New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It’s a great opportunity to be standing up here to discuss this bill. It’s not often that an Opposition member is able to witness the passing of their bill through the House. And, of course, to do so actually relies on the good will of the Government. And so I just want to say at this stage that we are here through the support of Labour, and I just want to acknowledge the other parties who are supporting this bill: certainly I think ACT are, and I think the New Zealand Māori Party is as well. I’m lucky, actually. This is the second time I’ve been able to put through a member’s bill when I’ve been in Opposition. The last time was the Arbitration Amendment Act that we passed back in May 2019. So it is with much pleasure to be standing here, as I’ve said before.

I think it’s also worth acknowledging that the genesis of this bill was from Mark Patterson, a member of Parliament for New Zealand First in the 52nd Parliament. I spoke to Mark earlier to acknowledge that we were going to be debating this bill today. Mark came to me after he lost office at the last election and asked that I take over this bill in his name. It’s probably fair to say that the bill in the state that it was presented and went through in the first reading would not have survived without a lot of panel beating, and so I gratefully acknowledge the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its role in doing so. And I also just want to acknowledge Anita Williams, who normally does turn up here. No doubt she’s listening, but she was also someone who helped in the research of this bill and the fundamentals behind it.

So we’re here today after going through all the process, and I think it’s useful maybe just to talk about the context of this, because what we’re talking about is making superannuation entitlements tighter for New Zealand residents, particularly if they’ve lived overseas. And I think the overarching issue is I think everyone is aware that superannuation is the largest single cost that the Government has to incur, and it, of course, is growing exponentially through demographic changes. At the moment, roughly 15 percent of the population is aged 65 and over. By 2040, it gets to 20 percent, and by 2060, it’s 25 percent. So a quarter of our population by 2060 will be receiving superannuation. So that, together with the inflationary pressures that come on the actual payment that’s adjusted for the Consumers Price Index means that this is just a cost that’s coming down on the country.

I think finding pragmatic ways to deal with that is vitally important. Of course, this bill tightens the requirements. It won’t have a huge financial implication, but it is one step towards making it more sustainable. And I think it’s worthwhile, in the context of this bill, just noting that we will be increasing—assuming that we pass it this afternoon—the age of the residency entitlement from 10 to 20 years over a staggered period to give people time to transition through that. And by increasing it to 20 years, what we are doing is basically bringing New Zealand into line with the OECD. Australia’s the only other country that has a 10-year test, but, of course, they have a means test around that 10-year test. But the average across the OECD, in terms of entitlement, is actually closer to 26 years. So even by increasing it to 20 years, we’re still below the OECD average. Of course, most countries around the world are moving to a higher age bracket of 67, rather than 65, which reflects the demographic change and life expectancy of people. And so that’s, obviously, going to be a wider debate going forward, but, of course, this bill is just very focused on that one issue around the length of time that you need to be a resident.

So maybe it’s just worthwhile recapping what’s in the bill. The bill proposed that for every two complete years that a resident stays in New Zealand and is born after 1 July 1959, they would need to complete one additional year of residence in New Zealand. So it’s a two-year requirement, and for every two years you have to complete an additional year of residence for you to be entitled to your superannuation. So anyone born after 1 July 1977 would need to complete 20 years of residency. No doubt there’s some younger members in the House who are calculating it, but it’s a long way away.

So one of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that were introduced in discussion between the Minister and myself during the committee of the whole House stage of the bill was to delay the implementation date of when these provisions come into play. So it was agreed that we should delay the implementation until 1 July 2023. Part of that followed a discussion I had with the Retirement Commissioner, who said, in her view, that we should give a greater period of transition, and I accepted that argument—I thought it was a good argument and, in discussion with the Government, the SOP was introduced to the House during the committee of the whole House stage. I think that means that we’ve now struck a nice balance. We’ve got this transition where people right now who are very close to retirement won’t be affected by the change, but those who are going to be affected by the change can now increasingly plan for their retirement and have those discussions with their employer, if that’s the case, and make arrangements accordingly.

The other thing that the Finance and Expenditure Committee was very focused on was the position of refugees. We obviously take in refugees—we take in quite a number, and, of course, we’ve expanded the facilities in Māngere. But we were very concerned that if we were giving people refugee status in New Zealand they weren’t going to necessarily be penalised because they were here under a specific provision. So what we’ve agreed and what’s in the bill is that anyone who comes in over the age of 55 will basically just need to complete their time until they get to the age of 65. So they would spend a maximum of no more than 10 years, if they were aged 55, but basically making sure that when they got to the age of 65 they were entitled to superannuation. In terms of when people who are refugees come in who are younger than that—aged 45 to 55—we basically put a test on which made it the earliest of, which reduced the time as much as possible to meet the residency requirement before they reached the age of 65. What we didn’t want to see is refugees having to work into their 70s when they’ve come here, often late in life, due to extenuating circumstances in their own countries, and I think that was a pretty good outcome.

The other big thing is the Realm countries, and, of course, what I’m talking about are the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. I remember having a conversation with Mark Brown before he was Prime Minister, actually. I think we were playing rugby in the capital one night, and he was explaining to me the issue of New Zealanders, and particularly New Zealanders who are going over there—and I remember the example was working on Air New Zealand planes, mechanics, whatever—doing critical jobs for the Cook Islands, who were increasingly having to say, “Well, I’m going to have to go back to New Zealand to complete my last five years over the age of 50.” And, of course, for a country like the Cooks or Niue or Tokelau to lose those critical people, for them to have to go back to New Zealand to do their five years from the age of 50 onwards, actually was not only very disruptive at a personal level but actually quite critically important to the country concerned. So the select committee made changes to enable people to be able to complete their five years in those Realm countries, and I think that’s a very good outcome.

Finally, I just want to acknowledge not only Minister Carmel Sepuloni personally but also the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and also the officials. I looked back at the original advice to the committee and it was pretty damning, but in the end they were very helpful in terms of helping the committee get this bill into a shape that I think we’re all pretty comfortable with. And I know superannuation’s a huge issue. This is but a small step in improving the affordability of New Zealand superannuation over time, but I think it’s an important first step. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you for that. It is good that this small but important reform seems to have broad support across the House today, because superannuation is absolutely one of the cornerstones of New Zealand’s society. The idea that in older age we look after our citizens with a pension, if you like, is really an important part of what it means to be a New Zealander.

But, as has been said, striking an equitable balance is equally as important. And whilst we can pitch this as part of managing ongoing costs—and the reduction in the cost of superannuation by this is not insignificant; it’s hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of it—I think the more important point is to make sure that we have a framework where people coming to New Zealand, essentially, understand that they can’t walk in at a relatively late stage and get all the benefits of people that have been in New Zealand, contributing to society in all kinds of ways for pretty much their whole life.

I must say, when this did come to the committee, I felt slightly sorry for Mr Bayly in the sense that it was a far from perfect bill, as he’s alluded to. It basically said “Cross out 10; put in 20.”, if I remember rightly—

💬 Andrew Bayly: And implement it now.

Ha, ha! And it was a little blunt. But Mr Bayly, with his usual tenacity, has done well here and I can say, obviously he did well to sort of insist that there was something there that was worth investigating, that we shouldn’t pre-emptively throw it out, and so we didn’t. But also the submitters were really important here.

