Collins Judith: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Collins Judith: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6549] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the National Party to oppose this bill. Parts of this bill are good and I am not going to go over those tonight because the Minister has already mentioned some of them. But I will take issue with one of the points that the Minister raised. He stated that effectively this bill allows and requires the elderly to be charged the same rates for the same services across the spectrum of old-age care. That might sound like a very very nice egalitarian sort of outcome to seek. But unfortunately it completely ignores the fact that the price of land and the price of property for rest homes providing old-age care depends very much on where they are situated what the outlooks are what size the rooms are and just what the actual facilities are. What that means is that if it is taken to its nth degree it can require the ghettoisation of our elderly—our very vulnerable elderly people. We in the National Party consider that to be a gross infringement on the rights of the elderly. They need to be able to decide that they do not want to have to shift out of the suburb that they have lived in all their lives. They should not have to shift away from an area where they know people and where they know the shopkeepers and instead be required to shift to an area where they do not know people but where the rest home happens to be situated because that is where the land is cheapest. 
 Of course if people go into care or if they are assessed as such then they often have to go into rest homes or the equivalent. We on this side of the House do not believe that it is fair to say to people that just because they are elderly and are getting State assistance for their care that is all they can get. We do not believe that they should pay only for extra services rather than for instance the view they are enjoying the area in which they are living and the amenities in the general area. We think that is a gross infringement. It says to people that the Government knows best—but very seldom does the Government know best. In fact adult New Zealanders are best able to make up their own minds. 
We think it is a very good thing to increase the amount of assets people can keep before the State starts to take back some of that money because we understand that there has been a certain amount of inflation—particularly so over the last 7 long years of the Labour Government. But having said that I say that we are deeply offended at the concept that adult New Zealanders cannot make a choice about whether they wish to increase the level at which they pay for facilities because they wish to be in the area of their choice. We think that is deeply offensive and we could not possibly support it. 
In addition I note that this bill at its third reading is significantly different from the bill we saw at the second reading and there is a reason for that. It is that Labour members did not turn up—or rather did not stay—in sufficient numbers for the vote in the Social Services Committee so that its amendments could be put into this bill. In fact the House has had to wait several months for the Labour Government’s amendments to become part of the bill at this very late stage because Labour members just could not be bothered turning up on time in the select committee to vote for their own bill—even though the chairperson of the select committee happens to be a Government member. So we have to say that what we have in front of us is a bill that is a testament to the inability of the Labour Government to turn up and to stay for its own bill. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: They’re going anyway. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: As my colleague Dr Hutchison says they are going anyway—it is just not quite soon enough. 
We have here a bill that is unamended by the very good amendment that my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison had put forward in the Committee stage of the bill which would have allowed elderly people with up to $150000 worth of assets to purchase an apartment within a rest home and still retain their subsidy. He wanted to put it forward with the support of the National Party because in our opinion it is very unfair that people in that situation should lose their subsidy if they use their money or assets to purchase an apartment within that sort of facility. We think that it is cruel degrading and completely unnecessary. At the end of the day the average New Zealand taxpayer does not mind if someone has an apartment a house free-standing on its own or a unit. What they do want to know is that people who need help will get help. They want to know that they are not being ripped off and that their elderly mums dads and grandparents will be able to have a rest home if they need it in the area of their choice and close to their family and friends rather than being told that unfortunately we cannot afford to have a rest home now in the area that they like because of the Government’s ideological bent—which frankly is very bent on this issue. 
What has happened under 7 years of this Labour Government’s regime? What we have seen is a lot of small operators going out of business. A lot of mum and dad operators of rest homes set up for the care of the elderly have gone out of business and what has happened? A lot of foreign-owned companies have come in and made a lot of money out of this area. That of course is because they have economies of scale they can have agreements with their staff and they can work things around. They are not hidebound like small operators are by mortgages debt and an inability to be as flexible with staff as some of the bigger providers are. We have met some of those people running small businesses over the last few years and many of those people have said that all they have ever had out of this Government is an increase in regulations and a decrease in the understanding that they are providing a service that many people in this country actually value. 
Most people who are elderly and even those who are quite sick are often living in their own homes or living with their families. One of the good things that happened in the 1990s was in fact the increase in numbers of people being able to age in their own homes. I think that that is a very very civilised way in which to approach old age and often the illnesses that come with it because life is not just about the fast lane and about fun and those sorts of things; a lot of it is about dying and its process. Many of us who have actually had this happen in our own families understand that even though it might at times be inconvenient to have an elderly relative living with us it is actually a blessing because it shows us the value of life and how precious it is. It is a wonderful thing for our children and grandchildren to see that life is not just about the fun times but also about looking after those who have looked after us and who have put a lot of effort into us and into looking after our own children. 
I think that one thing we can be very proud of is the fact that we now do not institutionalise people as of right or normality just because they are old they are unwell or their health is failing. We can be proud of the fact that after those changes in the 1990s we now embrace our elderly and take them into our homes and into our hearts. We understand that we cannot just shove them aside to be visited occasionally at Christmas time; they are part of our lives. I think that that is a hugely humanising aspect of one of those changes—and I congratulate this Government on continuing with that progress. But I would ask the Government to please not ghettoise our old people who cannot stay in their own homes or with their relatives. I ask the Government to allow them to have the dignity of choosing where they stay what they pay and what they should expect instead of saying this silly nonsense about elderly people not having the right any more to choose what suburb they live in if they live in a rest home because frankly rest homes cannot afford to have those basic facilities in an area where land is expensive. Rest homes are businesses and they are not going to want to lose any more money just to be able to provide something that people want. 
Anne Tolley 
: They’re trying to site prisons close to people’s homes. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: One of the comments from my colleague Anne Tolley was about where prisons are sited and so on but I think that if we look at it we realise that elderly people are not incapable of making their own decisions. Why does this Government not trust them to do what is right for themselves? Why will it refuse to allow elderly people to decide that a one-bedroom or two-bedroom unit is not the same depending on which suburb it is in? It actually does make a difference.