Stewart Barbara: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStewart Barbara: General Debate[Sitting date: 02 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19151. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BARBARA STEWART (NZ First):As our inboxes on this side of the House get absolutely swamped with emails on aged care it is really time that we take a call on aged care. At every Parliament we get petitions on this very important issue—on the disparity between district health board facilities and privately owned rest homes. In view of the importance of this aged-care sector and the ageing population New Zealand First is calling for a national strategic plan—not a National plan but a strategic plan—where we look at the future of aged care.Some time ago PricewaterhouseCoopers published a report. It identified that the aged-care industry was underfunded by 20 percent. In New Zealand First we made a commitment to address this funding deficit and we were responsible for the additional $587 million that went into the aged-care residential sector in 2006 and 2007 under the New Zealand First - Labour confidence and supply agreement.In New Zealand First we strongly support pay parity for caregivers who work in rest homes along with caregivers who work in district health board facilities. It is absolutely essential. The current situation is deplorable. Caregivers working in rest homes are paid over $100 a week less than caregivers doing the same work for district health boards. Caregiving is not an easy job in any way. Physically and mentally it is totally exhausting regardless of the facility so pay parity is absolutely essential for these workers.Back in 2012 the Prime Minister said: “In reality it’s one of those things that we’d love to do if we had more cash and as the country moves back into surplus.” Well this year the Prime Minister rides into the election campaign on the back of a rock star economy. If this is the case is he going to use some of the money from asset sales to increase residential care funding for the residential aged sector so that the people who actually paid for those assets can be looked after by decently paid caregivers?Who does the Government believe is more deserving to receive the benefits of a surplus economy—multinational companies who make movies and aluminium or caregivers who look after the elderly? New Zealand First is again committed to fixing this blatant unfairness. The priority for any extra funding should be targeted towards pay parity for rest home caregivers.We applaud the introduction of interRAI—we know that it is a great assessment tool—as the information collected should lead to better policy development and implementation but again interRAI is an added job for rest homes and caregivers. New Zealand First agrees that the Government should be covering the costs of interRAI as these costs arise from Government regulation.We also support an examination and review of palliative care. It is increasingly falling on rest homes to administer this function. Rest homes must be given extra resources and funding for palliative care in their facilities. New Zealand First is committed to the residential aged-care sector and we want to see some changes in the wages paid to private rest home caregivers as well as those in district health board facilities. It is not good enough that there is this huge disparity and we want to see this eliminated. It needs to be. It has stayed that way for far too long. Thank you.