speak in the Committee stage of the Veterans’ Support Bill. I would like to start by sending my condolences to the Vinten family. Des Vinten is the president of the New Zealand Korea Veterans Association. His wife, Helen, has passed away, and today was her funeral. I was lucky enough to be part of the family and friends who were in Lower Hutt today for her funeral. I send the family my love and my sincere condolences.

I think everybody knows that I hold the Korean veterans very dear to my heart. Being the only Korean-born member of Parliament, I have always said that I owe my life to the veterans, because who knows what would have actually happened if the Korean War did not end the way it did? For 3 years Korea was devastated with the bloodiest war. Korean veterans, the K-force, answered the call of the United Nations to assist the Korean Peninsula. The South Koreans are for ever grateful. I do not know how the North Koreans actually feel about the Korean veterans—I have not talked to one of them—but the South Koreans are definitely grateful for their service, their very long service.

It is winter, and I forgot to wear socks today. I am wearing high heels. My feet were freezing when I went to the church service. It reminded me of the talk at the veterans association. They talked about the nasty winter they went to fight in. Their boots split open. New Zealand’s winter is nowhere near as cold as the one that they faced in Korea. They fought for my former nation. I take this opportunity to say thank you to all Korean veterans—the New Zealand Korea Veterans Association; the K-force veterans—who served there.

This bill will make sure that we can better meet the needs of the older veterans who require assistance to stay in their own homes, and also meet the needs of veterans on modern-day deployment who need rehabilitation and assistance to return to work. Earlier Mr Phil Goff talked about this bill not providing the veterans pension to all of those servicemen. I would like to just correct him. Supplementary Order Paper 480, in the name of the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, means that all of the veterans do get the veterans pension. The only difference is the lump-sum payment. It still requires the attachment of the disablement criteria, which now sits at 52 percent.

The Veterans’ Support Bill still contains many of the provisions in the current Act. The service eligibility criteria remains the same, and all the veterans currently covered under the 1954 Act will have coverage under the new law. Health care treatments for accepted conditions will continue to be funded, no veteran will have their entitlements reduced, and thousands will actually benefit from increased care and support. To me, that is a good thing.

This National-led Government is committed to honouring the servicemen and women, the service that veterans have given to our country, and the people who have actually served in overseas deployments. We owe them a great debt. Service in defence of our nation for freedom and democracy around the world needs appropriate recognition in legislation. The Veterans’ Support Bill delivers on our election promise. This Government has committed $60 million for a package to support this new legislation. Part of this package saw the war disablement pension and the surviving spouse pension increase by 5 percent last year on top of inflation. We are supporting an amendment to the bill that will extend eligibility for the veterans pension to all veterans over the age of 65.

I think it was my learned colleague to my right, Mike Sabin, who said in an earlier speech in this debate—I think it was the first reading—that our veterans, our servicemen and women, do not go to war or deployment overseas thinking that they are going to come back and get a lump sum. They actually do go into service for their country because they feel that it is the right thing to do. They are duty-bound—honour-bound. I was reading one of the books about the Korean War and I read something that some of those men wrote. They went there on an adventure. They did not go to war because they felt that they were going to get a bigger pay at the end of it; they went for adventure. They felt that they were joining their friends in comradery in overseas nations that required their service. Korea was one of them. There are plenty of examples of their service displayed on our walls. New Zealanders have gone to many, many wars and they have served our people and the people overseas. Their service is recognised in this bill.

This bill will increase the number of New Zealanders eligible for the veterans pension by nearly 17,000—from 8,600 currently to more than 25,000. That is 19,900 veterans and about 5,000 spouses. Importantly, it also means that thousands more veterans will benefit from any future changes provided to those on a veterans pension. We understand the importance to veterans of the recognition of their service and that being paid a veterans pension gives them the distinction from others who did not actually serve—namely, New Zealand superannuation. The lump-sum payment on death will continue to be paid to all of those servicemen and women who meet the current threshold as is provided for in the bill as drafted.