Can I just thank those submitters from all across different aspects of society, but particularly those from some ethnic communities who came and made their case. I wanted to tell those people, small community groups often, that they were a really important part of looking at this and saying, “It is too blunt. We need to make it a little less stringent and immediate. We need to have a gradated framework in which this comes into play.” In that conversation—it was very much a conversation—there was a general acceptance that something needed to be done, but it just needed to be done over a greater period of time. And that’s how we arrived, ultimately, at this period of transition, at, ultimately, a 20-year period of transition. I want to identify that Naisi Chen was a very good advocate for her community, the Chinese community, and, of course, Priyanca Radhakrishnan also was very, very much speaking out for the interests of the communities that she represents as well. So, yeah, Mark Patterson, did a good job here in the sense that he got us to think about it. Andrew Bayly certainly then took it a lot further.

I do want to just identify the fact that not everyone is on board with this bill, necessarily, and it does reduce the entitlements of some people. But to be perfectly honest, given the transitional period, it is unlikely to affect anyone who is in New Zealand today and kind of had an expectation that they would have an entitlement.

Whilst it came back from select committee—and I must say it came back from select committee with that transitional period starting pretty much straight away, but the Retirement Commissioner thought that that was too harsh. I was surprised, I must say, that those views weren’t presented at select committee. It would have been good to have had a thoroughgoing submission in that regard. But the Retirement Commissioner, ultimately, did make her views known, and they were taken into account. The Minister the Hon Carmel Sepuloni did a lot of work here to make sure that she got it right, and I know she engaged with Mr Bayly, and, ultimately, got a framework, which I think everyone will be happy with. These long transition periods can be criticised, I think, but when you’ve got a kind of legacy piece of the superstructure of our country, I think those long transition periods are absolutely justifiable.

Also, I want to recognise, as Mr Bayly did, the importance of the Realm countries and the idea that, in fact, we need to make sure that people can move pretty much freely between them. There is absolutely something to be gained both for our Realm cousins and New Zealand in allowing those people who have absolute rights of residency here to move freely between the countries so that if they want to spend some of their latter years, perhaps, in their country of birth, with wider family and then come back to New Zealand as they perhaps get a little bit older, then that benefits everyone. And we’re not only enabling them to do what they want, but I think we’re richer for it in a cultural sense as well. So that was an important recognition of Realm countries there as well.

The other point that came out was the difficulty of refugees who, of course, don’t choose to come to New Zealand. In a perfect world, they would not have to flee the conflict zones from which they often run and they’d be able to stay with their families and in their place of birth. They’re forced out, and so it’s not the case that they can be criticised in any way for turning up and, you know, making some unwarranted demand. They’d rather not be doing that at all. So given the kind of compulsion of their arrival in New Zealand and that, of course, under the UN programme they don’t even choose which country they end up in, in those situations it is entirely appropriate that they have the shorter period and they can access the support that is there pretty much straight away.

Again, the equitability of superannuation is really important. The fact of the matter is that because of the agreements we have with a number of developed nations, it doesn’t affect as many people as other people might have thought—the UK, a lot of the European and Scandinavian nations that we have agreements with. So it’s really countries which don’t have superannuation frameworks, State-based superannuation frameworks, themselves where this really has the greatest effect and that is people who are coming from India, China, and other developing nations. And I think it does strike an equitable balance.

So, once again, really, congratulations to Mr Bayly—again, I’m pretty sure the last member’s bill he had wasn’t his own either. I’m pretty sure he picked that one up and he made something of that, and picked this one up and made something of it. But despite everything, he does work well with others, pushing them when needed, haranguing them sometimes, sometimes persuading them. But it’s a good bill. Well done to Mark Patterson. Well done to Naisi Chen. A good bill. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to join with Dr Webb in adding my, I think the word is “congratulations”—it’s the one that we bandy around a bit, but, actually, it’s kind of a congratulations for good luck or for having a colleague pass a bill on. But Mr Bayly has, I think, a reasonably rare distinction now, assuming the bill is going to pass this afternoon, as we all expect it to, of passing two members’ bills while in Opposition. And that is a very difficult thing to do. There is a number of cases where sometimes very well meaning and meritorious bills fall sometimes simply because of the people who are putting them up. I think that’s a shame. But this is an important one.

I thought Dr Webb’s description of the manner in which the bill was brought before the House was clear—not discourteous but clear. You know, it was a pretty brief bill—cross out “10”, add “20”—and the intent of Mr Patterson was very clear and noble, but the detail was a bit lacking. And I enjoyed the process that the Finance and Expenditure Committee went through to make three very important improvements to the bill, as has been articulated by both previous speakers. That was the phasing in of the eligibility criteria so that no person already here would be negatively affected by those changes; the changes to exclude the Realm countries to the degree that they are; and also the changes for refugees.

It does remain slightly irksome to me that the Supplementary Order Paper that was passed putting a two-year transitional period in place was felt necessary by the committee. Mr Bayly says he accepted the argument from the Minister and that it was a good argument. I’m not sure I agree with that. I asked about this at that time, about the case for having this change, and I agree with Dr Webb’s description of that; I don’t think we got a very good explanation. But Mr Bayly had pretty much Hobson’s choice: if he was to get the bill through, he needed to agree with an amendment being proposed, effectively, by the Minister for social development lest it not pass. And I think it was a case of sort of biting the bullet and not letting the perfect get in the way of the good. And so I held my nose and supported that amendment, but I’m still not convinced it was necessary. I don’t know how many people are going to benefit from it. I don’t know what the costs on the Crown would be—marginally. It’s probably not going to be that much, because hardly anybody would benefit from it. But, nevertheless, it was necessary to get it over the line.

Dr Webb talks about, too, a lot of work being done by the Minister. One could argue probably a little too much for a member’s bill, but I think that’s a minor irritant I have. I think it’s important to be able to rely on officials, but this House does need to give members—the House—the freedom to consider good ideas from members and not just be a ministerial legislation factory. And, while there is that minor irritant, I think this is a very good example of where collegiality can occur. It certainly did in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and we got a better bill because of it.

I think one thing that we need to be very clear about—and it was mentioned when it was introduced by the New Zealand First member; that this was kind of an anti-immigrant issue—is that actually, this bill, when enacted, will not discriminate between a person born in New Zealand and a person who comes to New Zealand at any stage in their life. We talk about a team of 5 million; well, we’re actually a team of 5½ to 6 million, because between probably half a million and a million New Zealanders—we don’t know quite how many—live overseas, and many of them do so for a very long period of time. So they are also affected by this. They don’t have an automatic right to superannuation when they return to New Zealand; they have to go through the same stand down, which was 10 and will transition to 20. So I think there was a mischaracterisation of what was going on here, and it’s important to stress that this is a piece of legislation that will apply to all eligible New Zealand residents, whether they were born in New Zealand or born overseas.

With that qualification, I’m pleased to support the bill. I look forward to its passage, and in a couple of years’ time it’ll start to become effective.

Thank you, Madam Speaker It’s a privilege as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee that reviewed this bill to be able to speak on it. For this third reading speech, I thought I would take this opportunity to summarise the bill as it progressed through the House and some of the history around it. The reason why I say that—and the member who has just sat down knows me well—is that my hope is in future a young, budding policy analyst or a law clerk who has been tasked with the tedious task to look at Hansard and to track the history of the residency requirements for the superannuation and veterans pension has a reference point to start their research because the last time we looked at the actual residency time frame was, I think, 1938. That’s when it was first set for 10 years.

