King Annette: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10121. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I begin by saying to Dr Paul Hutchison that it is 5 years that this Government has been in place. If this was so easy to resolve why was it not resolved in the first year of a National Government? Maybe it was because the whole issue actually was before the courts and could not be resolved in that time frame. He also said that the sector would be relieved. Well I have to say that that is not the feedback that is coming from this sector. People in the sector are bemused. They feel misled and actually they are shocked. But they ought not to be because if they go back and they read what Mr Ryall has been saying over a number of years they would know that the bottom line for him has always been cost and not care. It has always been cost and not care. Of course there must be restriction on costs in the health sector. It has always been the case. But he has consistently made it clear that he does not agree with adult disabled children being cared for by their families. If you go back to statements that he made in September 2012 he was part of the scaremongering that it was going to cost $400 million and that really brought out some of those who have to care for families.I draw to your attention Mr Cliff Robinson a parent from Thames who is caring for two adult disabled children. He said: “This is just scaremongering on the minister’s part. And also to even think about means testing people who [are] disabled … just horrifies me.” I think what it has really shown is the lack of understanding about what is involved in caring for disabled children. Members opposite can laugh about it but have they actually met constituents? And I would have thought Dr Hutchison has. I will never forget a woman coming into my office carrying her adult child. Her adult child was now 22 years of age and had left the education system and no longer had support. This woman who was a highly qualified woman had given up her job to care for her highly disabled child and it was a huge impost on this family.You know it is not that long ago when places like Kimberley Hospital and Training Centre flourished in New Zealand where we took our disabled family members and we put them into institutions and we closed the door and we said it was the State’s total responsibility to look after those family members. But over time we became more informed and we became more compassionate about what could be done with a disabled person. They were not non-people; they were people people with feelings and people with needs. So over time and rightly so we shifted much of the care of our disabled people into the community and many families have picked up that role. They have given up jobs they have given up income and they have looked after their family members.So Paul Hutchison when he says the Labour Government did absolutely nothing about it is being disingenuous. As he will know firstly it was before the courts and secondly if he just read the legislation his own Minister has put in the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2)—I suggest he reads new section 70D which says: “The Crown and any DHB are and have always been authorised—(a) to adopt or to have a family care policy:” and to change cancel or replace such a policy.My real concern about this bill is that here we are at 10 o’clock in the morning and last night the regulatory impact statement on this bill was not available as they were not available either for the housing bills. We are told to go and look them up on the internet—and I am sure Maurice Williamson will understand this. We are told to go to “www.hashthishashthat.” and to look it up find the regulatory impact statement run it off read it—not there. It had not been put up. So the regulatory impact statement on thisbill was first provided this morning to this House and we are now required to make decisions on this bill under urgency and pass every stage of it. I have to say to those listening that this is a dreadful process. The fair-minded people of the National Government know that this is a shonky process under which to put through any bill that affects so many important families looking after disabled family members. Why is it being put through with such haste? It does not come into effect until October 2013. Can members opposite count how many months away that is? Could it not have gone to a select committee for a while?I mean I was even interested in the consultation group the Government set up to look at what changes it would make—the task force. Well I notice the task force did not have a person with disability on it. I do not suppose they are capable of being on a task force in the minds of this Government. So there has been insufficient time and a lack of consultation. We asked last year as I know other parties in this House have done for a cross-party approach to get an agreement between parties on this very very complex issue. I say to Dr Hutchison that Tony Ryall said how complex it is so to just throw out there “Oh Labour did nothing about it.” is to disregard how complex it is. But we offered a cross-party consultation on this and were we consulted? We got a bill today and we got some information on it half an hour ago. That is called consultation and cross-party support in this House. It is just not good enough.And I want those members there to have a look—I cannot see any of them with the regulatory impact statement. What they will have are their research party notes all saying the same thing. Go and have a look at the regulatory impact statement. I have never seen a regulatory impact statement anything like this one. Have a look at it. This is the regulatory impact statement. Have a look at where you are meant to be finding out what is going on in this bill. This is what it looks like. It is full of blanks where we are not allowed to know much about what this bill does. They have cut out nearly all the information that would be meaningful. I particularly like page 27. Let me show you page 27. This is page 27 of the regulatory impact statement and what does it say? It says: “Blank blankety-blank-blank blank-blank blank blankety-blank blank-blank-blank.” That is the regulatory impact statement on this really important bill. Hang your heads in shame National members. That is what we are supposed to make decisions on in this Parliament.When I did find some words that I could read in the regulatory impact statement it put up a number of options from the Ministry of Health. One of them was that we actually should pay around $16 an hour. That is what it says in the regulatory impact statement—the little bit that is written. It says it ought to be the minimum wage plus other payments that would bring it up to around $16 an hour. What does this bill do? What does the Minister do? He says that the minimum that can be paid is $13 an hour—$13.75. Well how generous—$13.75! They are to be paid less than other caregivers in our community. I have to say that this is not a breakthrough; this is all about trying to restrict what the Government will pay to people. It will restrict whom it goes to and who will be paid.And I believe that National has done very little in terms of trying to get a cross-party agreement or an agreement with the very people who are affected who look after their family members day after day. I acknowledge that it is complex but why would we not in this Parliament at least allow the public to have a say? I know why the Government does not want the public to have a say. It is because the public are more in tune and more empathetic to those who care for disabled adult children than the Government is and it does not want that exposed at a select committee. I have been on those select committees where the National Party members hear submitters and say “Thank you very much for that wonderful submission. We really appreciate receiving that wonderfulsubmission you have spent so much time writing for us.” and then vote against every recommendation the public make. So the Government knows there would be people coming and saying “Hang on a minute. This is not what we thought you were going to do. This hasn’t been worked through with us.” and it does not want that to be exposed to the public of New Zealand.This is insufficient time. This whole Parliament ought to tell the Minister to take it back to give us time to work across the parties on it and to bring in a bill put it to a select committee and you could still have it passed by 13 October 2013. That is what ought to happen and that will be our very strong argument today. It is not good enough. It is disgraceful to bring in a bill and to hand us this sort of rubbish saying this is what the bill is about.