The legislation provides for two schemes of entitlement. Scheme one starts on 1 October this year and applies to all veterans with service from the Second World War through to the Viet Nam War. Scheme two starts on 1 October 2015 and applies to personnel with service post - 1 April 1974, when ACC was introduced. It will be closely aligned with ACC entitlements, as recommended by the Law Commission.

The Government is committed to improving veterans support, and this is reflected in the bill as reported back by our Social Services Committee. Submissions questioned the 55 percent threshold and whether that was, in fact, appropriate, and I know that Mr Goff talked about that in terms of the appropriate level of whole-person impairment. I personally had difficulty trying to gather the way that Veterans Affairs New Zealand calculated the level of disablement as well, because when the total was calculated, it ended up becoming more than 100 percent.

So the way we have done it now, in terms of the percentage, is that it goes up to 100 percent, and they now have to be 52 percent disabled to be entitled to the lump-sum payment—the extra payment apart from the veterans pension. This is much clearer than it was previously, when disablements were lumped together, added together, and often ended up becoming more than 100 percent. I do not know if anybody is 100 percent disabled—I would have thought that meant you are actually not alive. The select committee established that 52 percent whole-person impairment was the most equivalent threshold, and in order not to disadvantage veterans, the threshold will be moved from 55 percent to 52 percent. To further ensure that no veterans are disadvantaged by this provision, the bill has been amended to provide that a veteran or other claimant who currently meets the threshold for entitlement under the 1954 Act will continue to do so if they claim under this bill.

We have put a lot of work into this bill. I see that the advisers are here. They have helped us through the long process that the select committee went through. We have had many submissions from our veteran community as well, and we have had discussions with the Opposition. We are very happy to have arrived at where we are. It would be a fantastic thing if we could provide more money for our veterans. It would be a fantastic thing if we could provide all the support that we possibly could. We have to be fair and we have to be fiscally balanced, but we have to be supportive of our veterans.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First on the Veterans’ Support Bill. I just want to read clause 25: “The purpose of the Code is to meet the reasonable expectations of veterans and claimants (including the highest practicable standard of service and fairness) …”, and I think that is a really good statement. It is about the highest standard of service and fairness. These individuals—men and women—gave us their highest standard of service. They went away to a variety of conflicts to stand for us on those fields of battle.

I want to acknowledge my grandfathers. Both of them served in World War II, but in different ways. My mother’s father went to Egypt and also Italy and served with the New Zealand Engineers, and my father’s father was the second officer in charge at the Featherston prisoner of war camp during the particular period of the Featherston riot. So both men saw very different service for their country, but they went none the less.

Some might say that those servicemen went for adventure. Some really went because we asked them to. We asked them, as a nation, to go and stand against an evil that we believed needed to be stopped, and they were among many. They expect, and should expect, the highest-practicable standard of service and fairness from their country when they come home. They go on to try to lead normal lives, some of them after terrible ordeals in the field on our behalf.

I also want to remark on how good it is that we as a nation have moved on, as many nations have. Unlike the way that we thought as a nation in 1960s, when we had some of our servicemen take off their uniforms and get back into civvy clothing and go home quietly late at night and without any recognition, we now recognise that these men and these women serve and carry out orders because we have asked them to do so. We acknowledge their service and hold the decision makers to account for these conflicts, as opposed to some of the scenes that we had in the 1960s and the 1970s, after Korea and Malaya and so on.

I also just want to take this moment to acknowledge Sol Te Whata, who passed away on Sunday. Sol was a member of the 28th Māori Battalion in A Company. He passed away on Sunday morning in the Hokianga and his tangi will be on Thursday. Our thoughts are will him. He was one of two of the last surviving members of the Māori Battalion in the north. He lived to a ripe old age. He had three wives, I believe, so he was certainly a man with spirit. He was a man who gave for his country and then came back and continued to participate in his community and with his family and who lived his life to the full. So our thoughts go to him, to those who served with him who are no longer with us, and to those who served with him who are still with us and who deserve our care.