Again, I’d like to, like other members of the House, acknowledge Andrew Bayly for bringing forward the bill and carrying it forward from the 52nd Parliament. Mr Bayly, as we’ve discussed, was very constructive and we found it was very easy to work with him in the select committee. We’d also like to thank the Minister for her willingness to improve the bill because, obviously, the Minister has her own work programme, so she allowed officials to work constructively with members and her work was so significant that Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 58, effectively, rewrote the entire bill bar the title. We’d like to thank the Ministry of Social Development officials and the Parliamentary Counsel Office for their work on the bill. Their subject matter expertise was relied on heavily in our select committee analysis of this bill, and they were incredibly responsive. Of note, their initial briefing on the report was actually excellent.

Now, if I look to the history of pension in New Zealand, the entitlement to New Zealand superannuation and the veterans pension is based on residence. People must have been a resident and present in New Zealand for at least 10 years after the age of 20 to be eligible, five of which must be after the age of 50, and if you are a resident in the Cook Islands, Niue, or Tokelau—or our Realm countries—that can count towards the requirement for residence after the age of 50, but not towards the requirement for residence after the age of 20. Time spent overseas can count towards the residence requirements under certain circumstances.

The residence requirement, as I’ve said, has actually varied over time. New Zealand’s first public pension was 1898, the old age pension, and it required applicants to have continuously been resident in New Zealand for 25 years immediately preceding their application. This requirement was reduced in 1936 to 20 years immediately preceding the application. It was then reduced in 1938 to 10 years for people who were in New Zealand on 15 March 1938. Now that date is specific; it’s because it was to support people hit by the Great Depression. Then what happened in 1972? The requirement for applicants for the universal superannuation benefit was fixed at 20 years continuous residence and the requirement for means tested age benefit was fixed at 10 years. So we introduced a two-tier pension system. But then when national super came in in 1977, it replaced the two-tier pension system and the residence requirement went back to 10 years, and here we are today.

As members have said, the genesis of this bill is with New Zealand First. It was a 2017 manifesto item. The then member Mark Patterson sponsored the bill—the first reading was on 1 July—and he stated, “It is a great honour to have the opportunity to bring this longstanding New Zealand First policy to the House. In its construct, it is a very simple and narrow bill, but it is a significant one. It seeks to increase the period of residency required to qualify for New Zealand superannuation from 10 years to 20 years between the ages of 20 and 65. At its heart, this bill is about fairness, fairness to New Zealanders who have worked and paid taxes here.” The member continued, “It is interesting to note that the current 10-year threshold came into law in 1938, when life expectancy for men was 65 and for women 68. This bill is long overdue.”

The bill then was referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. “Robust” and “constructive” are probably the best adjectives to describe our work in the committee. We worked constructively across the House with officials, with submitters, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the over 350 submitters on this bill. Like the previous member, I also acknowledge the work of our member Naisi Chen for her work rallying a lot of the Asian community to ensure that they submitted on this bill. So we received a lot of individual submissions on the bill. Many of the submissions were similar and they were: “We don’t support the change. But if you do, can you make the transition fairer so we can have a plan and have certainty?”

As members have talked about in the House already, the bill as introduced had several key problems. Two of them were, (1), it didn’t protect the entitlements of current pensioners, and then, (2), it had no lead-in time to allow for certainty. We also heard in select committee that New Zealand and Australia are the two countries with the lowest entitlement. The average in the OECD is 26 years to be entitled to super. We worked through the modifications for our Realm countries of Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau to align with other recent changes to the superannuation and the veterans pension schemes to allow people to migrate to the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau before they turned 65 and still receive super. The committee recommended that for someone to be eligible migrating to a Realm country, they may still have to be resident and present in New Zealand for at least 10 years since the age of 20. We also recommended that we preserve the 10-year period for refugees who have become residents at the age 55 or above. Those changes have survived the following stages and are covered in clause 4 of the bill that’s on the Table today.

So why do we support this bill? It is unusual—it is a member’s bill from across the House, but we support this bill because increasing the residence requirements for New Zealand super is about improving fairness between longer- and shorter-term New Zealand residents and safeguarding the future of superannuation. It is, effectively, what was covered in the opening comments by the member who first brought it to the House in the 52nd Parliament. But as we’ve seen, we did really change the bill a lot during the process. We also support the bill because the current residence requirement ensures that almost all New Zealanders are protected in old age. But it also means that someone who’s been in New Zealand for just 10 years receives the same pension as someone who’s lived and worked here for their entire life. A 20-year residence requirement will ensure that New Zealand superannuation and veterans pension recipients have more substantial connection, have more substantial contributions to New Zealand.

So, again, I’d like to thank the member Andrew Bayly and congratulate him on progressing this through the House, the Minister and her officials for their constructiveness during the select committee phase, and then the Minister who tabled SOP 58, which, effectively, changed the whole bill. And then we’d also like to thank the submitters, and again, I acknowledge Naisi Chen for her work on the bill. So on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you. That was a little earlier than I expected. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to take a call opposing this New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill at the third reading, while I will still go through the politeness of Parliament and acknowledge Mark Patterson’s luck for getting this drawn and Andrew Bayly for seeing this through the process, because it is quite a rare event for a member to get a piece of legislation passed, particularly when they’re not a member of the Government. The Greens are not supporting this, and neither are Te Paati Māori, in my understanding, and there are some reasons for us that are pretty clear about why we’re not supporting it.

There’s a lot of discussion about the sense of fairness, but for us, our starting point is actually: what’s the effective policy to ensure the wellbeing of older New Zealanders in their last and later years of life? How do we ensure the best possible life for seniors in our country?

We know that income is a really critical component in terms of enabling people to flourish and live good lives, and our superannuation scheme has been instrumental in reducing rates of poverty amongst senior citizens. It continues to be, effectively, a universal basic income for people over 65 in this country that has served us as a country incredibly well, but, unfortunately, the rates that people receive aren’t always enough to make ends meet any more, particularly when many people do not have that privilege of reaching 65 with a secure home and savings—a safety net—and many have the need for ongoing medical treatment now. Superannuation as it was initially conceptualised was built on the assumption that people owned their homes, because we had a much higher rate of homeownership at that time, and that is changing, which, to us, feels as if this is not the time to actually be picking away at our superannuation scheme and to be undermining it. Actually, this is the time for us to be looking at what else we need to do to ensure that in their last years of life, people have enough to flourish.

So this is why we believe we should be working to bolster our income support systems instead of stripping them away for some under that false pretence of sustainability, which is a word I have heard already in the speeches this afternoon. Restricting migrant communities’ ability to access superannuation will simply entrench inequities and put more people in poverty, and it will force people into an inadequate welfare system, which we’re trying to fix, but that is another topic.

The work of the select committee members resulted in a few amendments—and we’ve heard a bit about that this afternoon—attempting to lessen the bill’s impact. For example, deferring the commencement of the bill to July 2023 and exempting refugees is a really important change. Unfortunately, these amendments will not take away from the intent of the bill, which is to restrict access to income support, and it will actually not protect people from the harm that we’re concerned about.

