New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Chair. This, of course, is the part where we can consider the spousal deduction issue. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to repeat the questions and some of the thoughts that I expressed, and I apologise for when I did so at the inappropriate time earlier on. But I would welcome an opportunity now—

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Repeat them.

The Minister would like me to repeat them, but, essentially, I was making the comment that probably the issue of the spousal deduction is the one that is most commonly raised with constituent MPs and has been, I have to say, over many, many years. In fact, those who have been around for some time, when we were talking in the second reading debate, were nodding their heads in agreement when I commented on how often this is being raised with us.

So this was something that I mentioned earlier—it was work that began under the previous Government. I am pleased that the current Government has picked it up and that we are now in a process where I think a number of people will finally see that their concern has been dealt with, and we add our strong support to it. But I do think it would be really helpful if the Minister could outline for those who are listening her understanding of what the issue was, how widespread it was, because I think it would be interesting. She’ll probably have better knowledge than I do of just how many people over the years have raised this question and how many different citizens who have come to New Zealand from different countries have raised this matter. Quite often it’s useful to have that little bit of flesh on the bones for us to be able to explain to our constituents that this was the problem, this was the solution, and let’s hope now that we’ve dealt with the matter appropriately.

Yeah, sure; I don’t mind speaking to that. I think many of us, particularly electorate MPs, would have received correspondence at some point in time from those that are impacted by spousal deduction.

So, for those that don’t know, in New Zealand, if you, say, have worked overseas and you also qualify for superannuation that is in line with what ours is here and you decide to come back and settle, you can’t claim both superannuation packages or amounts. There is a deduction policy, and so if, say, you are getting superannuation from another country and, dollar for dollar, it matches what you would get here, you actually do not see any New Zealand superannuation. The issue that we are addressing here is that it actually has had an impact on the partners of those who receive overseas pensions—in that, if someone was receiving an overseas pension and it exceeded what they might qualify for here individually, dollar for dollar it would also have an impact on their partner. So their spouse would have deductions made, and some actually were not receiving any superannuation here in New Zealand of their own, at all, because of the amount that their spouse was getting through an overseas pension.

So I think that many of us who have been lobbied on this over the years have seen this as being unfair, and there has been, I think, the will—well, certainly the interest—in addressing this, and I know that previous Governments have looked into it, but we’ve never quite got there. So it is an achievement that all of this House can finally agree that the spousal deduction policy is not appropriate and that we are finally going to get rid of it. I think the last figures I saw were that currently there are about 400 people that are currently affected by the spousal deduction policy, but over time, obviously, there would have been more.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: There must be 200 of them living in Hamilton!

Yes. They have been a very vocal voice on this particular issue. It is unfair; so I can understand why, and so it’s great that, as part of the changes that we’re agreeing to today in the House, we will finally address this issue and put a little more fairness back into our own legislation and our Social Security Act and New Zealand superannuation policy.

The question was put that the following amendments in the name of the Hon Carmel Sepuloni to Part 3 be agreed to:

in clause 37, new section 189(4), replace “79” with “82”

in clause 38, replace “Part 2” with “Part 4”

in clause 38, heading to new Part 3 of Schedule 1, replace “Part 3” with “Part 5”

in clause 38, new section 79 of Schedule 1, replace “79” with “82”

Amendments agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Part 4 Amendments to other enactments

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 508 in the name of the Hon Carmel Sepuloni to Part 4 be agreed to.