That is what this bill is about. It is about making sure that those who served—both the gentlemen who are of a passing generation and the new veterans who are coming, because the world will never be a 100 percent peaceful place. That is something that we might wish for, but every now and then men and women of our nation are going to have to stand up for us and go into conflict, whether to protect others, or whether to actually create a line in the sand that says: “No more. This is wrong. We are here on behalf of the New Zealand people to say stop, or we will actually enforce international law.”

So this is just a quick call to again reinforce New Zealand First’s support for this bill and express our disappointment that it has taken so long. We believe it is timely. We believe that the burden of proof with regard to medical claims, and so on and so forth, should not be on the veterans. If medical records have been lost, then it is not for them to have to try to convince a bureaucrat in an office somewhere that the illness that they now suffer from has come out of their service, from when they served their country.

I just want to pick up on a couple of points that were made in the contributions by National members, and one is that men did not go to war to get a pension. Of course they did not, and really that is denigrating what they went to war for. They did not go to war necessarily for a sense of adventure either. They may have wanted that, but most men went to war because they believed that it was the right thing to do. They went to war because they felt a sense of duty—a sense of what was right and what was wrong. They may have gone from a sense of patriotism—that they were standing up and doing the right thing for their country. To try to say somehow that we should not increase our pensions because people did not go to war to pick up a pension is, I think, just ridiculous.

This part of the Veterans’ Support Bill, Part 2, is only a short part, but it is still an important part. It is the part that actually sets out the purpose of the code. The code is set out in Part 2. It sets out the rights and obligations in the code. It indicates that the code will be put together in a draft form by the persons nominated by the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs. They will work on that and then the approval of the draft code will be done by the Minister after that. A notice will be put in the Gazette to approve the code, and the Minister must present the code to this House within 12 sitting days of it going through. In many ways the code sets the sort of underlying architecture of what we are talking about today. It is a solid basis on which the rest of the bill will be supported, hence the reason it is in Part 2—it is in there. I will not go on any further than that, other than to say that the obligations and the rights to respect that code are also there in Part 2. Provisions for any amendments that need to be made and how they are meant to be made are set out in clause 30.

But just coming back—I could not let that one go by—to why our soldiers go off to war. They go off and they serve New Zealand well. They do it for a variety of reasons, but they certainly do not have—I mean, it is ridiculous to think that a 19-year-old has the possibility of earning a pension in their mind when they go off to war. What we on this side certainly do believe is that anybody who does serve their country in that way deserves the veterans pension and also deserves the lump-sum payment—their family deserves the lump-sum payment. But this Government is scrimping on that last recommendation by the Law Commission, a very eminent body. It took 2 years and an enormous amount of consultation in order to look at this. It is supported by the Returned and Services’ Association right across New Zealand. The association supports this as well. It is time that this Government gets with the pace and actually realises that this is a small amount of money—it is $7 million, or $8 million at most. It is time that the Government gets with it and gets in behind it and gives our people and those people who serve New Zealand so well the financial recognition that they deserve.

Mike—oh no. We have not had a Green. Catherine Delahunty.

I rise to take a short call. I am sure there will be space for others to do so as well at this Committee stage on the Veterans’ Support Bill. I want to speak about the real cost of the health issues associated with some veterans and about experiences that I have had, both those in my partner’s family with his father and with the Viet Nam veterans whom I travelled this country with on a tour called People Poisoned Daily.

We cannot underestimate the real cost of the trauma of war. I personally do not believe anyone comes back without being traumatised. I do not believe that killing or being killed and witnessing people being killed can do anything except damage and create trauma, which has to be addressed at some level—as well as all of the other more noble sentiments. When I see the psychological pain that gets carried and passed on down the generations, I think there is a really great need for the resources to support veterans to recover from some of that trauma. I am thinking of people who went to Afghanistan and were extremely traumatised in ways that you would not even imagine from participating in what was supposedly not even really our war.