During the committee of the whole House stage, we noted that in the initial briefings from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), it was really clear that as we restrict people going on to New Zealand superannuation, some migrants who need income support will end up going into the income support system because they can’t access superannuation, and MSD’s own papers also noted that in the longer term, the projected savings of this bill to the super scheme—and this was before the amendments that reduced the scope of the bill—were likely to be only 0.3 percent of the projected cost of New Zealand superannuation, and I really struggle to see how that’s going to address any concerns people have about sustainability.

So not only will this bill not contribute to the sustainability of super; it will push people into a welfare system that has a lot more hurdles. I don’t think there’s anybody in this House that can’t acknowledge that, and we’re telling seniors that they have to attend job seminars—like 65- and 70-year-olds having to go to job seminars—and having to take jobs or risk losing their income, regardless of how unsuitable those jobs might be. This is not the image of the later years of life that we collectively envisaged as a country. I don’t believe it is consistent with our best intent for our seniors in this country.

When we presented the member with the facts of this around the money and the sustainability, he simply responded that, well, other countries are moving to restrict their superannuation schemes and we should do the same—another view that I’ve heard echoed in this House—and there was no acknowledgment of the fact that his bill won’t produce any real savings. Instead of following the poor leadership from other countries who are stripping away from senior citizens the ability to live with dignity, we have the ability to lead the way in ensuring we have a robust, unconditional safety net for seniors in this country.

This bill will also hurt disabled people. Again, MSD’s own briefing clearly outlined that the outcome of this bill is that there will be an increase in poverty and material hardship amongst the disabled people affected by the delay in accessing super, and they are likely to a greater extent than for non-disabled people to be impacted by this bill. They also said that it is likely that there will be an increased demand for Government services such as the disability employment services.

So we’re putting old people out to work and we’re putting old disabled people out to work, and at the same time we’re announcing a ministry for disability services and committing to the inclusion of disabled people in this country. It doesn’t feel consistent or holistic or our best selves, and it’s almost like we’ve decided to push forward with this bill with the full knowledge of the hurt and inequities that the bill will create.

There is no research and no evidence backing the intent of this bill. It won’t make super more sustainable, but it will increase hardship for a group of people. It’s just vibes—just harmful, racist, ageist, xenophobic vibes—that will result in hardship for migrant families for years to come.

The Greens will not be supporting this bill, and, instead, we will focus on true economic justice. Imagine if we sought to have sustainability in our superannuation system by having a wealth tax—by actually taxing progressively—so that those who didn’t need the superannuation actually had it eroded through taxation so that everyone managed to get it? There would be no barriers to access, and our old people in this country as well as our children would be able to thrive and live their best lives, contributing to our communities, which is actually possible through having Government policy that is not a fairy tale, as some of the gestures by people in the Opposition are suggesting it might be. It is actually a choice, and this bill is making a different choice. It is making a choice to restrict and make people’s lives more precarious, and that is not something that the Greens will—any day—support.

I must congratulate that previous speaker, Jan Logie. She does something that no political leader can do. She actually unites the ACT Party and National in their absolute emotion against her speeches. So well done, that member. You’ve achieved much.

This is a piece of legislation that if you can imagine there’ll be a farmer standing in Lawrence at the moment, probably a docking tool in one hand, an old 1950s transistor in the other, listening to this debate—Mark Patterson, who actually introduced this bill to the House, saw it through in a fairly raw form, which the erudite Mr Bayly, with the help of the hard-working Finance and Expenditure Committee, has turned into quite a workable piece of legislation. I think history will show that this legislation has played its part in ensuring that our superannuation, or pension, or just acknowledgment of the need to look after our older people, has actually now matured, if you like, as it needed to continue to do.

The first pension in New Zealand was a world first in the late 1890s—1898—and it was part of Richard John Seddon’s many reforms that have shaped New Zealand today. It came in about the same time as women’s votes, land reform, of course, which broke up the estates, and votes for women. Sorry, I’ve already mentioned that twice in this House.

But it is important that all these things do actually continue to evolve, and certainly with this legislation—and having been on the select committee, having listened to some very well-informed submitters, people who are coming at things from angles that certainly as a select committee we wouldn’t have probably been able to imagine ourselves—we have ended up, I think, with a piece of legislation which will set us up well for the future. Because against this backdrop, we’ve got to actually have a look at where our average life expectancy is: 81.71 years currently, which shows that there is likely to be—in fact, I understand that it’s an average of 20 years, because being an average doesn’t take into account those that never got the pension in the first place. So people will be on the pension for 20 years, and, of course, as we have an ageing population, that is something that we as current politicians and current lawmakers do have to take into account in any legislation that we pass.

It’s interesting; in terms of the dates when this legislation first came in, I think someone previously mentioned it was to be a fairly blunt introduction that would have seen a lot of people, their plans for superannuation, through no fault of their own, left waiting up to 20 years until they got the pension. You can imagine that for someone who arrived from somewhere like South Africa, somewhere like Sri Lanka and many other places—China—actually, part of their planning was that New Zealand superannuation would be payable to them. So take that out of the equation for 20 years—quite rightly we heard some quite emotional people at select committee. That really was going to impact the latter years of their life.

As a result of that fine-tuning, with the help of the officials and, I have to say, around the select committee some very collegial work, we were actually able to settle on some dates that I think do make sense. Right now, the key date, of course, is going to be 1 July 1959. If you were born before 1959 you will not be impacted. Of course, then for subsequent dates, going forward, that means, of course, that you’ll be hitting 65 in the next couple of years.

As someone who is actually in that age group—in fact, I might say I remember reading some Swedish research just recently that said those of us born between 1957 and 1961 were actually the lucky generation, that we avoided the post-war stringencies. We actually were on the right side of the 1960s and the revolutions there. We actually bought our houses at the right time. So this actually, ironically, won’t affect me of course, having spent my working life in New Zealand, but certainly being part of a generation that increasingly was able to work around the world, was more mobile in many ways as air travel increased, it is a generation that will actually benefit from this.

The important thing also about this legislation is that it does allow people now to plan. So it means that people who are arriving, with the exception of refugees, I might say—and, of course, that was another thing that came out of the select committee work; that refugees, as previous speakers have pointed out, had no choice as to when and where they would arrive but they were likely to arrive here—that they wouldn’t be impacted. So this would actually take into account that they hadn’t had the chance to plan—that the trauma in their previous existences in the countries they lived in wasn’t going to continue. So that was again a very humanitarian part of this legislation, I think.

The other thing was in relation to the Realm countries. I was also part of some legislation passed in the last term here where we did allow people from the Realm countries to spend that last five years qualifying—of course, it’s still a requirement to have worked in New Zealand, but also, post-50, to qualify for this you still needed to have been in New Zealand for five years post-50. Well, of course that meant that people post-50 who had spent their formative years in New Zealand building businesses, went back to one of the Realm countries—it meant that they were then obliged to usually sell that business, walk away from that business and come back here for five years to make sure they were eligible for that pension. Of course, that piece of legislation—I can’t actually recall what the bill was—did enable them to spend that five years in the Realm countries, and this, of course, is applicable as well.

So I just think this is a very good piece of legislation. As I said before, most importantly, it does update it. It needs to be updated taking into account our increased age expectancy. It updates it, accepting that we are a much more mobile world and that we will get workers, we will get people, who will choose to take up new professions, take up new jobs, move to countries at a later stage of their life.

There was one submitter that did actually make quite a good point. It was one of our older Chinese submitters who was here on a parent category, and they pointed out that when they had actually been in China before they came here on the parent category, they had actually funded their child through the New Zealand education system at great cost. So they did point out that they had actually contributed to the New Zealand tax base, or certainly to the New Zealand economy, during their early stages anyway, and that was something that really we hadn’t taken into account.

