Ardern Jacinda: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8777. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I seem to be the only one who is expressing such enthusiasm to speak on the Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill. I rise to share Labour’s support for this bill. I think it is a common-sense change that we will be debating at the Committee stage today. 
Just to refresh the memory of the Committee around the purpose of this bill it will amend the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the War Pensions Act 1954 and it does so in order to simplify the arrangements for those who would be eligible for a living alone payment. Currently single superannuitants and veterans pensioners who are living alone are eligible for a supplementary benefit and I think that is common sense. Obviously the costs of being a single superannuitant—you do not get I guess the economies of scale you have when you are in a partnership. But those supplementary benefits are applied for separately and this bill instead of having that additional supplementary payment introduces a new single living alone rate for superannuitants and for veterans pensioners. It is also intended to remove the need to make a separate application for receiving the full entitlement. I think it is also important to point out that often those who are entitled to these single payments become entitled after the passing of a partner or a spouse or a loved one. Trying to simplify this process for them at that point I think is not only important but also common sense. There are some issues therefore around the transitional arrangements which I am sure members of this Committee might be interested in canvassing as we debate the individual clauses of this bill. 
I want to start though by looking in a little more detail at the impact of some of the definitions within Part 1. In new section 4A the bill sets out the meaning of “living alone”. Given that all of the major parts of this bill hang off that definition I think it is important to explore it. It sets out that a single person is living alone only if he or she meets two conditions and they are what you would expect. The first is around dwellings and occupancy and it sets out there in subsection (2) that “The first condition is that person A occupies a principal place of residence of a kind described in subsection (6).” That provision is quite detailed; it even goes on to talk about a boat or craft mooring being a suitable residence for that definition. 
Then it sets out a condition where probably there might be a few more issues of debate and it is that “The second condition is that person A does not share that residence with any person 18 years or older except a person to whom subsection (4) or (5) applies.” The bill then sets out that “This subsection applies to “person A’s dependent child—(a) who is—(i) 18 years old … (ii) not financially independent; and (iii) attending a school or a tertiary educational establishment; but (b) only until the close of 31 December in the year in which the child turned 18 years old.” So if we strip that back what the bill is saying is that you are entitled to the living alone payment as long as your child is either in secondary school or at a tertiary education institution but under the age of 18 years. So basically you are never going to be able to claim the living alone payment if your child is over the age of 18 and outside of secondary school essentially. 
That may seem to be common sense on the face of it but we took some issue at the Social Services Committee with the fact that this could be deemed to be a very narrow set of conditions for what sometimes can be extraordinary circumstances. The first of those extraordinary circumstances that I wish to raise is in fact where an individual is caring for a dependant who is over the age of 18 and who may have an intellectual disability for instance and they have some kind of carer role for that dependant. Technically once the dependant hits 18 the carer could fall outside of these criteria. One could argue that under the Social Security Act they may be entitled to some other form of benefit but I think it makes sense that instead we make sure we build in enough flexibility to take into account those circumstances without opening it wide enough that it can be used inappropriately—for example being applied to circumstances where perhaps a DPB for caring for the sick or infirm might be more appropriate instead. 
But I think there is a way to deal with both issues. I have tabled for the Committee an amendment to the bill that would allow for those circumstances to be taken into account. It does so by adding to clause 18 in Part 2 the statement “unless that child has an intellectual disability as defined in section 7 of the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003”. Just for the benefit of the Committee that seemed to us to be the most appropriate definition for an individual with an intellectual disability that we could find in modern legislation. So that is the first amendment that we as a party would like to move. It is just to allow that additional flexibility for someone on a living alone payment who has some carer responsibilities. 
The second set of circumstances where we think this definition is too narrow is around the use of age rather than whether or not someone is actually financially dependent. Let me explain what we mean by that. At the moment we are really concerned about only—it does not really matter whether a child is in tertiary education or at high school—whether or not the child is under the age of 18. Why is that? Surely the definition should be set around whether or not that individual in the home is financially dependent. Surely that should be what we consider when we are talking about social assistance in this way. A student who is at a tertiary institution for the purposes of student allowances for instance is considered dependent until they have reached the age of 25 because their student allowance is means tested against their parents’ income. So if you are means testing against a parent you are assuming some form of dependent relationship still exists but for the purposes of this bill we are not adding consistency. In fact we are making it less consistent by saying it is not the age of 25 that we are interested in if you are in tertiary education; it is 18. So it is our view that if someone is in tertiary education and for the purposes of student allowance they continue to be means tested then that child should be considered still a dependant for the purposes of this bill as well. I am sure that my colleague the spokesperson on tertiary education for the Labour Party Megan Woods would probably like to expand on that in greater detail but that is one of our other suggested amendments for the Committee today. 
We are also concerned that if you are a student who is studying of course there might be periods when you come back into the home for holidays when you are still a dependent child—I would never assume that child is financially independent—and that could interrupt someone’s ability to access the social assistance living alone payment just by virtue of a child coming home for the holidays. So we have suggested another amendment that sets out that “A person is living alone if a child over 18 returns to live … at Person A’s residence and stays there less than 13 weeks in any period of 26 and is not financially independent.” So basically if you are a student you come home to stay with either mum or dad in your holidays and you are not financially independent as in you are not in full-time work then you should not have the effect of reducing your parents’ ability to access this social assistance living alone payment. Again I think that is a fair amendment to make. 
I would appreciate the views of the Government on those amendments. I think they are reasonable ones. We did raise them at the select committee and we did to be fair have a quite robust discussion about them. I accept that when it comes to the student allowance side of things there was an argument people accepted. It probably if anything points to the inconsistencies around the application of the student allowance regulations more than it does potentially for these payments.