However, the one I want to focus on is the Viet Nam veterans and the experience that they had, because it relates to this bill, and the costs—the real health costs. One of the members, Melissa Lee, talked about whether you can be 100 percent disabled. When people are exposed to agent orange, which is dioxin, they can indeed be alive but 100 percent disabled—not only themselves but their children and grandchildren. So we are talking about intergenerational poisonous effects from a chemical that was manufactured in some places in this country and used to destroy the population of Viet Nam and to destroy the jungle. It is a defoliant and it is a toxic chlorinated persistent chemical, but it also affected the bodies of our veterans. For whatever reason they went to Viet Nam—and I was not a supporter and I still am not—they did not expect that they would be poisoned and their families would be poisoned and their children would be poisoned and their wives’ lives would be affected and that they would be compromised by exposure to a defoliant.

When we travelled the country with the People Poisoned Daily tour, the veterans told us their stories. These stories are not pretty stories. They are stories of a multiplicity of effects that are difficult to diagnose, let alone fix. So it is not a matter of just identifying a health issue and getting the funds to pay to fix it. Dioxin poisoning cannot be fixed and it has intergenerational effects, such as birth defects and heart conditions in the children and the grandchildren. The exposure to dioxin that those soldiers experienced has been passed on through the generations. I have met the people who have been affected. So it is not just about the soldiers. One of the reasons we were touring was that the soldiers were sick of trying to tell people that it was not just them; they wanted their children and grandchildren acknowledged as well.

There is a lot of rhetoric about war in this Chamber and a lot of rhetoric about service, but actually the reality is that people who come back damaged like that are entitled to be looked after, and we have to be listening a lot harder to them. So I was very concerned when I heard their stories about how little support they actually had. I was very, very concerned to see the effects that that dioxin poisoning had on these people and on their families—the real price of throwing poisons around in a war zone. When you see the phosphorous bombs that are falling on Gaza today and tonight and the cluster bombs that were used in Afghanistan and the uranium that was used in Iraq, the endless use of chemicals, we have to realise that we are creating a cost for these people, not only the soldiers but the citizens of those countries who live with the permanent effects. We should apologise to the Viet Namese people for that, if nothing else. And we should protect these veterans with these long-term consequences. Their children and their grandchildren are going to need help because they have been poisoned by one of the worst chemicals ever used on this planet. It is still used in other forms but no longer called agent orange and no longer used in quite the same way. We have found new ways to include toxic chemicals in war. We have found new ways to poison and destroy people and create cancer, because the—

I call Mike Sabin. [Interruption]

The member Catherine Delahunty is a little perplexed, I feel. I just want to acknowledge a few members on the Social Services Committee—in particular, the Hon Phil Goff. I do not throw too many bouquets across the other side of the Chamber, but on this occasion I will because I think that right throughout, Mr Goff has articulated a very, very strong argument and an argument that holds a lot of weight.

I think that the committee actually tangled with a number of issues because of what we are dealing with here in the Veterans’ Support Bill. I mean, although we are talking about millions of dollars, veterans pensions, and what have you, the point is quite clear that no one can put a dollar figure on what our veterans contribute to the country in the sacrifices that they make personally, with their families, with their communities, and so forth. This is not just about the Great War but it is also about the peacekeeping roles of the modern soldiers, sailors, and airmen—am I supposed to use some sort of generic gender format there? I am not sure. I am looking across at Major Rebecca Thornley for guidance, but she is not helping me out at this stage, so I will stumble on. I do not think that there is a dollar value that can be put on that, and I think that everyone across Parliament, when dealing with this in the select committee, actually acknowledged that.

I guess that where I differ from Mr Goff is in terms of the idea of zeroing out, essentially, the disability component of it. [Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am trying to have a pretty valid discussion here and the Green members were just—it seems that they have now calmed down, so I will carry on.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I was just discussing an issue pertinent to the bill with the Minister and my attention was diverted. If there is an issue, the member should raise a point of order and then we will deal with it, but let us proceed.

Indeed, Mr Chair. Thank you very much. So the issue where I guess I differ from Mr Goff is in terms of the disability component. The 70 percent requirement became 52 percent, which is essentially parity between the old system and the new system. What that requirement essentially acknowledges is that where someone has a degree of disability—and it comes in many and varied shapes and forms, and it is quite a complex equation in terms of measuring that—that disability will be recognised on death with a lump-sum payment.

