Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

When I spoke to the House on 27 May during the first reading of this bill, I was confident that what we were proposing would have the full support of the House, and I have to say I’ve been very pleased that we do so at this point now. I do particularly want to thank the members of the Opposition who sat on the Social Services and Community Committee and who worked in a shortened time frame, as we had requested, to enable us to get this legislation passed through all stages prior to the House dissolving on 6 August. It is very pleasing at this point in time to be here now undertaking that very task.

I want to acknowledge all parties in the House for the way in which they have come together in support of our veterans. As a veteran myself—and I do want to acknowledge members on the Opposition who themselves have served—it is one of those things where, over time, we have seen veterans and their families, sadly, not supported in a way that the nation clearly would expect them to be. Over time in history—and it is not worth going into too much detail on that now—there have been numerous cases, numerous deployments that have been a challenge to the people of New Zealand politically, and have caused different parties to take different stances. What pleases me here in 2020, as we look forward to dissolving the House and going into the elections, is that probably for the first time that I can recall, we have total unanimity and total respect throughout the House. It does not escape me that every day while we sit here in this Chamber exercising democracy, exercising the will of the people, that we are served with reminders on the walls around us as to the price that was paid to give the nation this freedom, this liberty that it enjoys.

The Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill (No 2) is the product of the work done by Professor Ron Paterson and on the back of the review of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014, which cemented into it a post-implementation review. That post-implementation review was undertaken by Professor Ron Paterson. He came up with a raft of recommendations as to how the legislation should be improved. It is, absolutely—well, I’m very, very grateful that the Government has supported those amendments and that now the whole of the House is about to do so as well.

These amendments will—just to remind everybody—improve access to services for veterans. They will improve support for veterans’ families. They will improve the support available for veterans and their families at the end of a veteran’s life. They remove provisions of the Act which have been, or have the potential to be, unfair to veterans who have loyally served New Zealand.

Of course, there are matters that still sit outside that we weren’t able to address at this point in time but I am hopeful that in the next term of Government those matters in particular, around the definition of a veteran, will be taken up by a very brave Government, and I look forward to the support of the whole of the House as we move that legislation boldly forward, as well.

I just close by saying to the House, to the select committee, I’m indebted to you. We are grateful to you for the work you’ve done and for the support that you are giving.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Veterans have served our country; our country must serve veterans. I would like to acknowledge the words of the Minister in thanking our veterans, former but also current New Zealand Defence Force personnel, and those who have served in Her Majesty’s forces. I use those words quite deliberately for reasons that I will return to in due course. I acknowledge the Minister for his advocacy in this space, as well as his own service, and all members across the House who have supported the work that is represented in this bill.

National supports this bill because it does support many of our veterans and their families. It does not provide additional support for all veterans. That much I do want to acknowledge, and, again, that’s a point to which I will return shortly, in the context of submissions that were made at the select committee hearings. I do want to acknowledge the value of the bill to the extent that its scope has seen it introduced to this House and therefore capable of consideration and indeed amendment by us.

As the Minister has mentioned, it implements a number of the recommendations made in the independent review that flowed from the passage of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014, often referred to as the Paterson report. The more straightforward and easily legislated aspects of that have been addressed in this bill. Other changes recommended by the Paterson report have been able to be implemented administratively—that is to say, without the need for legislation. There is also another category, of course, of changes that have been recommended by Professor Paterson, and the Minister has highlighted the fact that that is ongoing work that, I would agree with him, should be the subject of the focus of a future Government.

In so far as the current bill goes, however, I do want to acknowledge the particular detail that it provides around providing support for veterans themselves, their families—even the scope of what it means to be the family of a veteran, that is extended and expanded as well—support mechanisms available at the end of a veteran’s life, and removing provisions of the Veterans’ Support Act that could operate in a way that could be seen to be unfair. I acknowledge those very worthwhile changes, and I commend to anyone interested in reading the detail of those further, not only the bill itself, of course, but also the general policy statement within the departmental disclosure report, with particular ways in which the access to services are being effected.

At the select committee, we had a process that was relatively short in time, but that reflected no shortage of attention or consideration by the committee, but rather, and in fact to the contrary, a commitment by all involved to move rapidly so that we’d be able to pass this legislation prior to the House rising in advance of the upcoming election. The select committee process, which was ably chaired by Gareth Hughes, whose impending retirement I acknowledge, featured a large amount of advice and feedback provided to us as members of this House from those who wish to see amendments made to the way that we regard the subject of veterans affairs in this country. The bill does amend the veteran definition within the parent legislation, as we call it, but only in ways that are relatively limited. That means that veterans who made contributions to the select committee—in a number of different fields we have had to say as a select committee, in our report back to the House, that we were unable to make such changes; it was not within the scope of the bill. But I do want to acknowledge as part of the select committee process that we heard a number of those. I’ll categorise them in a number of different ways, briefly, if I may.

