Prasad Rajen: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prasad Rajen: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:9093. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the final stage of this bill the Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill. It has been a long time getting here. It is a sensible bill. There is no reason not to support it and every reason to support it. As Opposition members we have worked together very well with Government members throughout the process in the Social Services Committee consideration to get to this point. The history of the need for this piece of legislation is important. It arises out of a Social Security Appeal Authority decision some time ago—a 2008 decision and the repeal against it in 2009. The issue was in regards to as I understand it a superannuitant who was enabled to receive the living alone payment despite the fact that a 19-year-old university student was a dependent child living with the superannuitant at the time. The appeal authority decided that because that young 19-year-old fitted the notion of a dependant the person was entitled to a living alone payment. That is the case from which the bill emerged and from there the process was started which has got us this far. 
As the Minister for Social Development has just said the bill makes important changes. I think the most useful one the one that will have the most effect for superannuitants and those on a veterans pension is to have a new living alone rate that applies to them. Then the next issue with that is whether there are any issues to do with the definition of who is a dependant. One of the compromises I think the bill has reached is that in those probably small number of cases—but perhaps increasing now with people getting married late and re-partnering with families etc.—where there is likely to be even when you turn 65 an 18-year-old still dependent at what point if the person loses a spouse can that person be classified as living alone? So if there is an 18-year-old the bill now says that up to the end of the year in which that young person turns 18 it will still not affect the status of living alone which is a sensible way of doing that. So those two changes—one is the new rate for those living alone and the second one is in respect of how to manage dependants. 
We had a number of issues with this notion of who is dependent and at what age—indeed we debated this in the select committee and also during the Committee stage of this bill when we suggested through a couple of Supplementary Order Papers put up by my colleague Jacinda Ardern that we could be a little bit more flexible. There will be those special occasions when either through disability or some special circumstance a 65-year-old person on a veterans pension or a superannuitant will still have somebody dependent beyond the years of 18—maybe a 19 or 20-year-old. That should be factored in. We were not able to convince our colleagues in the select committee and in Parliament to go along with that and that is a shame because I think it could have been quite easily accommodated. The only explanation given by the Minister at the time was that that other person will have available to him or her a number of other benefits—it might be the unemployment benefit or what have you. Therefore that young person could then pay—I assume that was the understanding—and therefore the 65-year-old person could not be classified as living alone. Or indeed there are those situations where a dependent person of 18 or 19 years returns home and spends 3 or 4 months there—they might be a university student etc. We thought there was a case for linking those situations to the student allowance regulations as to when parents are responsible and up to what age. But again we were not able to do that. 
Sometimes we pass rules in this Parliament for good reason but they have some perverse consequences and there is every likelihood that with this particular one at the most vulnerable time for our superannuitants and those on veterans pensions there will be this other consideration in their minds—the consideration being that you have to be careful if somebody over 18 returns home and lives with you because you are likely to lose your living alone allowance. That problem still exists. Government members were convinced that we ought not to address that but this side of the House felt that that was quite important. 
The other issue—and I think that the select committee with advice from officials found a very useful way out of this—was how to handle this transition period between these provisions the current provisions and when a catastrophe occurs in a family and what to do. I think the provisions at the moment are quite useful and that indeed the transition is quite a simple one now. I think that is a very good provision again at a vulnerable time in the lives of our older folk. It ought to be a very simple provision—that they can go from being on a couple superannuitant rate to a living alone sole rate the new rate and do that rather seamlessly. I think that it is a good provision and a good amendment that the select committee made. I thought it was a good one. The other very useful thing the select committee has done is to make it very clear that even in this transition period the superannuitant and the veterans pensioner will actually qualify from the day the catastrophe occurs—the day they became sole. At the moment they have to wait. They have to apply within 28 days and if they have not applied within 28 days then it can be paid only after that day. The provision the select committee came up with was to say that it will actually apply from that particular date. So I think that was a useful provision here as well. 
I think we worked very well through the issues that were raised as a result of the Social Security Appeal Authority decision. There were not many submissions on this particular bill—I think there were only two as I recall. They raised the kinds of issues that I have been talking about. We were able to work through those provisions. We were able to work through sensible ways of making the transition. We were at least able to debate and discuss the issue that members on this side of the House had about this situation when somebody dependent is over the age limit but still living with somebody older but as I said we were not able to convince our colleagues. The issue remains that there may be some unintended consequences of this particular bill but here is a good provision. We have been happy to support it. It is a provision that applies at the most vulnerable time in the lives of elderly people and it is a transition that can now be made quite seamlessly and smoothly. For those reasons this side has supported the bill. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.