The issue that I have with saying: “Right, well, it is only a few million dollars. Why trifle with this? Shouldn’t we zero that out and have everyone get that lump-sum payment?” is that for so long many have been in the position where they were not eligible for that and they did not get that. It should not be just a matter of timing that means that that should change. Perhaps that discussion should have been had some time ago—a long time ago—and then it could probably hold a little more water. So to me it is not really about the value but it is also about actually recognising those who were recognised as veterans under the scheme as it previously was, as much as it is about recognising those who will be subject to this bill.

My father is a former naval man—a sailor—and so is my uncle. He joined the navy as a seaman as a boy, I think, and that is actually how I came to be, because my father ended up marrying my uncle Lou—that is where my mother came into the equation, and here I am. Here I am.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Your father married your uncle?

Yes—no. So—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: What! You can’t have a baby like that.

Ha, ha! My uncle—

💬 Hon Members: It’s a miracle.

It is a miracle, I know—I am. I am often puzzled myself how I came to be, but my uncle’s sister is my mother, indeed. So many a story has been told—

💬 David Shearer: This is one of those Northland stories, I know.

Oh, hold on—hold on. Let me draw it back. I also joined the navy, and that is where it got really confusing. I am not sure who I married at that time. [Bell rung] Mr Chair, I have got to keep going with this.

So I also joined the navy, and spent a couple of very passionate years in the navy. I was passionate about service to the country and the role that all servicemen and women play in what is quite a different arena from what it was—certainly from what it was when we look back on the great wars and on some of the major sacrifices and challenges that were faced by our servicemen and women at that stage. What it gave me was a great appreciation, I guess, of the meaning of military service, and I think that David Shearer has certainly pointed that out. Although he takes issue with it, no one goes to war or joins a military service thinking about what will be at the end of that if they do end up in a confrontation and if they do end up serving their country in that manner.

It is fair to say that from my experience as an active serviceman and from having talked to many veterans since, none of the passion that they hold and the sincerity that they have about serving their country is really reflected in any way in a dollar value. What they do want to have reflected is the importance of their role in serving and upholding what they believe is important to their family, their country, their nation, and the world that they live in.

I do not think it is possible to actually land in a place that would actively reflect that, and actually in many senses I do not believe that veterans expect that, but the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 480 essentially enables all veterans’ service to be recognised at the age of 65 so that all veterans and their spouses would receive the veterans pension at that time. By maintaining what was the status quo in terms of the equation of disability, it means that what was under the previous legislation essentially migrates through into the new legislation. I think that is fair on both the modern-day veteran and also those who have passed. I think it is important to understand, as I have mentioned, that it should not just be the case that because there are only a few veterans, or we are talking about a reduction in that overall disability cost, the disability equation should be zeroed out. That is my view, but I do accept that the Hon Phil Goff raises good arguments as to why that should not be the case. I think that the fact of the matter is that it is hard to put a dollar value on that.

Lastly, I just want to acknowledge Major Rebecca Thornley and the other officials advising the committee. They provided the committee with very, very sound advice and guidance on what is for a number of us a very sensitive issue on a whole lot of levels. There is no one in this House who does not take this matter of getting the balance right very, very seriously. So I just want to commend the work of the officials and members across Parliament on this. Although we do not agree on everything—and I guess that is the nature of politics to some extent—I personally think that the bill is landing in a pretty good place and it does recognise and reflect the significant investment in our veterans community. It is a dollar value investment in some senses, but the important thing is that this Parliament recognises the service that veterans give well beyond that. Lest we forget that, members in this Chamber are surrounded by memorials that reflect exactly that service. So I will leave it there, before I get myself too much more complicated. Thank you.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 480 in the name of the Hon Michael Woodhouse to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

I seek leave for Parts 3, 4, and 5 to be taken as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears not. Leave is granted.

Parts 3, 4, and 5