One of the other submitters was actually someone who wanted it to be able to be taken into account that even though they may have spent their last 10 or 15 years working in a country offshore, they were happy to come back, and they hadn’t spent that last five years in New Zealand—didn’t qualify. It was out of scope. But it just did point out, in these submissions, that we have people living in all sorts of different circumstances. So it’s very important that you go back to the basis, the key point of this bill and any bill with superannuation. I go back to the 1898 Act where you had those older miners—you had people who’d come out here with nothing. They’d worked through, their bodies were broken down, and they actually literally were living on charity. So if you go back to 1898 when that was brought in—just actually what that would have meant to a lot of those people—and subsequently through the change, it’s been modified somewhat to where we are today with a universal basic pension.

It just ensures that New Zealand—we are unique in the world and it’s important we say that. They’re words that we can slip off our tongue without us really fully understanding what it really means. It means that actually we do look after ourselves. When we go to countries overseas and see what happens, if you do fall, if you don’t make provision or something goes wrong, you do end up on the scrap heap. New Zealand is a country that I’m very proud to be part of, and it’s good to see that we have had cross-party support to make sure that there’s not a scrap heap here, that we will ensure that we look after all comers. So I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.

Thank you for the opportunity to rise on behalf of the ACT Party, who will be supporting Mr Bayly’s bill.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Oh, very good.

Yep—and we’re supporting Labour on this, as well. And it’d be interesting to see Mr O’Connor’s Swedish literature. If he could share that, that would be fantastic.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I’d like to have this voice reading me my satnav directions!

Ha, ha!

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I feel like it would be very soothing.

💬 Andrew Bayly: It is very soothing!

Yeah. Today, I’m disgusted in the Green Party. I’m disgusted in the Green Party because they’ve had a year to put a position together on this and all I’ve heard is conceptual nonsense about cutting the knees out from a vast majority of the population. I hope when they go to the election they’re prepared to explain to people why they don’t support pensions for people resident and present in New Zealand. And, as a partner of confidence with the Government, it seems rather strange that this has not been nutted out. So for everybody else that’s supported this bill, congratulations.

Just to go back to why the bill was a good idea, it was meant to improve fairness, and we would benefit from this substantively. The bill was also intended to contribute to the sustainability of the system. And there will be changes in the system; there’s no doubt about that. If you look at some of the statistics, we’ve got the most fair and cost-effective super payments in the world. And at the moment—I don’t know if the Greens know this—there’s $10 billion being spent in 2021, and there’s a huge task ahead to finance that. So there’s got to be a big shift in Government spending that goes to retirees no matter what happens, and this is what they fail to miss: that it virtually singlehandedly pulls over-65-year-olds out of poverty and enables a basic standard of living, and it helps them to offset residential care, as well—for older pensioners.

So it’s really quite important that we understand some of the statistics around what’s happening. The Ministry of Social Development showed that there were 774,000 people receiving super in March 2019, and these numbers, by 2060, will increase to 1.84 million. And, at that stage, people over the current pension age will be 28 percent of the population, compared with 15 percent in 2019, which is a massive jump. So we have lots of complicated work to do to develop a pension scheme, and it would be good for it to be recognised from the Green Party that this is a start—it’s not perfect—but, for people in the 60-plus age group, we haven’t created any uncertainty. We’ve got a phase-in date that is acceptable and equitable and won’t affect any investments. And, as many New Zealanders are reaching retirement in poor financial shape, we tend to agree that this is an excellent thing to do.

So we pay a legacy to Mr Patterson. We believe that the ACT Party sees this as a form of safety net that all parties in this House should have committed to and then start our thinking again. So we now believe that we’re very proud to support this bill, and we’re very proud to actually be part of Mr Bayly’s achievement this evening. Thank you.

💬 Dr Emily Henderson: Mr Speaker—Madam Speaker.

I call Dr Emily Henderson.

Apologies for my slip there, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on this bill with—it’s been a really interesting exercise. I was not part of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to hear this bill, and so in my research to be able to stand and address you I’ve been fascinated to have a look at who we’re actually talking about, and what it says about the development of our country. Because as a sixth-generation Pākehā, my roots lie in England and in Ireland and in Scotland. It is some of my relatives who would have benefited by that initial decision to pay the pension to New Zealanders who had been here for 25 years, back in 1898—same year that we were also getting the vote, which, as my colleague Angie Warren-Clark has said, is a fact worth repeating twice, and thus I repeat it a third time.

If you have a look at the groups that we are talking about here—because accusations of racism have been extended towards this policy. But of those qualifying for New Zealand super in the 12 months ending August 2020, 1,214 were Chinese; 4,000 were, like my ancestors, from the UK. If you’re looking at the total number of people who are actually receiving superannuation who recorded their country of birth as other than New Zealand, we’re talking about 86,000 from Britain; 12,000 from China; 7,000 from India; nearly 7,000 from South Africa; and those Australians—who I have to also include in my whakapapa—16,000.

This is an inquiry into the make-up of our society, and the ongoing make-up of our immigrant population, that is, I think, refuting any accusation that this is about racism. What it is about is the place of superannuation in our society, and superannuation as a mark of respect and a mark of consideration to those who have contributed to our society over the years, paid and unpaid. When it was begun way back in 1898, it was, of course, a very different beast, and there were some very—I would say now—repugnant moral clauses attached to it in order to receive your little pension. And it was a very small pension. By today’s standards it would have been fairly minuscule. To receive your pension, you had to show you were of good character. You had to deserve your stipend in your poverty. Today, we recognise that actually what this is about is recognising the contribution that people make, without judgment of that kind, and it is important.

I would also say to those who are cautious about this bill that it is relevant to look at what other countries do, not because we measure ourselves by them, and we certainly seek to lead them, but because it is of use in assessing what we’re doing here today. So we and Australia are, at this stage, until this bill, hopefully, passes, the only people to give a minimum of 10 years’ residence from the age of 20, when the maximum rate of super is payable immediately. If you look around the other countries whom we compare ourselves to, they tend to take a pro-rata basis, and they put things over a much longer period. So in Canada, you get a pro-rata basis of your super if you’re an immigrant going over 40 years. It’s 40 years’ residence before you would be entitled to the full whack. In Denmark, it is, again, 40 years, I believe. In the UK, it is 35 years before you receive the maximum. There is something relevant in a country saying, “This is a mark of your contribution to society.”, and I do not think it is immoral to make that point when it is all of us who are paying into this fund to recognise contributions, paid and unpaid, to our society. The contributions of parents who have taken time out of work, for example, are as valuable.

But I do want to commend the select committee, and, in fact, all of those who were involved in the process of writing this bill, because it was a remarkable process. To think that a bill that came from New Zealand First, was picked up by Mr Bayly sitting opposite, was brought forward in what was described, I’m sure, in good part, by Dr Webb as being a one-liner which said, “Cross out 10 years; put in 20.”, has evolved into something quite nuanced and sophisticated. That is to the great credit of all of those involved. I do want to do a shout-out to those members of the select committee for their hard work, because it is often hard in a select committee when you have differing opinions, but look what they’ve produced. It’s remarkable and it’s helpful.