One is the distinction between so-called scheme 1 and scheme 2 veterans according to whether service was given prior to 1 April 1974 or after that date, and therefore the applicability of the ACC regime. There was a difference, too, between deployments that qualified as operational services as compared with others that looked ostensibly quite similar within the New Zealand Defence Force. And I acknowledge by way of example, not exhaustively, but the submissions made in relation to HMNZS Blackpool and also by the South East Asian Veterans Associations. You have made very compelling points that have been noted and understood, along with others, as I say.

Other points that were raised before us at the select committee were the deployments that were recognised by allied nations’ militaries but not by our own subsequently in relation to veteran definition; also illness, injury, and other conditions as a result of service that were not incurred as a single incident that could be described as an accident or indeed in a qualifying operational service context. Other distinctions such as that between the Merchant Navy during World War II and the navy proper, as it might be regarded, but I don’t wish to make that distinction in any disrespectful way—and I acknowledge the case of Mr “J.S.”, Juliet Sierra. I haven’t been authorised to provide his full name. And so too the case of those who have signed on the dotted line, have attested their willingness to serve our country, and indeed the fact that they have served the country, albeit not necessarily in an operational context. And in that regard, I wish to acknowledge Mr “F.L.”, Foxtrot Lima, for 52 years’ worth of service in the Royal New Zealand Navy, notwithstanding that he does not qualify for veterans’ support in the sense that that is available under legislation at the moment. And of course, there is the vexed question of medallic recognition. The overall theme of these categories of feedback would be the desire for consistency and a rational treatment of those who have served this country and therefore those whom this country must now serve.

I will conclude my remarks at this the second reading by acknowledging, again outside of the scope of the bill but as acknowledged in our select committee report, that ongoing work is required in this area. The select committee was at pains to highlight in its report that these issues had been raised. And I would also commend to those who are interested in policy in this space that the recent exercise described as mission feedback, led by Minister Ron Mark, has provided an opportunity for people to contribute to this. And of course, ahead of an upcoming election there’ll be an opportunity for Kiwis to talk to different political parties about their view of what should be done in that space.

Notwithstanding that, it’s totally appropriate that in this House we adopt a bipartisan approach to the legislation. And on that note, and with no further ado, I do wish to acknowledge and confirm that the National Party will of course be supporting this legislation.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s a real pleasure and honour indeed to stand and speak to this bill. I want to acknowledge the Minister for his efforts to bring this bill to the House, and my colleagues across the House for their agreement to this bill.

It was a real privilege, actually, to listen to the stories of our submitters. We had some 50 written and/or oral submissions come to us. I’m ashamed to say that there were some things that I learnt that I did not know about in the history of our country. I have to acknowledge the member who has just taken his seat, Chris Penk, for his great summary of the issues that were out of scope but nevertheless very important to us. There are some of those issues that the Paterson report made reference to, and we’ll indeed be addressing the more mid-term factors—that will be addressed in the new Parliament.

What I have to say is that we’ve made some changes. They are relatively minor in comparison to the bill itself. But what I have to say is the stories of the men and women who’ve served our country were fascinating. They were delivered as only those in the military can do. Everyone’s presentation, their bearing—they were very factual and to the point, but told us some quite horrific details of things about their service that I want to acknowledge and honour in this space.

Now, just very quickly, we have made three changes. The three changes are to the timeliness, that’s the first one. That was the removal of these 30 days in order for the Veterans’ Affairs to make a decision. Now, we have done that not to make it slower; we’ve done it to actually facilitate speed. But one of the things that we heard from our servicemen and women was that they themselves did not feel that they knew what was happening in the process. So we’ve also built in an additional piece of information that says that the person applying needs to be informed of the process. Some of these are very complex decisions. They’re very time pressured. We just wanted to acknowledge that while the 30 days have been removed, sometimes the process will take shorter, sometimes it will take longer, but the process needs to be fully informed of the person as well.

The second part that we’ve changed is providing treatment and rehabilitation to prisoners, just making a clear definition of who those people were, and ensuring that should a veteran go into prison, and are actually currently receiving an entitlement or support for mental health or illness, they will continue to receive that if it is not available in that prison environment.

Thirdly, childcare assistance—the childcare payment upon the death of a veteran. It’s opening up and giving more flexibility around the New Zealand context of families now, with much more relevance to what we see our families looking like in this country. So that really sums up the three changes in the bill. I have to acknowledge that there are some issues that will need to be addressed in the upcoming 53rd Parliament, and we look forward to that, but for now, I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee