Dyson Ruth: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: 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:10181. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am pleased to be taking a call on Part 4 which is the substantive part of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to just start by looking at new section 70A(1) the new section that is being inserted after section 70 of the primary legislation. But before I do that can I just say that I am really puzzled as to why on earth the Minister of Health has signed off on a proposal to insert family care policies as an amendment to this particular part of the primary legislation. If you look at the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act which we certainly were doing in more detail in the last debate section 70 is just further provisions. This has been an add-on—you know just throw it in where we think we have got a bit of a space between two other provisions. I think it is a further undermining of the status of family caregivers that is being reflected in this amendment.In the purpose of this part where new Part 4A is being inserted it does not say that the purpose of this Act is to ensure recognition for family caregivers who took a case to court and who won not only at the Human Rights Review Tribunal but also at the High Court and then the Court of Appeal. It does not say anything about how they and other unpaid family caregivers can get proper recognition of the work that they do instead of somebody else a stranger being paid to do it—no it does not say that at all. I would have thought that would be the primary purpose of the legislation: to give a bit of justice to the people who are family caregivers who currently are not getting paid but are doingthe work. But oh no this is different. What it says is: “The purpose of this Part is to keep the funding of support services provided by persons to their family members within sustainable limits in order to give effect to the restraint imposed by section 3(2) and to affirm the principle that in the context of funding of support services families generally have primary responsibility for the well-being of their family members.” That is a bit of a “Listen High Court and Court of Appeal I am the ‘Minister of Everything’ and I can do what I like!”.Leaving aside the fact that these families took that case through the Human Rights Review Tribunal to the High Court and won at the Court of Appeal the Minister is saying “I don’t care.” The principle in the context of the funding of the support services is that families generally have primary responsibility for the well-being of their family members. Actually the High Court and the Court of Appeal said that the family members should get paid for that part of their work. This does not reflect those findings at all and I think it is a slap in the face to the judges actually and more important to the families including the disabled people themselves.As was alluded to by my colleague the Hon Annette King I have moved a number of amendments to this section. I think there are 10 on the Table at the moment to this part and I will be speaking to them at various stages of the debate but I do not want to do that in the context of this presentation because what I am more concerned about at the moment is the actual wording of the original legislation itself. I do not think that it is an indication at all of the importance of this issue of the sensitivity of the issue let alone of the fact that this policy issue has been heard by courts in this land. It does not recognise that at all. It excludes people under this family care policy. It excludes people for no good reason at all. It does not say that this is an incremental policy: we are doing it as funds allow and we would like to look at the highest needs area first. There is no analysis at all and I say to the Minister that he should be ashamed of himself.There is no analysis at all of the link between the level of impairment of the individual person and the need of the family for additional support. That could be quite at odds. They could be quite unrelated to each other actually. We are assuming that the need of the disabled person is reflected in the financial recognition that is deserved in the Minister’s terminology by the family. I do not see that automatic co-relationship at all; in fact it could be quite the opposite. We could have some very very very high-income families who have very high-need family members for whom this payment would make not a jot of difference. We could have very very very low-income families who have quite low-level needs for whom this payment would make all the difference in terms of their ability to have a bit more security and opportunity in their lives. We could have very low-income families for whom this miserly payment could make a huge amount of difference between their ability to do things in their lives and their current inability to do that but their family member might have quite low needs but still require quite a lot of support. So the link between the impairment of the disabled person and the ability of the family member to need or do better with this payment is not secured at all.I tried earlier to have some consultation injected into this policy because for me it is quite an important principle that if you are making legislative change that has an impact on somebody then that somebody should be involved in the preparation of that policy. The Minister tried to talk about how much consultation was done but it is actually a lot of spin. When you talk to the family members involved they say they had no idea at all not just that this policy would exclude large numbers of families who care for and support the disabled members of their own family but that such a massive exclusion would take place let alone the fact that those families who are excluded from being paid for caring for their family member are also having extinguished their right to take a caseof discrimination imposed by the Government to the Human Rights Review Tribunal so that they could have a fair hearing. That right is being extinguished by this legislation.Why would the Minister do that? Why would the Minister pretend in his spin that this is looking at the families most in need to start with and that of course this policy will be rolled out while at the same time extinguishing those families’ rights to take this to the Human Rights Review Tribunal?I am not surprised that the Attorney-General found that that extinguishment of rights was not appropriate. I am surprised that the Attorney-General has not taken a call so far in this debate. Generally when you have a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act provisions you would see the Attorney-General in the House making some explanation for it or at least drawing it to the attention of the House in person rather than just getting a very late report that was tabled without any explanation at all. Of course we all went to the Table and had a look at it because it was fairly clear that these provisions do breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but we have had no explanation of it at all. We have heard nothing from the Minister to justify the fact that this legislation not only excludes those family members from getting payment for the work that they do despite the case in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal saying that they should get paid for it but also extinguishes their right to take further legal action.As I indicated earlier I have got a number of amendments. Some of them involve consultation which I think is important. Some of them involve the rates of pay because it is not at all clear to anyone in the Chamber from what the Minister has said because it was such a pathetically lightweight contribution why the Minister thinks that the work that a family member does is worth less financially than the work that a stranger or a person from down the road does.The Minister has consistently refused to answer the questions and I heard one of my colleagues say that you know the Minister might not know the answer. He might not know what the operational solutions are going to be to this legislation. What I think every single member of this Parliament will want to know before we leave for home on Sunday morning is when we go down to our electorate offices on Monday what we are going to say to family members who ask: “Will I be getting paid for caring for my son”—or daughter or parent or spouse—“in October? Will I be paid for that?” and we have no idea.This legislation being rammed through all its stages without any input from the public at all has got as many unanswered questions as it has answered questions and that is just not good enough. Families who have been waiting as the Minister said for two decades for an answer are now hearing in the media that this legislation is going to be passed. What is their expectation Mr Chair? Well I will tell you the answer to that because I do not think Mr Chair that you are going to take a call and answer my question. I think that is about as likely actually as the Minister in the chair the Minister of Immigration taking a call and answering my question—no chance at all you know because the Minister is not up to it frankly. It is tragic to have—