It is also a mark of the contribution of the Minister, who put aside her own workload to tautoko a good idea and make it work. So congratulations to Minister Sepuloni. It is also a really interesting demonstration of the importance of the Retirement Commissioner, because it was Jane Wrightson, the Retirement Commissioner, who came back and registered some really significant concerns and tweakings—better late than never.

But this is really interesting. So in this little bill—this quite small member’s bill—we’ve had a New Zealand First bill taken by National, worked on by a majority Labour select committee, worked heavily on by a Minister of a Labour Government, contributed to by the Retirement Commissioner, and then most of all contributed to also by members of the public. And I do want to do a shout-out to my colleague Naisi Chen, the baby of the House, for her work in making sure that the migrant community had a voice in this process. Naisi is doing a stellar job and it is wonderful to see her making her mark.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I do apologise to the member for interrupting her speech. If the member from ACT could please put his mask on.

💬 Hon Member: There was a moment of peace, though, which we all appreciate.

Well, peace broke out, is my point. Peace broke out in this process, and it is a wonderful thing to see in the lead-up to Christmas. Peace broke out in this House, and up until a few moments ago, there was peace right now. But perhaps what we are hearing is merely the jolly warm-up to a rendition of “Silent Night”.

But to return to the bill—because I feel, Madam Speaker, you might be about to tell me to—I do just want to say there is a larger question here, and that is the question of how we handle superannuation. Because I do agree that it is not a sufficient reason to make a change like this, that it is of great fiscal significance; it’s of minor fiscal significance, but in the longer term, we need to think about how we are going to handle super.

It is a mark of the respect we give each other and our contribution over many years in society that we pay super. I find it very sad that we are in the situation where the members opposite wanted to raise that age by a further two years before people are entitled to it, causing great hardship for those in vulnerable groups whose life expectancy, sadly, is less, or whose work is hard and who need to be able to retire earlier. I find it very sad that in 1974, only a year before—in 1975, people would be fully entitled to their super when they migrated, but, in 1974, we had the super fund, which would, I believe, now have some $278 billion in it, had it not been stopped by the Government of the members opposite. I feel very sad also that we are missing the $14 billion in the New Zealand super fund, or the Cullen fund, from 2001 that would have accrued had the National Government in 2012 had the courage and the courtesy to its citizenry. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Christopher Luxon—five-minute call.

Look, it’s a real pleasure to stand and take a very short call on the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill, third reading.

As we’ve talked about, this started off life with MP Mark Patterson, obviously from New Zealand First—and I’m sure he’s listening and following proceedings today—and he should feel justifiably proud about where this is going. It was transferred through as we talked to Andrew Bayly—I’ll come back and talk about him in a minute. And then, obviously, everyone’s feeling incredibly proud of the work of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, in the way that bipartisanship broke out and people worked very constructively with each other. And that’s a good thing. I didn’t get to participate in that committee, but having read some of the summaries and the papers, it’s great that the bill was even further improved yet again.

As I said, I do want to come back and congratulate my colleague Andrew Bayly. I’ve only been in the House a short time, but I can tell you it doesn’t feel that often that Opposition MPs get their members’ bills all the way through to law. What we know about Mr Bayly is that he is passionate about fairness, and I think this is an example of that bill. But if you ever watch one speech, I’d say, in this House in the last three months, watch his speech talking about the plight of small-business people dealing with Auckland. That was a heartfelt speech where he cares deeply about small-business people—the people that stand up, go to work, take a risk, raise their kids right, pay their taxes, do the hard work, give it a go, take a risk, and make something happen. He spoke so eloquently about them.

Getting back to this bill, the real heart of this bill is, obviously, around raising the minimum residency qualifications from 10 years to 20 years. And, you know, when you think about why we’re doing that, we clearly have a very much expanding population. We obviously have people living longer. But this is one of the most expensive items on the Government’s balance sheet. In fact, it’s probably one of the biggest items on the balance sheet, and it’s only going to get more and more expensive as people age over time. The second thing is, really, it’s about aligning to world standards, because as we’ve heard, New Zealand has one of the most generous and therefore lowest residency qualification periods in the OECD. Emily Henderson just went through some other countries that have, obviously, much more longer provisions, and we are now bringing ourselves into alignment with the OECD and other countries in the world.

I guess, the other thing is why we’re doing it. It’s fundamentally right that we do do it, because it’s important and fair that we recognise people who have made a contribution to New Zealand, that have made a big commitment to New Zealand, that have paid their taxes day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out. I think this bill is recognising there are rights and also responsibilities to being a New Zealander in this country. Yes, you get a right to be able to receive a superannuation, but you have a responsibility to make a contribution, to make something happen, and to contribute to the country.

Some of the other big bits, I guess, that were fixed up through the select committee process was, obviously, the risk, of course, of having made a change like this is in the transition period, that you end up actually cutting off some hardworking individuals or new New Zealanders who are so close to that retirement age, who have built their future and their plans around that assumption, and then all of a sudden at the last minute you move the goalposts on them. And, really, the work of the select committee, in conjunction with Mr Bayly, set in place a delayed bill implementation of two years, and when you think about someone’s birthday happening after that, it’s, effectively, a three-year delay before the transition plan starts on a staggered basis—I think that’s a very sensible schedule that, essentially, Mr Bayly explained in his reading as well.

I guess, the final thing and the final piece of work, which is so important, is it carves out refugees and it also carves out citizens of the Realm. I remember when I was at Air New Zealand we had a lot of staff up in the Cook Islands, but as they got to the end of their career they would end up having to come back to New Zealand in order to qualify for superannuation. This bill would now mean that they can stay up there as critical workers, as engineers working in the Cook Islands, for example, and not have to come back home in order to just qualify for their superannuation.

So I think it’s, on balance, a really great thing. It’s a fantastic thing that we’re doing here. It’s the right thing to do. It’s good for New Zealand. It’s fair and balanced. And I just want to say, again, congratulations to my esteemed colleague Andrew Bayly on this achievement. Thank you.

Tēnā koutou, Mr Speaker. As always, it’s a privilege and an honour as the member for the Ōtaki electorate to speak on the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill. I also didn’t sit on the select committee for this bill. However, I feel like I do have a real good interest in this, and the reason why is because through the Ōtaki electorate we have the oldest population of seniors, of kaumātua, in the whole of Aotearoa New Zealand. And that also comes with a high proportion of needs in terms of access for those seniors as well. We also have the second highest vets in New Zealand—those wonderful people who served our country, which is also really amazing as well. And so, I guess, that means that anything in terms of the senior or the kaumātua space is critical to the Ōtaki electorate and to the people of the Ōtaki electorate, and so, really, interested to see what this bill can do for our people.

The essence of it—and we’ve heard this already—is we know that this bill is to increase the minimum residency qualification for New Zealand superannuation, taking it from, as we know, the current 10 years to 20 years. Currently, a resident of 10 years is entitled to full New Zealand superannuation, and that’s without any requirement to do any kind of financial contribution. And we also know, and we’ve heard it as well, that, globally, 10 years is quite a short time frame in terms of residency to be able to access full entitlements. Increasing the residency requirements for New Zealand superannuation is about fairness and it is about improving fairness between the long and shorter residencies here in New Zealand. And it also does safeguard the future of superannuation for New Zealanders.

We have some—and I know our Green Party colleague talked about this—of our seniors, and in the Ōtaki electorate, with quite a low income rate as well, and they are people that are unable to save towards their superannuation and don’t have the luxury, as our Green member talked about, of owning a house or of being able to save savings so that they can maybe finish work a bit earlier. So we do have quite a high population of our seniors, of our kaumātua, who work, maybe not full-time but sometimes part-time, just to top up their living standards as well. In saying that, if we don’t safeguard our superannuation, what about those vulnerable kaumātua? What will they do? So this is really important to make sure we do that.

I’ve also had the privilege of working for many years in the Ōtaki electorate at Work and Income, so I’ve also worked with those people who are transitioning or working towards superannuation, or quite often what they called it was “the big one” in our Ōtaki electorate, and that is a lot of planning. There’s a lot of prep that goes into that to help them adjust from what they might currently be on in terms of financial assistance, some type of benefit, to what it will look like in terms of superannuation and what they can and can’t do. Our case managers out there work with these people that work towards that, and for some of our people it could be that they are finishing up work and they are moving towards superannuation, so that’s full budgeting and getting them prepared for what that could look like. We also have some people that want to, like I said, work part-time. Maybe they aren’t able physically, in terms of their health, to work full-time any more. So they work part-time and they also can get the superannuation as well. But then there is also that small part of some of our people that have been really lucky in the last 10 years as a 10-year resident, and been able to fly in and out of New Zealand within the 28-day travel rule for the Ministry of Social Development over a period of time, and then all of a sudden they’re able at 65 to get the full benefits as everyone else.

I believe this is a good bill. I think that, again, it brings that fairness into it. I believe that, again, my interest is in safeguarding superannuation for all New Zealanders when they do hit their 65 and get “the big one”. It’s also important to note that this side of the House are not looking to increase the age. So we are keeping the age at 65 because that is fair and reasonable. And, again, I think this is a great bill. Congratulations to Mr Bayly and I commend the bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I rise also to take a call in support of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill. This afternoon, I want to continue the conversation that many of my colleagues across the House have talked about. And I want to talk about very much the process this afternoon, and have some dialogue around that. Then, I want to address some of the history and how have come to this place in the history of superannuation and in terms of the veterans pension as well. Then, I just want to talk about us as a nation doing the right thing, doing the right thing by our people.

I want to thank Andrew Bayly for taking this piece of legislation through the House, taking it from Mark Patterson from New Zealand First who, as one of our speakers said earlier, was lucky; was lucky to have this drawn out of the ballot in the 52nd parliament.

I guess, today—well I know today that I also feel lucky. I feel lucky that I live in a lucky country. I feel lucky that I was born into a lucky country and whatever your views or beliefs are, somehow I ended up being born in New Zealand. This place looks after people and does its best—and we always have more to do, I know. But about 20 years ago, I was visiting Eastern Europe and I was over there for some work. I discovered, as a younger person who hadn’t travelled, just the challenges that other parts of the world face. And when we look at this piece of legislation and we look around superannuation and retirement here in New Zealand, we realise, and I realise, that in other parts of the world, like where I was in Eastern Europe, there were elderly people selling cigarettes and selling sunflower seeds on the side of the road. I asked one of my interpreters around this and they said, “Well, we don’t have a pension like you do in New Zealand.” Once they stop work, if they even worked, or whatever was going on in their lives, they have to find ways and means to live and survive these things. And so, yeah, it was a really humbling experience, actually, to experience what life is like for others, how hard it is, and that’s why I feel lucky. I feel blessed to be in a place like this where we can do the right thing by our people.

Now, I want to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and on my right here, Dr Duncan Webb, who chaired that committee mightily, I understand, in terms of passing this and working with officials, working with the Ministry of Social Development to ensure that across Parliament, across this House, conversations were had. Some 362 submissions were taken and read and heard, and the bill was modified, was made fit for purpose. And I go back to Andrew Bayly earlier, when he opened the debate this afternoon and said that this bill needed a decent amount of panel beating. It seems like a decent amount of panel beating was done, so, well done to all those who were involved. Also, I want to reflect on a friend of mine who’s currently in hospital, who is a superannuitant, and the challenges he’s faced—and, again, feel lucky that we here can care for our people, as he was able to move into a rest home and be supported through his superannuation.

But in terms of reflecting on New Zealand superannuation, and a number of colleagues this afternoon have spoken around the history, I won’t repeat what’s been said already, but I will also add to what has been talked about. So as we already know we talked about 1898. It was a good year, I’m sure. And as my colleague Dr Emily Henderson talked about, you had to be of good moral character. But New Zealand was the only country bar Germany that had introduced some kind of State pension. And we were the first that used the funds from general taxes to pay this. It was groundbreaking legislation and, of course, it wasn’t a lot back then. Looking here, it was around £18 per year, which is the equivalent of around $3,400, and I know probably house prices were slightly different and probably other things were different back then, but hey.

But also, as Dr Emily Henderson spoke about, there was some discrimination involved. For example, you had to present a birth certificate to prove that you were 65-plus. And, of course, for many of our Māori population, they had never registered at birth, had any sort of registration. So it was discriminatory legislation; I can never say that properly. And so I’m glad that we’ve moved on and we’ve changed. Then I was thinking about—because it also, obviously, brings in the veterans pension and support of them. Back in 1866, legislation was first passed around that. In a move forward during the First World War, there was an Act passed, and then it kind of was collaborated and brought together in 1954 with the War Pensions Act.

Now, we support this legislation for many reasons. But, I think, as other colleagues have said, it’s reasonable. It’s safeguarding the future of our superannuation. It’s improving fairness between longer- and short-term New Zealand residents. This bill would raise the minimum residency qualification for New Zealand superannuation from 10 to 20 years, after 20 years of age. Also, I want to reflect on the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, as they proposed changes and they worked, again, with officials and worked in the select committee process. So it was very much around that phasing in of the increased risk residence requirements by birth date. But also, I was really appreciative of the fact that our Realm countries—the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau—were also able to be part of this residency requirement.

And also, again, as I said at the start around us doing the right thing was this retaining the current 10-year residence requirement for our refugees, protecting people who have only become residents at the age of 55 or older. We don’t want stringent regulations and requirements to apply to our older refugees. Many didn’t have a choice to come to this nation, many are from nations that are far more challenging, far more oppressive. They have no control, necessarily. They had no control over arriving in New Zealand because they were part of the refugee quota programme, and they can’t just simply choose to return to their home country to receive an equivalent-type benefit. So I’m glad that we were able to do the right thing by our refugee community, to support them in terms of retaining that 10-year residence requirement for our refugee population.

So I’m glad to be here this afternoon supporting this member’s bill. I feel lucky to be in this nation where we look after our people, where we care for our populations, where we do the right thing. I also want to do a slight segue, if I may, in support of this legislation. I mentioned my friend Jim, who’s in a rest home time in New Plymouth—obviously, all superannuitants, obviously all in the later stages of life, being cared for well by a small family-owned rest home called Coronation Lodge Rest Home. I’m so grateful because they take good care of Jim and the rest of the whānau in there, and they actually won the 2021 best aged-care small facility award for the North Island just recently. I think that says a lot for our care of our elderly, for our care of those who are superannuitants. For me, superannuation is actually 19 years away and, yeah, it makes me nervous, but I’m OK with that because we’re doing the right thing. My parents actually, both 79, have been, obviously, on the pension for three or four years—I’m not sure of the numbers off the top of my head—still working full-time and able to, obviously, do right by this nation.

I support this piece of legislation. I’m glad that our select committee was able to do some heavy lifting and some work to ensure that this bill is fit for purpose and will serve the future of superannuation in New Zealand.

It gives me pleasure to rise at the third reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill. I rise, really, to say congratulations to Andrew Bayly. It is a rare thing in this House to have a member’s bill of this much weight progress to a third reading in such an orderly fashion, and to do so with the support of members across the House. I think it reflects very well on Mr Bayly that that has happened.

At the heart, this bill reflects principles that are very important to the National Party. We want to ensure that New Zealand’s superannuation scheme is a fair one and that it can endure into the future. We have recognised for some years that reforms are necessary to that scheme to ensure that it can, in fact, survive and endure in a form that will allow it to pay for the incomes of future generations of retirees in this country.

So it was in 2017 we began work on amendments to re-strike the balance as to who becomes eligible for superannuation. It had been the case that people were eligible for superannuation after spending just 10 years as residents in this country. That put us out of whack with the rest of the developed world and could be seen to have put an unfair burden on the taxpayers of today and tomorrow who would be funding those New Zealanders of not as long standing. So this bill corrects the balance. It requires that in order to access New Zealand superannuation, people must live here as residents for 20 years. This brings us in line with the rest of the world. I think it speaks to Kiwis’ ideas of fairness.

I want to commend Andrew Bayly for doing the detailed work required with a bill of this significant change to make sure that it can be implemented effectively and that the potential ramifications have been thought through. The bill has a staggered introduction, with transition arrangements in place. I want to say I think that’s very right and proper, because for those who’ve come to New Zealand in the expectation that they will be accessing New Zealand superannuation at a certain point, there does need to be an adjustment period so that people can know full well what their entitlements are when they come here. There also have been sensible amendments to ensure that residents of our Realm countries—the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau—are excluded and that those supported by the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 are excluded.

Andrew Bayly is one of those members of the House who gets along with people on all sides. But don’t be fooled: he has a very sharp brain, and it is a sharp brain that has allowed this bill to be constructed, and I commend him on the collegiality with which he has managed to get it through the House, and it is my honour to support it.

E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā rawa atu ki a koe i tēnei ahiahi.

[To the Speaker, warm greetings this afternoon.]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to rise on behalf of Labour to speak to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the speaker Nicola Willis for her discussion just before. This is, of course, the third reading of this particular bill, and it has quite a history, going back to and acknowledging Mark Patterson from the New Zealand First Party in its time and also to our colleague now, from the National Party, Andrew Bayly.

I was having a bit of a giggle to myself as I reflected on our current superannuation scheme, and I was being cheeky to the Hon Willie Jackson, on my right. As I heard the previous speaker talking about their intentions to reform our super scheme, I laughed at the option that they would shift that up to 67, versus the current 65, and, sadly, what that would mean for young men like the Hon Willie Jackson, who’s worked very, very hard all of his life and has a lower life expectancy than the average male in New Zealand—but these are the realities of our super scheme and what those changes might mean. I think we’re very lucky, and I agree with the member Glenn Bennett that the super scheme that we have in this country, and also acknowledging our veterans, is incredible. And part of this discussion is about the level of fairness, I guess, in terms of how we proceed forward.

What we want to achieve in this is a future to secure our superannuation scheme. What’s important in this discussion is that we do address the concept of fairness, and, in my research, I was looking back to the live examples of those that I know personally within my family that are on super schemes. I hope that she isn’t watching this afternoon, but this year my mum clicked over to what the member Ngobi—

💬 Todd Muller: Oh, that’s dangerous!

I know I’ll be in trouble, Todd, but hopefully she’s not watching. But the member Terisa Ngobi did a wonderful speech this afternoon, and she talked about the “big one”. I think of my mum, who’s just clicked over into the “big one”. She’s worked all of her life, since she was 15. She’s worked in boarding schools, supporting young people in their living environment. She’s picked apples and asparagus in the Hawke’s Bay. For the past 20 years, she worked at Napier Pak ’N Save. And these are all people that have worked incredibly hard to serve this country, and now is their time to inherit part of the “big one”.

I think of my dad too on this day and, as a veteran, how he served our country in Malaya and before his passing that he was a recipient of our veterans scheme and was lucky enough, in his later life, after working so hard too, to be able to live a good few years before he passed, because of the security that our super and veterans scheme offered him in his later life. Those are two live examples, and, again, I hope that my mum isn’t watching; I’ll be in very, very big trouble, but I can look too to my grandparents, who migrated here, served our country for decades, and really needed that particular support when it came through.

Again, just going back, I do want to acknowledge my colleague Andrew Bayly for the work that he has done on this. It does take a lot in Opposition to proceed forward with a particular piece of work. I also want to acknowledge my good friend the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, who, as an aside, rated a 9 in Audrey Young’s New Zealand Herald report in the weekend, which is incredible. She’s done some great work. The Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that she put forward on this delays the phased increase to the residence requirement in the same way that the member’s SOP did but changes the years at which the phased increases counted from, and that’s so important to ensure that while we have taken forward a member’s bill from New Zealand First to National, as Government we are able to proceed forward with something that we are able to support for the betterment of all New Zealanders and a particular piece that is fair.

But we support this bill, of course, because it increases the residence requirements for Aotearoa New Zealand super and it’s about improving fairness between longer- and shorter-term New Zealand residents, ensuring that they are safeguarded in the future of what they’re entitled to through superannuation. The current residence requirement ensures that almost all New Zealanders are protected in their old age. And, while I acknowledge the contribution that migrants make to our country, I think it is fair to strike the right balance in ensuring that what they do receive when they click over into the “big one” is consistent, that it is a meaningful recognition of all of those that contribute to our country.

I want to just acknowledge the Finance and Expenditure Committee and all members, including the chair, Duncan Webb, who’s on my left, and the opportunity that I got to spend with them recently, actually. And what a very fast-paced select committee the chair operates. But I go back to one of the submissions that came out, actually, that really identified some of the key information in there, and a time line in particular that goes back to, in particular, 2010—which, again, they recognise that. Partly funded by the Human Rights Commission, the Retirement Policy and Research Centre published Reform Option 1: Reforming New Zealand Superannuation for a mobile trans-Tasman population. It goes on to talk about the progress that we’ve made through 2016, through 2017, and then right through to 2018, to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Cabinet paper that came forward as a last—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Talk about the bill!

This is a submission, Mr Bayly—and, I think, a submission that, hopefully, you’ve read—and it was contributed by Te Whare Wānanga o Tāmaki Makaurau, the University of Auckland Business School. So that time line is an important one. It also acknowledges the arrivals and departures and the net gain of immigrants over that particular period, and that’s a great piece of work, and I’m very, very happy that the Finance and Expenditure Committee was able to consider the number of submissions that came through at that particular time.

But I go back to the main point that we take away from the submissions—362, I believe, submissions came through, who discussed the work and the importance of our super and retirement scheme—that we wanted to ensure that we marked the contribution that people made to society in Aotearoa New Zealand, but that we strike the right balance that is fair in ensuring that our future of superannuation is protected.

So I thank everyone for their contributions in the House this afternoon, even the positivity from Mr Bayly. Congratulations to you. Good work, my friend, and long may it continue in the spirit of kotahitanga. So I’d like to commend this bill to the House.